Jatropha … grow your own Diesel

R

randy and patty

Guest
Very interesting. Hope it all pans out. I remember years ago I used to hire a dump truck guy that converted his truck to run off of the used cooking oil he would get from the restaurants in town. You could smell him coming from a mile away! Always made me hungry, usually for Chinese.
 
Jungle Jim

Jungle Jim

Guest
I have two specimens of that plant here in Yuma. I dug them up in the big wash just north of Puerto Lobos about twenty years ago. Since then they have only grown about ten inches of new stems. Overall they are about two feet tall now. They put out new leaves only during the monsoon season like right now. No matter how much water they get they won't do anything until the heat and humidity is just right.

The plant is Jatropha cuneata also known as the Sangre de Drago or Dragons Blood Bush. They also live in Baja where some specimens get ten feet tall and have lower branches and trunks that look like elephant legs which is why the common English name is Elephant Tree.

The red sap gives the primitivos lots of dreamy, silly, imagination-gone-wild ideas about it's medicinal use. The stringy leathery soft stems are still used by the Seri Injuns to make their famous water proof baskets.

JJ
 
Old55

Old55

Guest
corndog said:
The article says after the oil is pressed, the seeds can be used in cattle feed, the husk's for medicine's, so looked it up.. The women in Yemen, use a cousin of this plant's husk for birth control..biodiesel. cattle feed and birth control. Holy Cow https://www.feedipedia.org/node/620 you have to wonder why now and not 50 years ago
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Be handy in Arizona with our new 1864 abortion law…..they will come for birth control next ,
 
Old55

Old55

Guest
Jungle Jim said:
I have two specimens of that plant here in Yuma. I dug them up in the big wash just north of Puerto Lobos about twenty years ago. Since then they have only grown about ten inches of new stems. Overall they are about two feet tall now. They put out new leaves only during the monsoon season like right now. No matter how much water they get they won't do anything until the heat and humidity is just right.

The plant is Jatropha cuneata also known as the Sangre de Drago or Dragons Blood Bush. They also live in Baja where some specimens get ten feet tall and have lower branches and trunks that look like elephant legs which is why the common English name is Elephant Tree.

The red sap gives the primitivos lots of dreamy, silly, imagination-gone-wild ideas about it's medicinal use. The stringy leathery soft stems are still used by the Seri Injuns to make their famous water proof baskets.

JJ
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Wonder if they used that on their reed boats ! The medicine men new many thingshttps://americanindian.si.edu/collections-search/archives/components/sova-nmai-ac-202-ref2?destination=edan_searchtab/archives%3Fedan_fq%255B0%255D%3Dset_name%253A%2522Dane%2520Coolidge%2520photographs%2520from%2520Mexico%2522
 
C

corndog

Guest
Another Native.... Food for the indigenous tribes and everbody else in the Sonoran desert. I took a picture of one of these plants yesterday just off the road on highway 3.. I tried to post it but it was to big.. you desert dwellers probably know all about these plants.. They are cousins of the asian Goji berry, same health benfits.. The berries off of these in this area go from a littl tart to super sweet.. you can find them somewhere in about every rocky desert wash between RP and Sonoyta and probably to Tucson... They look dead until a rain comes and in just a few days they ar sprouting leaves and then berries.. The picture I took was the beginning of the leaf stage. . https://arboretum.arizona.edu/sonoran-native-virtual-tour-wolfberry https://web.facebook.com/ArizonaHerb/posts/wolfberries-are-our-native-relatives-of-goji-berries-lycium-chinense-l-barbarum-/979146395457327/?_rdc=1&_rdr
 
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Jungle Jim

Jungle Jim

Guest
We have a nice eighty foot barrier hedge of these plants growing along our back block wall and dirt alley. The variety here in Yuma is Lycium Andersonii.

They grow up to ten feet tall at my place and in most of the desert washes around here. They make an excellent natural barrier with nasty rigid thorny branches that draw blood on bare skin. The red berries feed many birds here. The plants are very invasive with the birds pooping out the seeds everywhere and the adult plants send out long underground roots that sprout out new ones every few feet.

I've never eaten the berries but do a taste test on them and the other varieties on occasion. The reason being is that the plant is a member of the Potato Family (SOLANACEAE) with most of them being quite poisonous as in belladonna and nightshade. Other members are common garden plants that at one time were considered dangerous to include the potato, tomato, red pepper, egg plant and tobacco.

The name Lycium is derived from Lykos=Wolf as in Wolf Berry. Lykos also the name of a now deceased momma of my wolf dog family.

JJ
 
C

corndog

Guest
Jungle Jim said:
We have a nice eighty foot barrier hedge of these plants growing along our back block wall and dirt alley. The variety here in Yuma is Lycium Andersonii.

They grow up to ten feet tall at my place and in most of the desert washes around here. They make an excellent natural barrier with nasty rigid thorny branches that draw blood on bare skin. The red berries feed many birds here. The plants are very invasive with the birds pooping out the seeds everywhere and the adult plants send out long underground roots that sprout out new ones every few feet.

I've never eaten the berries but do a taste test on them and the other varieties on occasion. The reason being is that the plant is a member of the Potato Family (SOLANACEAE) with most of them being quite poisonous as in belladonna and nightshade. Other members are common garden plants that at one time were considered dangerous to include the potato, tomato, red pepper, egg plant and tobacco.

The name Lycium is derived from Lykos=Wolf as in Wolf Berry. Lykos also the name of a now deceased momma of my wolf dog family.

JJ
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I did mention you desert dwellers.. I had a house west of PIR, in the Estrella Mountains and they were everywhere..
 
Jungle Jim

Jungle Jim

Guest
So Corn.............

What is PIR?

We will be down next week the 29th for a few days. Should be some interesting flotsam and jetsom on the beaches to the south. Wanna tag along?

JJ
 
C

corndog

Guest
Jungle Jim said:
So Corn.............

What is PIR?

We will be down next week the 29th for a few days. Should be some interesting flotsam and jetsom on the beaches to the south. Wanna tag along?

JJ
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Phoenix International Raceway.. Yah I think I might like to go.. Thank you
 
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