Hmmm. Well, both cutting back roots (only if necessary) and severe pruning (to keep the tree small) are things that are an essential part of David the Good’s Grocery Row Gardening system, and it seems to work well, so . . . my guess would be that the main disadvantage is that the tree won’t grow as tall or produce as many fruit (50 rather than 400, let’s say), and that can be a bonus for some growers anyway!
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Hi All! Since there were so many helpful responses here (Thank you!!), I made a summary to help people later find the overview and also see if I missed anything/other ideas. Here it is:
Drought-resistent Crops
What to Plant
General: varieties adapted to desert (silver and/or thicker leaves), cool-weather grains, legumes, succulents
- Aloe vera
- Amaranth
- Apricots
- Barleys
- Biscuitroot
- Burdock
- Cacti -edible w/o spines
- Chickpeas
- Chokecherry
- claytonia
- Corn varieties (native/drought tolerant)
- Cowpeas
- Currents
- Dates
- Desert grapes
- Echinacea
- Hollyhocks
- Lentils
- Lily family w/edible bulbs and greens
- Melons
- Millets
- Native weeds
- Parsley (wild)
- Peas
- Plums
- Potatoes (Purple Viking)
- Rye
- Service berry
- Sorghum
- Squashes
- Teff
- Tepary beans
- Viola
- Violet
- Watermelons
- Weeds (native) especially to kickstart soil biology
- Wheats (pre-green revolution, dry farmed)
- Wilder lettuces
- Yellow dock
- Zucchinis (if adapted for drought)
Techniques
- Before planting:
*Choose partial shade if hot temps w/long hours of sunlight- Add more organic material/hugelkultur
- Dig out big rocks
- Consider soil amendments
- Consider planting some in irrigated space to propagate seed to later select for drought tolerance
- To germinate:
- chit (sprout indoors a bit before planting out)your larger seeds indoors, and then direct sow them
- Tiny seeds direct sow on top of soil, sprinkle soil + mulch and water every morning for a week or two
- carrots /similar - use cardboard or wood planks over the row to keep moist, weighted down with soil or rocks and removed once sprouting
- Direct sow cucurbits
- Alternatively, sow seeds day before rain
- Plant, saturate soil and mulch
- After germination
- Mulch. A lot. (wood chips)
- Stone fruit trees - once a month watering
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I have gathered weed seeds and spread them, and if that’s feasible then great 
. You might find it easier to get a wildflower mix or a native flora mix and use that.
You probably have criteria for what kind of weeds you allow. It may or may not be worth reexamining these depending on your context. I try to be really careful with aggressive rhizomatous weeds - - they don’t tend to make very much sense for what I’m wanting to do, even edible and nutritious ones like bishop’s weed and greenbriar (which I have but would not have planted the bishop’s weed).
We had a large patch of ground where the previous owner had inexplicably planted Japanese honeysuckle vine. After removing it, nothing seemed to want to grow there at first (perhaps this informed the original decision). We threw in a wildflower mix to which I added native grass and wildflower seeds, much of which shouldn’t have needed cold stratification. The seeds were not all nor mostly eaten by critters, but they didn’t start growing when I would have expected. Meanwhile, some volunteer wood sorrel managed to get going. I wasn’t super keen at the time to have wood sorrel in the patch, but I let it go because it was something living and dramatically preferable to the honeysuckle. After the wood sorrel had been there a while the wildflowers started coming up. After that, a bunch of grocery store chia I had thrown in there started growing.
I am not an experienced gardener but in the years I have done it I have seen weeds terraform and make an unsuitable area suitable for planting multiple times.
You can also overseed with foods you wouldn’t mind growing there that you can get from the grocery store, healthfood store, or online as food. Amaranth, squash, and sorghum, just to name a few, should be obtainable this way. This is a cheap alternative to buying seed and a way to preview what you’ll be getting (it’s not often practical to eat part of a seed packet, or the seed isn’t the intended crop). There’s tradeoffs and it might warrant a thread.
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Yeah, I think weeds that terraform are called “pioneer species.” Those are important! Dandelions are a great pioneer species, according to Stefan Sobkowiak:
I’d never heard of bishop’s weed before, so I looked it up. Yipe! That sounds super invasive! It’s really important to think carefully through whether something is going to be invasive in your ecosystem before planting it.
That’s why I’m not planning to plant autumn olive or silverberry, even though they’re drought tolerant and edible. If they do really well here, they might become a problem for the wide ecosystem, and I really don’t want to do that. I do want to plant goumi berries, though, which are closely related and not invasive.
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Yep lambsquarters does the job of a pioneer pretty well too. Also dynamic accumulator AFAIK and delicious and nutritious. I have never grown spinach and don’t currently have any plans.
I “planted” dandelion in the garden for cover this fall - - rather manageable weeds than bare. Not too many came up though - - not sure of the need for cold stratification for them. We’re having a weird enough winter that some more might start coming up soon if so
Makes sense with the olives and such. I think I’ve mentioned, but this is also why we’re not seriously considering having a go with mesquite despite its being a great homesteading tree.
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I have got to get my hands on some lambsquarters seeds.
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Do you have any time that is somewhat cool and reliable-ish moisture? Flax is supposed to be a great plant for encouraging mycorryzhal fungi and leaving behind particularly good root exudates that really makes the fungi and other plants happy. Gabe Brown has lots of info on what plants can tap into mycorryzhal fungi and encourage it. If you can get some of those kinds of things growing, even if it’s only during the time of some moisture, then it could help boost the soil organisms that allow plants to share with each other more and make better use of soil moisture.
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I have seeds to share!!! I had a volunteer helping me harvest the aztec spinach plants for seed, she came back with a bunch of lambsquarter plants, I wondered if the seeds would be like quinoa, so I dried them (while the seed heads look similar quinoa to me, the seeds are small and black). I just haden’t had the heart to toss them yet. Reminds me to add more seeds to my form.
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Cool! I’d love some of those! I keep hearing how tasty lambsquarters is, and I want to try it. 
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How cool? I ask because winter is my rainy (and snowy) season. I have plenty of moisture in December through February, a bit in March and November, and almost none between April through October. Would flax work as a winter crop in zone 7b?
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Other helpful techniques: lowered beds (raised beds drain water, lowered beds capture it), waffle beds (these are a more labour-intensive form of waffle bed, sort of). Both of these will flood in a rainy season, so they’re more for areas that have year-round low moisture or where nothing will be grown during the rainy season since it will likely drown.
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Hmm… well here in Ohio you want to plant end of April/early May. Flax likes cool weather. But some people I follow planted late and still got some growing. I think having it growing at all for whatever time that you can would be helpful, but that’s just my thoughts.
I’m growing a bunch of flax for fiber this year. We’ll see if I get a decent amount of seed from it.
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Or maybe with waffle beds, you could plant on the hills during a rainy season, getting the opposite effect?
I’m staring at all the rain and snow we have right now, and thinking maybe I shouldn’t plan to put perennials in sunken beds, because they might drown. Even though those would be awesome for our dry summers!
It would be a particular bummer if that’s not a good idea, because sunken beds would be great for keeping warmth in for perennials that aren’t quite cold hardy enough for my zone, like bananas. But too much water will drown bananas. Nnnnngh . . .
Why does winter have to be, so inconveniently, our soggy, rainy season?
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I’ve looked at waffle gardening. Really cool.
You may also be interested in something more like swales. The swale collects rain and gets it to slow down and soak into the ground. You mound the lower side and plant into it. So it’s above the water when it’s soaking but the water should be going into the ground right next to it so the roots can reach down to access it longer.
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I just got Kiwano as the extra in my seed order. Zimbabwean landrace (cucumis metuliferus) from Buffalo seed co. Seems like a really heat/dry hardy plant that could be useful for you guys.
Looks like a sci fi alien fruit. Not sure it’ll be in my tastes but I’m going to try a few anyways.
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Oh, swales may be helpful for banana plants. Lots of water accessible to their roots, without their roots being overly saturated with it. Good point!
I’m planning to try the same kiwano landrace this year. Lowell sent me some. (Thanks, Lowell!) He said they have an okay flavor and a long storage life, and are less bothered by bugs than cucumbers. I don’t know if I’ll like them, but since they sound like they’ll work well in my climate, they’re definitely worth trying!
Especially since they do look very cool.
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This makes at least four of us growing kiwano next season… I sense a future swap
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Ooh! Or, if we all save all of our seeds and contribute the ones we don’t need to the seed mixes next year, we could have a kiwano mix.
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If there is interest I can bulk save seed to swap etc. I can always plant some with the squash and see what happens. Lol although I’m squeezing alot in the actual garden space already as it is 
Ohh maybe these can go around the huge stone in my garden. I call it pride rock… the more I dug, the bigger the rock got… so it’s staying put…
I’m putting the herbs/flowers around it to pretty it up. But if these really like heat I’ll find something to throw together a trellis around the rock and plant these around it.
(Ps, the stone is definitely bigger than a twin bed and at the front exposed part I stopped digging after 7 inches deep. Then decided to stop digging!)
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Pride Rock is a great name for it! Man, that boulder sounds like a pain.
If you ever do decide to try to get it out, I’d try a Meadow Creative broadfork. David the Good said he used his to pry up a lot of huge boulders, despite the manufacturer saying that’s not what it’s for, and that worked and did no harm to it.
Honestly, I’d really like to have a humongous boulder in my front yard, one that’s pretty and easy to sit on. It’d be a great piece of ornamentality in a xeriscape. But I don’t love the idea of digging one out of my garden.
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