Maslin to compete with climate change: An ancient technology or common sense, by Sai Uday Kiran

Food security is a major challenge in the rapidly changing global climate and
exponentially increasing population. Food security principally depends on staple crops’ ability to tolerate different abiotic and biotic pressures. However, present global agriculture practices experiencing substantial yield loss due to climate changes. The absolute priority is to find a solution to face unforeseen climate changes without losing crop yield. Considering the scenario, an ancient framing method ‘Maslin’ with nearly 3000 years of history, may hold a key to the solution. Unlike polyculture, the maslin is a
practice of cultivating different crops of the same family such as cereal species mixtures. This co-cultivation of different varieties helps to resist the adverse climate phenomena and aids the better yields. The monocultures fail in adverse conditions, but in maslin cultures, the resilient variety becomes dominant and minimises yield loss. In the case of barley and wheat maslins, under drought conditions, barley yields high, and in heavy rainfall events, wheat takes the lead. The maslin method ensures yield of one
staple grain under radical climate events. Maslin has the potential for species composition shifts to buffer multi-year stressors and can offer good yield in low fertile land, disease, and weed resistance. Conclusively, if standardised for industrial scale, this ancient agricultural practice may hold the promise of food security in the contemporary world.