What Happened to the Old World Plants?

Continuing from the last post—what killed off the Old World plants brought to the Land of Promise by the Jaredites and Nephites? Why was there no wheat or barley growing when the Spanish arrived in the early 1500s?

To understand this, we need to keep in mind that in all cases, plants, crops, and fruits grow as a result of man’s planting, caring, and harvesting year after year. In all cases where a population has continued down through time, this has been the result. Crops continue to grow, sometimes in abundance, sometimes poorly with soils depleted, or damages incurred such as pests, drought, flood, or neglect. But in all cases, once the cause has passed, the crops were replanted, etc.

However, in the case of the Land of Promise, with the Nephites completely annihilated before 400 A.D., and with the sole remaining population of Lamanites at war with one another, evidently for several decades or longer, and with the understanding that the Lamanites did not plant and harvest crops to begin with—they were hunters (Enos 1:20; Jarom 1:6)—the result is understandable. There simply was no one to replant, care for, or harvest future crops. Whatever crops once grew were left to fend for themselves. The thing is, there is no record of the Lamanites growing crops at any time. And based upon the history in North, Central and South America, the different Indian tribes were not planters and growers, but hunters of both men and animals, living off the land, moving and migrating from place to place when the animal life was depleted in an area, or when driven off by superior forces.

Thus, we can see, that crops would have been left on their own for the most part as the wars continued to rage, and not only did they fight among themselves, but also went about destroying anything Nephite. They burned their cities (Mormon 5:5), destroyed any records they found (Mormon 6:6), and in general destroying anything Nephite. These wars and natural antagonism for individual tribes and groups continued over the next thousand years, as individual tribes roamed the Land of Promise. In some areas, certain tribes gained prominence and then were replaced by others. Not until the Inca rose to power in the mid-1400s, did a single people control the vast area of the Land of Promise. And their dominance lasted less than 100 years with the coming of the Spanish.

So why did the Spanish not find any wheat or barley in the Land of Promise? The simple fact is, both these grains died out with neglect over the thousand years since the Nephites were wiped out. Without husbandmen, crops generally die out over time.

But what kills the crops? Any number of things such as large hail stones; insects; drought; flood; extended frost; planting another crop instead, such as corn; the land returns to forest or jungle; weeds; brush and other flora grow over—such as in South America, maca (Lepidium meyenii—pepperweed), sometimes called Peruvian geinseng—which spreads by seed or rhizome, producing abundant seed that germinates at a high rate, producing over 16 million seeds per hectare. The rhizome expand by creeping underground stems, which may advance three to six feet from the parent plant, and can also be spread by root fragments and crown buds, each capable of sprouting and continuing the infestation. Even if 98% containment could be achieved, resprouting plants in the spring would result in total stand dominance by the end of the growing season.

Obviously, according to the Spanish, wheat and barley were not grown in 1522 A.D. Those who followed the Spanish into the Andean area to settle, would have cleared fields of grass, weeds, trees, and other shrubbery to plant the seeds they brought form the Spain and elsewhere. What might have been in the ground in those fields is unknown and certainly would have been supplanted by new seed harvests.

Had the Inca not been cultivating, growing and harvesting quinoa and kiwichi, no doubt the Spanish settlers would have plowed that under as well to plant their own seeds. But in the case of these two grains, the Inca held them sacred, especially quinoa, and found them to be extremely valuable grains. The Spanish were not impressed by these grains the Inca grew, and did not send samples back to Europe. Even so, these two grains, though grown in the Andes from the second millennium B.C., if not before, all but died out as had the wheat and barley, and were not known to other tribes. However, in modern times, the Andean farmers rediscovered these hearty plants and cultivated them--today they feed most of the Andean populations outside the cities--using them as Europeans used wheat.

The question is, was there any wheat and barley in the Land of Promise when the Spanish arrived? And if so, why was it not known?

(See the next post, “What Happened to the Old World Plants? Part III,” to see why the Spanish did not know there was wheat and barley in the Land of Promise, and what happened to the seeds brought to the Land of Promise by the Jaredites and Nephites)