Cows, corn fields, a tractor -- and haystacks. Often, those haystacks are made up of dried alfalfa, a perennial crop plant high in protein. The protein makes it an important ingredient in livestock feed -- particularly for dairy cows. Decades ago, alfalfa growers had no choice but to use conventional breeding techniques to build those haystacks.  But, decades of research and development done by the many teams, including a West Salem, Wisconsin team have brought two game changing commercial products to the market for alfalfa growers.

David Arkin, another Berkeley-based architect, designed multiple natural homes with lime plaster that proved fire-resistant in the 2017 North Bay wildfires, remaining standing while all the homes around them burned down. One example was a home ”directly in the line of fire,” according to an Arkin-Tilt company report that was later publicized in Fine Home Building magazine. The homeowner, who had tried to evacuate, ended up inside the home as the fire approached. The house, built of straw bale, earth, and lime plaster, “held them safe until dawn.”  Everything surrounding the house burned to the ground, including outbuildings and all the trees. “We posit that the metal roof, strawbale walls, wrap-around porch supported by fire-salvaged redwood posts, and ample defensible space all contributed in saving the house, and possibly lives,” the article concludes.  

“In nearly every California wildfire one finds examples of homes of earth and straw surviving where nearby homes of other materials burned," Arkin told HempbuildMag in an email.