Once again, the received truth isthat agriculture in permafrost country is an impossibility. I do not generally agree. It is clearly impossible to grow trees beyonda certain set of conditions, but much of their northern range is in factunderlain with permafrost. So it is notso impossible as a species variant.
Yet we do know that the shortgrowing season is capriciously rich for the few weeks that it lasts. It is a mistake to discount it at all.
The problem for agriculture is toestablish a secure seedbed as ever. Modern equipment makes this much more practical.
What I would attempt is to use ablade to scrape the top soil aside from the underlying frozen subsoil toproduce windrows on either side of the exposed surface. I would create these bands say thirty toforty feet wide while producing a windrow just as wide. In this manner half of the total field isexposed. I would then let it winter overand allow the summer to thaw out the exposed ground down several inches. I would then scrap that material onto thewindrow to loosen it up and then push the entire windrow out onto the exposedground to produce a thick bank of mixed soil and muck. While at it I would scrape down the newlyexposed soils to open up the remaining area.
In this way it should be possibleto produce a deep bed of loose soil able to insulate the surface. Repeating this process every year will keepthe permafrost out of the soils while adding to the soil bed as needed.
This soil bed will warm easilyenough and allow potatoes to be grown along with a full range of short seasoncrops. This is a modified form of bank and ditch agriculture that leaves theditches dry and drained. I do thinkthough that the banks need to be torn down if not every season, certainly everysecond season because the permafrost will wick it way up into the surfacesoils.
Yet it may also turn out thatflooding with a few inches of river water at the height of summer can cure thatand protect the late crops from frost. Then when the frost sets in and the crop is harvested one merely drains thefields. And since we are flooding thosebroad ditches, we may as well plant a crop of cattails for winter fodder atleast. All this of course provides anatural compost stream to steadily upgrade the fields.
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