Living supports have finite load capacity.
Promising A person has checked it against its sources. If you skip this, you lose real yield. The planner warns you.
How it works
Mechanical load on a living stem.
What to do about it
Put fewer vines on the living support, or use a built support. A cattle panel is effectively unbounded.
How much it matters: Sunflower approx 2 vines/stalk; corn approx 2; cattle panel effectively unbounded.
The evidence
Evidence: checked against 2 sources in the research-based literature.
The 2 sources
The pole beans may be so heavy that they knock down the corn stalks. Avoiding overcrowding is definitely a key to success.
What we didn’t anticipate was that the cornstalks weren’t strong enough for the bean vines – we had several corn collapses! So, either grow a corn variety with stronger stalks, or add a stake to each hill to tie up the corn.
Read next
How this rule has changed
Every change is dated, newest first. The full record, with each reason, is in the data download.
- A person read the sources and confirmed it
- Details updated
- Details updated
- Wording made clearer
- Advice on what to do added
- Added to the rules
More ways Milpa can help
When do I plant? · What grows well together? · Plan my garden · What can I plant now? · Something wrong in the garden? · Keep a garden diary · Heard a tip?
Cite this page
Milpa Gardens. “Living supports have finite load capacity.” Evidence grade: Promising. https://milpa.garden/rules/living-supports-have-finite-load-capacity/
A garden planner built on graded evidence. Every claim states its evidence grade and links its sources on the page. Cite it with the grade, and add the date you read it.
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How we grade evidence
- Well established
- The rule names its mechanism and is settled, by sources a person has read and checked or by plain arithmetic and geometry.
- Promising
- The mechanism is named and the literature backs it. A few questions are still open.
- A good hunch
- Plausible by its mechanism, but field studies are thin, so treat it as a lean.
- Contested
- The evidence points both ways, or no study has tested it, so the planner does not enforce it.
- Refuted
- The claim did not survive its sources. It is kept so the folklore can be answered.