Resusitating degraded soil. input required

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by Krankieone, Mar 9, 2014.

  1. mouseinthehouse

    mouseinthehouse Junior Member

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    Why would I expend time and money when in our case there was absolutely no need. We don't have to spend a cent feeding our four horses as a result at any time. Nor do I have to spend time moving them about from one paddock to another. This has been accomplished by simply allowing 40 acres to recover with zero intervention and then stocking it appropriately from there on. End of story. That is what worked for us. I don't need a PDC to observe things on my own property. Although I have a Bachelor of Biological Science which comes in handy.

    Another 60 acres of our property is set aside for conservation under an agreement with the government and phenomenal natural re-vegetation is happening and increasing bio-diversity of flora and fauna is occurring with zero intervention there either. The only area we add inputs is our food forest/vegetable garden. There I use the KISS principle as well. We must be doing something right because instead of spending $200 a week on food which would be an average spend here and what we used to do....we now spend about $40 - 60 and that includes feeding 4 dogs and 5 cats and poultry.

    By all means people can design their places to be managed intensively or less intensively. Each site has a different 'requirement' depending on a multitude of factors. We do what works on this place for us for what we want to achieve. Certainly I do not appreciate ANYONE coming along and telling me I don't know what I'm talking about. That is utterly ridiculous and insulting and plain arrogant.
     
  2. matto

    matto Junior Member

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    Im looking forward to getting to learn more of the Holistic Management farmework in the future. According to Darren Doherty, the HM decision making process is something that permaculture is missing, and HM is missing aspects of ecological design in their farm management planning. Heenan Doherty have put in their charter to expand the HM methodologies into education and business planning.

    From Allan Savory's teaching in HM, you set your Holistic Context https://www.savoryinstitute.com/media/40632/HOLISTIC-CONTEXT.pdf and from this you base all questions for your land, economic and social decisions. Exciting stuff from what ive heard through podcasts and stuff. Apparently, Savory, who was born in Rhodesia, had a meeting with government ministers in Zimbabwe. He spent time explaining the Holistic Context, and the HM decision making process, and set them to task on a problem with Zimbabwe. Instantly they were working collaborativly, and when arguments started to flair they would go back to the context and move on.

    Thats exactly what the world needs!

    SOP and Mouses houses look like little paradises. Are you close to Brisbane as well, Mouse?

    Allan Savory talks alot about rest as being one of the most effective tools we have been using for millenia, they earth too! Rest in a humid environment will allow succesion to advance a lot quicker than brittle environments. About 1/3 of earth is a humid environment, 1/3 alpine/polar environments, and 1/3 brittle... or something like that.

    Rest in these arid environments can mean slowing or even turning back succesion, and are challenging environments to steward. I think there must be some sort of brittleness scale? but yeah, depending on your context of course and how much and what you want to do... Getting the water and nutrient cycle going is less easy in some places, but this is australia eh!

    If you have the bandwidth, check out what HM is doing for the VEG/Permablitz crew https://vimeo.com/86850657
     
  3. mouseinthehouse

    mouseinthehouse Junior Member

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    Thanks for that info Matto. No, we are in the South East of South Australia. Our climate is changing. We are in a rich and diverse agricultural area which has traditionally had reliable rainfall for this temperate area. However we are now finding we are in a drying trend with lower average rainfall and more extreme temperature days in Summer and shorter growing seasons. The light stocking ratio after allowing recovery of a large pasture area has progressively provided increasing diversity in grasses and forbs. We have different species ticking over in winter and spring/summer. The vegetation is never grazed down to ground level. The more robust and taller grasses always shelter the smaller more vulnerable species from desiccation in extreme conditions and prolong 'green pick' in summer. There is a constant building up of the organic matter in the soil over time. This provides greater moisture retention - crucial in our drying climate and low rainfall conditions. We have no provision on our flat deep sand country to trap water. We have no run off. Our practices give our soil and pasture the best method of continuous cover and prolonged growth and increasing the humus levels.
    There is also natural regeneration of red gums and blue gums because the cover over the soil provides conditions for germination. Fortunately, horses pose no threat to these seedlings. If we chose to run steers or a few fat lambs it would be a small enterprise because our management options are limited by the prevailing conditions we face. If you chose to buy a permaculture property one would never have bought our undeveloped property (but we weren't looking at growing anything when we bought it!) so perhaps the greatest thing we do is recognise the ecological limits of our soil, topography and climate and stock and manage to those limits and see if we can improve things slowly. We are surrounded by people who do not do this and they have to irrigate, fertilise, watch the topsoil blow away, lose their biodiversity.

    Fortunately, the government recognises our (non) efforts on our land set aside for conservation and pay us a set amount each year to manage it through funding in South Australia called Bush Bids. Which in real terms means leave it alone.

    To get back to the OP: My thoughts are that if you buy a place which is for all intents and purposes, overgrazed and practically bare, you need to observe what happens at least over the next growing season. Otherwise you will not know what seed bank you have in the soil and how it responds to whatever weather conditions that next winter/spring or rainy season brings. It would be foolhardy to rush in and implement all manner of things before observing your property's 'response' first. I thought that observing was an important part of permaculture? I also thought that simple and slow solutions was part of the deal and that one should try to have the least inputs for the greatest or desired yield?
     
  4. 9anda1f

    9anda1f Administrator Staff Member

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    This.

    Not only important knowledge to be gained, but fascinating to watch the natural healing process of succession over the course of a couple of years.
     
  5. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    Cheap too. 100 hours of thinking 1 hour of action.
     
  6. rmcpb

    rmcpb Junior Member

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    Often when we fix a degraded paddock all that is needed is a Keyline plough and time. It's amazing what survives in the seed back and when you let in the water with the ploughing things happen. Of course you need to rest the place, sometimes add some species and lightly graze but it can regenerate relatively quickly with rest and a small amount of help.

    Often the main problem is a mortgage and the bank marking you produce..........
     
  7. S.O.P

    S.O.P Moderator

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  8. ramdai

    ramdai Junior Member

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    First, i would endorse observation at some levels and for varying amounts of time, but recognizing patterns is also very much a practice of permaculture and people care is a guiding ethic. there are the possibilities of real energy audits-and then there is the "this i believe" energy audit that doesn't really know but makes various assumptions out of ignorance and supposition


    It is one thing to say these are the practices i prefer, and quite another to say these are the best practices.

    a good permaculture designer can almost see from a hillside where water can be stored to greatest effect in a few minutes. PA yeoman tells the story of locating a dam site in a few minutes what took a team of engineers several months worth of studies.

    current observation of microbiology in the soil is leading to understanding patterns that might be applied to land just by looking at general soil conditions and "weeds" that are in succession.

    Research now is being done to learn how to better prepare for later successional plants without the need to wait through years of weeds coming and going just by understanding and altering soil biology.

    I've left the majority of my 30 acres alone, and it reforested itself, such as it is, with a few species of hardwoods coming back from stumps of the clear cut, and about 15 acres of loblolly pine, a favorite of the paper industry. So at 15 years in, yes, it is wonderful that nature could heal this area on its own, but to say it is the best possible outcome compared to if i had fiddled and meddled appropriately back then is silly

    For some people waiting a year to start "fiddling and meddling" may not be economically possible. and the liklihood of compacted soil decompacting in a years time and having an inch or two of humus rich topsoil just left alone is next to impossible, but my understanding is that keyline performs those miracles on a regular basis along with effective water conservation. why would someone need more observation than a stiff wire poked into the ground to get that information

    it may be in times to come when the deserts are in disorganized retreat that those people who advocated doing nothing will be grateful for every gram of reclaimed carbon made possible by people who fiddled and meddled and move degraded land into greater carbon sequestration on a faster time frame. In my mind this is not an idle appreciation of nature, this is saving the planet, and i will fiddle and meddle in the best ways i learn how. Many people like me, and i believe Geoff Lawton is included in this group, believe that the planet is doomed if we don't actively, quickly, get busy fiddling and meddling.
     
  9. mouseinthehouse

    mouseinthehouse Junior Member

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    In five weeks I will spend a month in the Kalahari desert (Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park). I've spent quite a bit of time in Africa in the arid environments. The KTP somewhat surprisingly supports a large number of animals. For most of the year the park is bone dry and has denuded sand dunes and dry riverbeds. Grazers survive on the remaining tussocky grasses which are few and the sparse trees and shrubs. The park is overgrazed in every dry season because humans have limited the trans-national movement of wildlife and provided water from bores during the dry. But every rainy season the park is transformed from a barren landscape to abundance and green and diverse grazing as far as the eye can see. It is incredible to witness. It doesn't need microbes or extra organic matter or ploughing. This is an extreme and very situation specific example of nature doing what millions of years of evolution has set it up to do.

    Humans are NOT going to save the planet. What does 'save the planet' mean? The planet is going to be here for billions of years and species will continue to evolve long after stupid humans are GONE. We are just an unfortunate blip. An arrogant, self deluded blip but a product of evolution just the same. In the meantime, sure, we can try and lessen our negative impacts on the soil, air and water and that is a noble thing to do. Probably a moral thing to do. But it is ultimately futile. Taking the time to observe the complexity of nature instead of thinking we have some sort of superior mastery of it is humble and it is sensible. Sadly and ironically the whole human construct of time and economic constraint is what got us to the point of the ecological damage we now see and we now have to rush to 'fiddle and meddle' some more in order to 'save' a 'doomed' planet.

    ]
     
  10. Terra

    Terra Moderator

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    Krankie welcome back , hope you come back , your original post for this property was along the lines of low cost effective ect . plenty of "Interesting" debate above , it of course depends lots of variables in (depends) how fast you want to spend $$$ . First thing is observe , ideally 12mths of course that's usually impractical next is get control of the water that flows through the property and put what you can to good use . A simple vehicle track can run water if designed right .

    What are your plans for the property do you need financial return as soon as possible , do you have to stock it straight away .

    Is there a house or house "Site" if so just start small in the "Zone 1 area" and work out , of course ripping and dam sites are worth doing , do you have a tractor , you could get a designer in and spend $150000 in a heart beat but I don't think that's your intension in the short term .

    There is plenty of advice free and otherwise in videos and articles its literally endless you can do courses , what I like to do is encourage people to "think" through the puzzle and find the solution as you do more and more of this it will just become automatic , this is what I like about permaculture , don't follow the highway , look outside the square , break from the herd .

    Get a big white board draw your place on it roughly to scale hang it up where you can see it every day draw stuff on it rub it out tomorrow if it doesn't look right , do 50 or a 100 design changes before you change much for real the drawing costs nothing , where does the water run ect.
     
  11. ramdai

    ramdai Junior Member

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    i guess the thing here is that i don't know what will happen, and i'm not always sure what is right, so i try and keep a clear mind that is open to the possibilities. In my life there are moments when i do nothing for long periods, observing, looking for the right thing at the right time,,and there are other times when it's time to fiddle and meddle.

    grass growing when it rains does not prove or disprove the wisdom of adding microbes to damaged soil, that's just a pretty picture distracting from the fact that there is no evidence to support the idea that it is wrong to restore a natural component to a natural system to enhance it's operation for our benefit. That is purely an opinion and everyone has their own opinions, the fallacy is presenting those opinions as if they were fact, when in fact they are just opinions.

    I'd love to hear some relevant data, actual facts that prove or disprove any pet theory i'm entertaining, but nonsense is just a waste of my time.
     
  12. mouseinthehouse

    mouseinthehouse Junior Member

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    Indeed.
     
  13. mouseinthehouse

    mouseinthehouse Junior Member

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    Indeed.
     
  14. rmcpb

    rmcpb Junior Member

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    It really comes back to what you want out of the land. If it's just to let it go green then that is easy, rest it. However, if you want to work it then you have to do more than just leave it. Nutrients in must equal or exceed nutrients out. Water has to be managed. Species mixtures need modifying or changing completely. Grazing/mowing levels need monitoring.

    The treatment will depend on the type of degradation, compaction level, climate, climate change and what you need out of the land. There is no one answer for all. Each case is an individual.
     
  15. mouseinthehouse

    mouseinthehouse Junior Member

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    Exactly. But grazing is working it is it not? In our specific situation, year on year successful grazing management is nothing more than stocking at the correct level having allowed a paddock to initially recover well without intervention and to stock appropriately from then on. That is what worked for us in our situation. But I would not have known how well my paddock would recover and how quickly if I had gone in immediately and implemented a number of measures without taking the time to observe that recovery first. If I had've intervened quickly I would have wasted time and money because it has not been necessary in our case to do anything to achieve what we need.

    In contrast, where I expect a different yield ie a productive food area then I do add inputs to improve the yield as it is necessary in that case although I keep it as simple as possible. As you say, it all depends on individual site specifics and expectations. (Which is what I said all along. ) Be patient, watch what the earth can do herself.....THEN after observing a response....implement or don't implement measures.
     
  16. rmcpb

    rmcpb Junior Member

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    I think we are saying much the same thing Mousey but I work our land harder than you seem so we have to put more in to get the outputs we expect. Yes, grazing is a form of working but if you have only a few head it's more like mowing and keeping the pasture in vegetative growth. From our perspective it's water management that is most important,get that right and the rest falls into place. All the extras are just that, extras, nice to have and probably help but still extras.
     
  17. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    Mouse,
    I think you've got it right.
    You can see your land and what its doing, you've taken time to observe it and are responding in a way that is in the best interests of it And getting results.
    Every property is different and has different needs and capabilities. There is no such thing as one size fits all or to be permie you Must be doing......(whatever)

    Congrats on healing your piece of paradise, long my it continue.
     
  18. rmcpb

    rmcpb Junior Member

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    It's suffering at present from a severe lack of rain but still better than anything else in the district.

    We just need rain before winter......
     
  19. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    We are having our first Real rain right now thanks to the visiting cyclone. Its actually rain pretty much solidly for two days so far, amazing! Finally!!..... 'bout time....hope you get yours soon.

    Back to the minimal tweaking to regenerate land.
    There were afew vids posted here (somewhere) not so long ago. If I recall correctly 1 showed, in Africa, that by removing all grazing livestock, with in 5 years a hill had not only got trees starting to grow all over it, but a small stream had reappeared and was flowing all year round again.
    Another was on somewhere in China, where the locals were made to yard up their sheep and take feed to them resulting in another complete turnaround in plant growth.
    The third was in Jordan, I think, where they found an extinct native plant species had reappeared after doing something similar.

    These were all seriously denuded places and needed the livestock withdrawn in order to get the land to recover. They didnt have such things as man made fences to help them rotate their grazing like we have, I guess some 'modern tech' aint so bad after all.
     
  20. mouseinthehouse

    mouseinthehouse Junior Member

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    Great to hear you are getting some much needed rain! :) It is cool here today and a few sprinkles but we usually don't get any good opening rains until at least May so we've got a while to wait yet.
     

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