The issue of proteins is not really an issue. Food combinations have complete proteins. Look at the nutritiondata site and you can find that, say, oats have a similar aminoacid quality to filet mignon, and collard has the same index, and rice and beans a better one. Animal foods intake serves many purposes, but proteins is a very minor concern. In survival mode, calories per square foot are also of concern. It turns out that, in a warm enough climate, sweet potatoes provide the same calories per sqft as grains, though my guess is that the potato can not compete. The other advantages of sweet potatoes are that the leaves are quality fodder. Surely, in a survival mode, I would have a rabbit buck and three or four does, and those can be fed solely with sweet potato leaves (or grass). It is also a plant that is typically easy to grow, and stores well. Finally, there is the issue of nutrients, which you can check on nutritiondata.com. Sweet potato has significant amounts of just about any micronutrient. There is also the Kitava study that showed complete lack of degenerative diseases in a population eating 90% of their calories from sweet potatoes. The highest life expectancy in the world is in Okinawa, where the average daily intake of sweet potatoes is just short of 2lb/day. In a survival mode, presumably, you have to keep yourself healthy.

Varieties that have a requirement for chilling, really do need it to get a reasonable germination. Chilling is required with the seeds in a moist environment. This can not be done in advance by the seed supplier. If you get good germination without stratification, then the directions calling for it is in error. If you think this may be the case try a few seeds, to be sure. Al

For everyones information: Here is the streight scoop on Alan Kupular, from the Fedco Seeds website: Alan Kapuler As a child growing up in Brooklyn, Kapuler was twinly obsessed with orchids and baseball, equally able to reel off lifetime home run statistics or botanical names of obscure flowers. At age 15 he won the Westinghouse National Science Talent Search for his experiments testing the effects of a mutagenic chemical on his beloved orchids. He entered Yale at 16, the youngest student in his class of 1,000 and graduated first in his class. His undergraduate honors thesis earned him the highest grade Yale had ever bestowed and was eventually published in the Journal of Molecular Biology. After earning his doctorate in molecular biology at prestigious Rockefeller University he worked with world expert on nucleic acids A.M. Michelson and apprenticed at the lab of future Nobel Prize winner Howard Temin. Those were heady days of discoveries in his field. He looks back with awe at that time "when the structure of the genetic code was being discovered...it was the greatest self-revelation about our common unity with all organisms. They were the mystery of the ages, and we were uncovering those secrets." Yet Kapuler, dismayed by colleagues who were producing lethal viruses for the U.S. government, suddenly left his fast-track career at the University of Connecticut and headed for the west coast with his dog, green van and $1,000. "I had to find my beloved wife and my kids and a life that had a heart." He found Linda Sylvester in Oregon. Together they lived in poverty and he started saving seeds because he was too poor to buy them, eventually collecting more than 6,000 varieties and founding Peace Seeds which later merged with Seeds of Change. Currently he serves as Director of Research for Seeds of Change. His recent breeding work focuses on developing increased amino acid concentration as a way of increasing the nutritional value of food plants. Kapuler once characterized his Peace Seeds catalog as a "Manual for conserving the plant gene-pool of planet Earth." Using computer-generated bubble diagrams he calls "kingrams," he laid out his catalogs in a biological format that shows how groupings of plants are connected to each other. Inspired by the work of Danish biologist Rolf Dahlgren, these maps have given Kapuler a sense of direction in his preservation work, pinpointing whats really rare and needs growing. To Kapuler, "Heritage seeds are essential to our heart chakra." They are important not just because they produce a high quality crop or grow fast, but because they carry the message of the people. They are important for the same reason life is important. "We are involved in a process of passing on a heritage of liveness..." The problem is not hybrids but "ownership of life." Hybridizing, an "essential form of innovation," does not go far enough. The next step is to make open-pollinated lines that stabilize the varieties. Rather than owning them, we must return them to the public domain, giving amateurs access to the gene pool and opportunities to develop new plants. Much of KapulerÂs work has centered on de-hybridizing hybrids, taking that next step to create an equivalent open-pollinated variety. Among his successes are True Platinum, an open-pollinated version of Platinum Lady sweet corn, Summer Sun, an open-pollinated form of hybrid patty pan Sunburst and Swan Lake, a development from the hybrid melon Swan. Through the Seeds of Change catalog, he has popularized a number of heirloom varieties including Elephant Head Amaranth and Hutterite Soup Bean (which heÂd been collecting for 16 years and never tasted until a chance blizzard marooned him and put him in the mood for a hearty bean soup). Like many who came of age in the turbulent sixties, Kapuler could justifiably echo the Grateful DeadÂs anthem, "What a long, strange trip itÂs been." Kapuler seems to have weathered it as well as any of us. Fedco Seeds, PO Box 520, Waterville, ME 04903 (207) 873-7333 So how you know! Len

Hi David, I used to think that the sign of a graft scar was proof that the tree you were buying was true. But this sadly is not always the case. There are maples that grow more or less true to form from seed and there are growers out there that have grafted these seedlings onto rootstock and sold them as grafted cultivars. This is usually prevailent with the more popular nursery standard maples like Bloodgood and Sango kaku. There is a demand for these and some growers have sold grafted seedlings of these maples. It's sad to say that it's difficult to find a true Bloodgood or Sango kaku. I've seen grafted trees labeled as Bloodgood that have "weak" color or don't hold their color well, have different leaf shape, etc. And I've seen Sango kaku that have a more subdued bark color in winter even with good sun exposure. Mr. Shep who writes from time to time always says "buy the tree not the label/name". If you go to a nursery and see a tree you really like, but aren't quite sure what it may be go ahead and buy it and enjoy it. I've done this myself. But, if you're out for a specific cultivar do some research and study the tree first before buying it. If more people did this there would be less people buying Bloodgoods that aren't true clonal offspring. It's really sad that this cultivar is as diluted as it is. Now I'm not saying that because you found a grafted seedling that may not look quite true that the grower is trying to con you. I suspect some growers' stock plants needed replacing for one reason or another and did not suspect that the tree they were replacing it with wasn't exactly true to form. Other times trees are mislabeled. Sometimes this is an honest mistake, but sometimes it's downright laughable! I've seen green dissectums labeled Bloodgood. Sometimes there is bit of confusion with trees that have come in from Japan. For instance, what the Japanese call Kocho nishiki (kocho means butterfly and nishiki means brocade) is often labeled as Butterfly here in the US and Europe. But, there is also another form of Butterfly (Oregon) that looks quite different. One reputable grower that I know of sells both forms and has them both labeled as Butterfly. Regarding telling a cutting from an air layer: it's actually not too difficult. When you repot a fairly young tree that you think is cutting or air layered carefully wash away the soil around the roots. If the tree was air layered you'll see a stump below where the roots come out. This stump will have been girdled either by having the bark removed or with wire wrapped around it. Roots will not grow below this point. Layne