Explore every episode of the podcast Agave & Cactus Talk

Talking about Agave Vilmoriniana and why I think it has alot of potential in various industries. It is my favorite agave and it has been one of the strongest agaves that i have dryfarmed. Amolé is one of my favorite agaves to distill and it also is helping me get rid of pests on other agaves. Maybe it holds the key to agave being used as medicine. If you want to find out more about Amole/Agave Vilmoriniana visit Agaverocaliforniano.com where you can learn more about them or purchase them if you want.

In this episode I discuss the agave roasting oven i am currently working on building, as well as various other aboveground and underground ovens i have built and utilized.

Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. Today is the 2nd part of maybe a 3 or 4 part series on choosing what agave to farm, whether in California or elsewhere. There are alot of factors that can affect how your agave grow or what agave you can grow, and while i dont go through everything, this podcast series should be an excellent primer to get you started on the right foot farming agave. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me or leave a comment. If you want to get in contact with me or buy agave, feel free to contact me anywhere below: IG: FarmingandGardeningCalifornia tiktok: Agaverocaliforniano Pinterest : Agavero Californiano eBay: Cactirecycling Etsy: honestgreens Websites: Agaverocaliforniano.com (Plant info & sales) Californiaagavealliance.com ( CA agave Alliance )

Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. Today is the begining of maybe a 3 or 4 part series on choosing what agave to farm, whether in California or elsewhere. There are alot of factors that can affect how your agave grow or what agave you can grow, and while i dont go through everything, this podcast series should be an excellent primer to get you started on the right foot farming agave. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me or leave a comment. If you want to get in contact with me or buy agave, feel free to contact me anywhere below: IG: FarmingandGardeningCalifornia tiktok: Agaverocaliforniano Pinterest : Agavero Californiano eBay: Cactirecycling Etsy: honestgreens Websites: Agaverocaliforniano.com (Plant info & sales) Californiaagavealliance.com ( CA agave Alliance )

Talking about my experiences growing agave desmettiana variegata in california and observations ive made about the plant, how it grows, and what its potential uses are. It is an agave that is becoming one of my favorites as it is in the top 5 of agaves i cultivate in terms of numbers. Currently have over 20k of them planted. If you have any questions about agave desmettiana variegata or want to purchase any plants for your farm/garden, feel free to contact me anywhere below or leave a comment IG: FarmingandGardeningCalifornia tiktok: agavexcactus Pinterest : Agavero Californiano eBay: Cactirecycling Etsy: honestgreens Websites: Agaverocaliforniano.com (Plant info & sales) Californiaagavealliance.com ( CA agave Alliance )

Walking the goats and talking why I love to cultivate and utilize Furcraea. In the same family as agave, Asparagaceae, Furcraea has an insane amount of potential, just like agave and cactus, to be dryfarmed and utilized for hundreds of different applications. If you need any Furcraea Foetida Mediopicta plants hit me up at any of my socials below. If you are one of my agave or cactus farms i consult for and want more info on Furcraea, just call me homies. IG: FarmingandGardeningCalifornia tiktok: agavexcactus Pinterest : Agavero Californiano eBay: Cactirecycling Etsy: honestgreens Websites: Agaverocaliforniano.com (Plant info & sales) Californiaagavealliance.com ( CA agave Alliance )

In this episode I am driving through the LA National Forrest and talking about Chapparal Yucca aka Quixote aka Spanish bayonet, latin name hesperoyucca whipplei. Great plant!

Talking about 8 CA Native Cacti, and why I think they have significant potential to be dryfarmed in California. I discuss how you may profit off them, how ive profited from them, and how ive utilized them. I also mention 1 Naturalized and 1 usa Native Cactus. Use this podcast as a primer for farming California Native cactus and creating a framework to farm natives in your local. Here are the 10 plants i mentioned today: Cylindropuntia Imbricata, CA Native Cyllindropuntia Imbricata subs Spinosior, debatable CA native, AZ for sure. Cylindropuntia Echinocarpa , Silver Cholla, CA Native Cylindropuntia Ramosissima, CA Native Echinocactus Polycephalus subs Polycephalus, red barrel cactus, CA native Echinocactus Polycephalus subs Xeranthemoides, gold barrel cactus, CA native Opuntia Basilaris subs basilaris, beaverstail cactus, Opuntia Phaeacantha, Tulip prickly pears, CA Native Opuntia Littoralis , CA naturalized, Native to baja. Opuntia linguiformis, Texas prickly pears, TX Native Contact me if you need any of these for your farm. I farm them at scale mostly. Have a great day peeps.

Un poco de discusión sobre esta tema y mi opinión

Hablando de unas de las razones porque me encanta crecer agaves y Nopales juntos. Los dos se complementan mucho. Gracias por escuchar.

Hablando un poco de como crecer agave y Chivas a la misma vez es algo beneficioso para el sembrador. 

part 2, 11-20 11- if you have animals combine with animal manure in a biodigester to make your own natural biofuel and run your heating and cooking utilities off that. 12 - process leaves into fiber and dry it and sell it, make clothes or w/e 13- plant giant agave as a windbreaker and firebreak to help save you on water and potentially future emergencies. 14- make distillates from the quiotes 15- sell the agave leaf skin, used in mexixan cuisines 16- sell agave roots, sustainable harvesting 17- create your own hybrids, interspecies hybrids. TC them. patent and lease them 18- create new farms with the plants you sell, sell installation services 19- sell carbon credits 20- seek grants or money for Carbon sequestration or heavy metal sequestration , restoration 21, sell to ngos or gov looking to restore. grow natives and restore.

part 1, ways 1-10 1- sell your leaves to a BBQ spot 2- grind it up and ferment it and sell as an animal sillage 3 - sell your pinas to distillers, or create your own spirit from the pinas. 4- make and sell pulque, 5- aquamiel distillates, pulque distillates 6- sell to agave wine producers, niche market may need to do yourself 7- sell agave stalks whole or grinded to packaging producers to use in a packaging products, or sell it yourself 8- sell agave plants, preferably your pups, keep seeded, ca, usa and global market. 9- harvest the quiotes and collect seed, bubils, sell the fresh quiotes at farmers markets, to chefs, sell older quiotes and building products or stakes 10 - let your animals forage the agave fields to fertilize, aerating agave. boost pup production. increase stress for variegation. spend less on feed.

This podcast is a conversation I had with Keirstyn Amponsah, who is researching Dryfarming/Sustainable Farming Practices with Purdue. She had some great questions & this convo has alot of cool knowledge i think will help you podcast listeners. New podcast coming soon on agave. Enjoy!

In this podcast I am having a talk with Adrian from Planet Mezcal for a 2nd time. We go into Agave hybrids, California Agave farming, California AB 2606, & of course what i do on my farm as well here in California. It was a fun talk and the live video is available on instagram on my profile @ farmingandgardeningcalifornia .

 

Feel free to leave comments or suggestions for later episodes. I will get to uploading some podcasts soon, been real busy shipping plants. Anyways, enjoy! 

Here is a talk i did with the ladies from Amigas y Mezcal. They were kind enough to invite me on their show and i was more then willing. They had excellent questions and I wanted to put this in audio form because it had alot of great information. It was a great episode, give it a listen. If you want to skip to that podcast, skip to 13:50. Have a good one everyone. Have a backlog of podcasts i will begin uploading, while ive been away from uploading episodes, I have not stopped making them, I just been busy so I haven't had time to upload. Have a great day everyone. 

Skip to 2:05, thats when they connnect & i am on shortly after. This is a IG live for the Tequiladies show, in which I talked California Agave & California Agave Spirits with the Tequiladies. Follow them on Instagram & Youtube. We discuss some of my background, Agave, Tequila and much more. I hope you enjoy this talk, have a great day. 

Skip to 6:30 to get past our technical difficulties at the begining with me trying to connect. In this talk we discuss the California agave Industry & agave spirits being made in CA. We go over farming techniques, the liquor industry & much more. It was done last year, but thought it would still be helpful. If you want to see the live video, follow Planet Mezcal on instagram! Lots of great educational content on Agave & Mezcal. Enjoy the talk, have a great day! 

Today I talk about an article I read called “Mezcal must challenge irresponsible agave farming”. It was a very interesting article talking about how we can make sure to grow agave in a sustainable fashion, that benefits environment, people and tradition. I hope you learned something in today’s podcast as a lot of the points that the main character in the article explains are things we are trying to implement here in California andhaving success with. We hope him a lot of success on his journey of trying to make Mezcal more sustainable, and we will use his words as inspiration to make California Agave as sustainable as possible.

Today, i talk about Brazilian Agave. The farmers & researchers are very innovative in Brazil & are using alot of advances in agriculture to explore & utilize the agave plant for a variety of uses, such as: bioenergy, biofuels, biomethane, biohydrogen, biochar & even slowing the deserts expansion. I think there is alot of positives in what they are doing as well as alot of negatives, but you can make your own opinion as we talk about some of the implications of what they are doing, such as creating GMO agave & yeasts. We also get into how i believe these projects could improve a bit and how California can learn and improve from them as well. Enjoy! Follow me on: IG/threads: Farmingandgardeningcalifornia & agavencactustalk TT, YT & Pinterest: Agavero Californiano FB: California Agave Farmer Follow the California Agave Alliance on Bluesky, Instagram, threads, facebook & soon youtube. Same username everywhere. If you need any agave & cactus plants, free to reach out.I dont have everything, but i know everyone who does, lol. Peace yall.

This is the 1st half to an almost 3 hour long podcast on this very interesting topic of cactus biofuels. opinions and thoughts on this cactus farming that is going on in India. I show how we in California and Mexico can learn from India and apply what they are learning and producing to everywhere. I also give thoughts on how to improve not only Indian cactus farming but how to take what they are doing and improve it globally. enjoy!

This is the 2nd half to an almost 3 hour long podcast on this very interesting topic of cactus biofuels. opinions and thoughts on this cactus farming that is going on in India. I show how we in California and Mexico can learn from India and apply what they are learning and producing to everywhere. I also give thoughts on how to improve not only Indian cactus farming but how to take what they are doing and improve it globally. enjoy!

Today we talking with my good friend Agaves De Occidente. He is cultivating all types of agaves in Jalisco, Mexico. common, and rare species alike. We talk about the current agave industry in Mexico and USA and how we are trying to promote the use of not only a diverse array of agaves, but also cacti, trees and shrubs, and preferably the native plants in your region to get the best results.

 

We talk about agave farming culture, a little history, and relating back to our ancestors in our grandparents who introduced us to agave. We go into saving agave species, agave polycultures and changing how agave is cultivated by educating people on all of these topics. By educating we hope for farmers in mexico and usa to use lots of agaves and different plants; and change the bad name us agave cultivators are getting because most only know agave monoculture that is destructive to people, environment and agave genetics. If people knew the alternatives they would know we can actually be the solution to these issues, and farmers would switch and go back to a polcyulture, a permaculture managment style.

 

we intend to put our grain of salt to help farmers in any country do that, but specifically in Jalisco mexico with him and California, USA with me. Enjoy this podcast! it is in spanish because we want to have spanish podcasts so people learn that only speak spanish too. I also wanted my friend to talk in his native tongue, which is what he is more comfortable expressing his views in. If you know spanish, enjoy, if not well i am sorry enjoy the other 19 english podcats and get your spanish skills up because alot of agave knowledge comes from spanish speakers. If i have time, i do intend on making a voiceover translation but no guarantees i am busy busy lol.

 

Follow my friend Agaves de Occidente on instagram and follow the podcast, agavencactustalk on instagram. Anyways enjoy! 

Today I focus’s an article I read about how the Australian government and farmers are combating cacti. this is an issue they have dealt with in 3 different centuries and I discuss how I believe they are approaching the problem from the wrong angle. cactus has the potential to be a giant cash crop in Australia but they choose to wage a loosing war poisoning their soil, environment and even people by how they manage cacti as an invasive species. Interesting stuff because my view is cactus is a huge help to ecosystems , while they see it as a pest.

Today, we are talking about Cactus farming in Namibia. I talk about how this almost 2 billion dollar mega investment into cactus farming in namibia can be done correctly, protecting the environment and being profitable. The goal of this huge project is to sell carbon credits linked to cacti sequestrating carbon. While a very interesting proposition, there are lots of questions i have for sure and lots of things to learn from this project for the future cactus farmers of the world.

Agave & Cactus Talk podcast : Nativotexas

start at 1:35, thats when we are golden. 

Great talk with my friend Chris about Agave. We chatted about lots of things we are facing with regards to managing agave and running an agave farm/buisness. We provided lots of education for any agave farmer to learn more about agave and thats one of the goals of this podcast. To help farmers. 

 

I love podcasts centered on spirits, but great spirits start with great agave, & there is a lack of knowledge in audio form for new and existing farmers who want to explore agave. Hoping to teach farmers as much as possible through the podcast, so they have the most diverse and adaptable farm possible, and feel confident in their endeavor. Agave farmers are farming all day and naturally can't sit down to watch videos or read books often, so podcasts are a way for farmers to learn and still keep working. Anyways enjoy everyone. Will be up on apple, YT and others tonight in audio form. 

Today, i talk about cactus farming in Tunisia. I mention some of the problems they are encountering and some lessons that California and global Cactus can learn from this particular problem. As more farmers around the world begin to plant cactus, they should learn from case studies in tunisia, mexico, and brazil. Much like in agave, Africa is a large cactus producing region, so it was interesting for me to brainstorm how I'd attack this issue in Tunisia as well if they called me one day. If you have questions, as always, hit me up here with a comment or on IG(farmingandgardeningcalifornia) or Youtube (Agavero Californiano).

This episode is me talking about what lessons i believe can be learned from my loss of agave genetics in the Eaton fire in Altadena, CA. What lessons may be applied to you and the larger goal of preserving agave genetics.

Talking about different trees I plant with my agave and cactus, why I am planting them and what uses I have for them or what direction I’m exploring with them. Trees and agave can coexist well for added value and profitability and this small list is just a primer. Use it to see what useful trees you can use in your agave and cactus fields. **Reuploaded bc wind and road noise was bothering me, so i used an AI to strip the background noise out**

Today i talked about a very interesting article i read talking about tequila overproduction and the drop in sales. It was called "Mexico left with 500 mn liter tequila lake after demand slows" coming out of the financial times and written by Madeleine Speed and Christine Murray. I talk about opinions, implications and observations of the tequila industry with this article in perspective. Lots to talk about here with reference to agave, agave farming and california agave. Enjoy! Happy new year to everyone!

Today I talk about a very interesting article titled : The agave beverage with antioxidant properties backed by Tex Researchers, published by the tecscience news arm of the universidad tecnológico de Monterey. I wanted to highlight this amazing article and talk a little about why more people should be researching and crafting agave syrup of many different agave species.

Today i talk about Brazil and how Indigenous brazilians are using native brazilian cactus, such as mandacaru, to combat the loss of the dry forrest ecosystem. I also talk about cactus farming in brazil in general. Brazil is one of the most influential countries in cactus research and farming, so i found it fun to talk about them on the podcast.

Today we are talking about cactus farming in Italy and my recommendation for the country. I hope to see a diverse cactus polyculture, not a copycat of the world problems with a opuntia ficus indica monoculture. Lessons Italy must learn and implications of Italy succeeding for Europe.

Top 10 list of my biggest issues with agave farming in Mexico and around the world. This podcast is so that new agave farmers globally do not make the same mistakes and they learn to avoid them. As many countries start and expand the cultivation of agave we want them to take inspiration from the ecologically sound farms that are biodiverse and care about culture and people, not the big ag, monoculture & heavy machinery systems. Lots to learn from and improve on.

Today I go into 5 cold hardy agaves that may be planted around the United States, as they are super cold hardy(-22F-10F) and can take snow, wind, high elevation and drought. They are Agave Utahensis, Agave Parryi, Agave Montana, Agave Chrysantha & Agave Havardiana. I give some info on their potential for use in the USA and why I love them.

Agave & Cactus Talk # 7 - Chatting about agave and tequila with my friend. We go into Agave and Mexican culture, CA Agave spirits, global agave, agave business and how farmers/distillers can succeed, how we can help small brands, and even a little about nopales and cactus farming. Very interesting questions and conversation. You dont want to miss it. Have a Great day everyone, and make sure to follow el tequilero 90 on Instagram for more tequila content.  

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Agave Tequiliana aka Agave Angustifolia subs Tequiliana is the only species allowed in the production of tequila. In todays episode, i go over why this is a major issue for the future of tequila production and some ways that the CRT can maintain tradition but adapt to a changing world. Tequila needs genetic diversity, or it will have a hard time staying dominant or maybe even existing. I give real-world examples from other industries & some lessons to be learned.

Today I talk about the diversity the agave family by just trying to answer 1 question. How many agaves are there? This is not an easy question, but I think I did an ok job 😂 Hopefully me talking about so many different agave possibilities has you thinking of what you can do to improve agave genetics on your farm, nursery, or collection. Enjoy! Those i mentioned on IG: Katopin, hiddenagave, yamato nursery, mojave lv. totally missed talking on potatorumagaves and kiri6590. love their stuff!

In this podcast I go over why cotton top cactus (echinocactus polycephalus) is an amazing cactus, why it should be propagated on a massive scale, and some of the threats it is facing. I also talk about how I disagree with the IUCN’s classification of it as least concern and share some ways to help this cactus sustain its wild populations.

Today i talk about some of the species of cactus i grow, how cactus farming can make your ranch more profitable, & a few of the uses i have for cactus. I wanted this episode to be a primer for cactus farming and animals, but in no way is this everything. My next cactus podcast will likely be on why California vineyards should switch over to cactus, instead of agave, and make cactus wine, but we will see. If you have questions or suggestions for an episode, leave a comment.

In this episode i talk about Agave Shawii and the perilous state it is in. I also talk about why i believe the CA agave industry should step up to save it and how they can do so before its too late. I share my personal goal with agave shawii as well.

Agave & Goats: How they can complement each other for a more profitable farm + ranch