weeds and permaculture

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by Peter Warne, Jan 3, 2005.

  1. Peter Warne

    Peter Warne Junior Member

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    Hi folks,
    I thought this article was stimulating enough to share with you. It makes rather a long read for computer reading, but you could perhaps print it. It seems to me to offer a serious challenge to us permies. It was printed in our local newspaper - The Nimbin Good Times, whom I thank for publishing the article.

    It is written by David McMinn on the basis of his experience, and it makes the point that some plants which have been promoted by permaculture over the years have turned out to be environmental weeds.

    I emailed David and asked his permission to copy the article here. He willingly agreed. Anyone living in a sub-tropical (or tropical?) zone would find his site interesting too - it's given at the end of the article.

    Here it is - happy reading:

    PERMACULTURE: Great Concept, Pity About The Weeds.

    Published in The Nimbin Good Times. December 2004.

    David McMinn



    The basic principle of permaculture is highly commendable - to encourage self sufficiency via the design and development of productive and sustainable gardens and farms. This is something that the world so desperately needs to counter the onslaught of industrial agriculture. Permacultural designs were derived from studying both natural ecological systems and pre-industrial examples of sustainable land usage. The originators of permaculture in the 1970's, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, completely ignored one key factor: the environmental threat posed by many exotic plant species. There are several qualities that make plants suitable for permaculture - low maintenance, easy propagation, vigorous growth and immunity to pests/diseases. Alas, these same qualities also make them prone to becoming serious weed pests. Thus there is a conflict between permaculture and the potential for creating new weed problems. Over the past 30 years, the history of permaculture is littered with numerous examples of bad design, where many recommended plants species have became serious weeds. These have spread into the surrounding ecosystems, reducing the land's productive potential and degrading the native biodiversity. What is at stake is the survival of native plant/animal species and whole eco systems. Millions of years of evolution snuffed out over several human generations, because of stupidity and a complete lack of foresight. Regrettably, permaculture has contributed to this ecological catastrophe. Peter Hardwick, the local bush food expert, commented that "in places like Hawaii, exotic plants have severely depleted native plants to the point of extinction, showing how bad the weed issue can get. Similarly, lantana prevents rainforest from regenerating. The reality is that there are places where lantana is still dominant 70 years after clearing. Some people try and justify lantana, but it just doesn't stack-up. How can anyone say that lantana is better than rainforest?"

    What may be suitable for a farmer in a developing country, may not apply to the Australian experience. A poor farmer would thoroughly cultivate his entire small plot to maximise his subsistence output. Nothing would go to waste. In affluent Australia, people adopt permaculture principles out of interest or a desire to produce their own food sustainably. There is no economic imperative to cultivate productive landscapes intensively. Thus the permaculture garden can quickly become infested with weeds, if it is not well maintained. These weeds can also spread into the local environment and cause more havoc. Landowners must then waste time and money to get rid of weeds, which should never have been planted in the first place. High cost herbicide also has to be used to poison the weeds, as there are no other viable options. Using weedy species is completely counterproductive to the basic objectives of permaculture, which aims to eliminate chemical use and reduce labour inputs.

    The following list are plants that I personally had problems with following permaculture guidelines in the 1980's.

    Abbreviations: EW - An Environmental Weed is a species which is a threat to the survival of native plants and animals. DN - Declared Noxious means that landowners need to take action to control this species on their property. NN - Nominated Noxious means that the species may be declared noxious at a later date.

    Brazilian Cherry (EW) was one of the many species suggested for permaculture design. However, it is a serious environmental pest, as its seed has a very high germination rate and is spread efficiently by birds. We are having to pull out small plants sited hundreds of metres away from the nearest fruiting tree. Grumchiana and Jaboticaba do not seem to present a weed threat and produce yummy fruit. Always consider using these species as alternatives to Brazilian Cherry in your plantings.
    Coffee (EW). Unless you are going to harvest all the seed, do not grow this small tree. People buy a few plants with the fantasy of growing their own coffee. They quickly become discouraged after realising the difficulty involved in processing the fruited seed into the roasted coffee bean ready to be made into a delicious espresso late. Usually the plants are just left in the garden and seed not collected, thus creating a yet another weed problem. We ended up with a carpet of coffee seedlings through much of our garden. It took three years to finally get rid of the last coffee seedling. It is much, much easier just to buy your coffee, do the local environment a favour and support poor coffee farmers in Nicaragua, Timor or Kenya.
    Ice Cream Bean (EW) was considered to be another highly desirable legume tree in the 1980's. It grows rapidly and is easy to propagate. The sweet pods were initially hyped as being delicious, but most people found them underwhelming. Thus the pods were just left on the trees allowing the seed to spread into the local forests. We have killed all the dozen or so adult trees in our orchard. This may be easily achieved by ring barking the main trunks and then poisoning any small re-growths that emerge. We still have dozens of small seedlings to get rid of.
    Leuceana (EW) is another vigorous legume tree from South America. It was widely promoted both in permaculture and farming during the 1980's for its fast growth and nitrogen fixing ability. It seeds prolifically and can quickly become weedy in our warm, humid climate. We tried to get rid of it from our garden for many years, but now a compromise has been reached. Every year the trees are stripped of their seed pods and trees cut back to their stumps.
    Sweet Potato. Following Permaculture design, we planted sweet potato as a cover crop in our orchard. It spread rapidly, forming a dense mat so that mowing was not longer necessary. This was what it was meant to do. However, we only harvested a portion of the sweet potato crop, as there are only so many sweet potatoes you can eat in one season without becoming sick of them. This left a large food resource for the bush rats, which then proceeded to move into our house. We are still trying to get rid of sweet potato vines in our orchard. Apparently, the golden sweet potato is much less vigorous than the white variety. We grew the white much to our regret.
    Tung Oil Tree was promoted as a source of tung oil, used in the production or organic paints. It just spread into our nearby rainforest gully - up to 200 metres from the adult plants in some cases. Fortunately, the trees do not sucker and, with one swipe of a chain saw, they die and quickly rot down. Even so, two years later and we are still pulling out seedlings in the forest.

    Numerous other weedy species have been promoted by permaculturalists at various times. These included Black Locust (EW), Chinese Tallow Tree (NN), Cotoneaster (EW), Guava/Cherry Guava (EW), Honey Locust (DN), Kudzu (NN), Loquat (EW), Pampas Grass (DN), Paulownia (NN) and so forth. You get the overall depressing picture.

    It was completely remiss of permaculturalists not to make people at least aware of the weed problems that may arise from following their suggestions. One can only assume that it was done out of ignorance, but to date I have not read any acknowledgement of the serious problems permaculture has created. Apart from the weed issue, the basic principles of permaculture are sound and highly commendable. Crucially, weedy species are not essential to the viability of permaculture, as there are many alternatives.

    Non Weedy Exotics. There are many non weedy species that may be utilised - Black Sapote, Chestnuts, Citrus, Figs, Jackfruits, Litchis, Longans, Mangoes, Pecans, Persimmons and many others. They may require more maintenance than those species from the weedy list, but it is worth the effort in terms of a healthy environment/garden and superior produce. For a ground cover, we tried Lablab, a vigorous legume from South America. This species grew rampantly for a few years and then died out. It could be assessed as a possible non weedy alternative. Shaws Creeping Vigna is another legume ground cover option, as are the various Native Vigna species. Friends have also successfully tried Ground Peanut.

    Bush Foods, native to Northern Rivers - south east Queensland, are an environmentally sound option. Numerous species may be grown in bush food setting - Bunya Nuts, Davidson Plum, Macadamia, Ribeberry and so forth. They offer good prospects for permaculture design. Peter Hardwick is "at the native restoration ecology end of the spectrum of permaculture and into promoting bush foods. I love the original adaptations from natural habitat - such as productive forest edges and understorey stacking. I'm hopeful of a more reasonable approach within the movement and an acknowledgement that it was a mistake not to include weed risk into the equation".

    Permaculturalists have to accept that serious errors were made in promoting and using weedy species. This created huge problems for landowners in terms of time and herbicide required to get rid of their mistakes. Native ecosystems have been also saddled with a large influx of new weedy species with sever long term consequences. A fundamental re-appraisal needs to be made and potential weeds should be dropped from permaculture design. According to Peter Hardwick, "Permaculture is not responsible for most of the nastier weeds, but it's important that an organisation promoting ecological values and biodiversity addresses the weed issue in a responsible way. At one point permaculturists were saying things like 'plants of the world'. As if it was OK to spread weeds because they belong on the same planet! It was just plain naive. There's some great stuff in permaculture, and it's a shame that such a great concept has been wounded by a seeming inability to be more self-critical, because spreading weeds is not what permaculture is about".


    This article may be downloaded from the Nimbin Plant Selection Guide - https://www.davidmcminn.com/ngc
     
  2. Veggie Boy

    Veggie Boy Junior Member

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    Thanks Peter.

    I have often wondered about the possibility of some of the legumes becoming weeds. I'm about to plant an orchid groundcover mix that I bought from greenharvest. While painstakingly getting rid of the weeds that they will replace (some of the more difficult which I do not know the identity of), the though has crossed my mind more than once that it would be funny if the things I am about to plant are the same as what I am pulling out. I was happy to read the article referring to shaw creeping vigna as not being a problem - this is one of the plants in my mix. The others are maku lotus, wynn's cassia and villomix. Is anybody aware of these being problems.

    I have also recently planted my tree lucerne (tagasaste). I notice the article Peter posted referred to leuceana as being a potential weed problem. What are peoples thoughts on that and is tagasaste also a potential problem (suposedly being the temparate equivalent).

    Does anybody have any suggestions of other permie plants to steer clear of. I have already previously got rid of my brazilian cherry trees. I found the taste to be discusting and they were also a breeding ground for fruit fly.
     
  3. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    thanks peter very interesting article are we free to pass this around or could i put it on my page for other to read?

    veggie boy,

    as far as i know tagasaste should be mentioned it is a weed in other states and can be seen growing wild around south east qld, it's also a good grazing plant in dry times but?

    i have a few leucania planted on my property they are already growing readily along roads up here, but they seem to be very slo to grow and germinate in our sandy loam soil, i also have pigeion pea growing after 4 years it is starting to grow a bit more readily, but it dies once it is cut.

    the sweet potato thing has me thinking i use them as ground covers between my food trees ans in my gardens in the pathways to control grass growth, get frosted each year so maybe that will be the controlling factor. don't get a lot of rats here but have just dealt with some of recent times so no doubt the sweet potatoes could be their food, but the hares also like digging the tuber near the surface and eating them.

    was also thinking of coffee beans and olives, olives should also be mentioned i think, didn't want the yello qguava bit was interested in the cherry guavas and they are on the list, the yellows are enviro' type weeds up here.

    i think if we plant something then we need to manage it, and anything can become a weed we ahve areas up here where the silky oak grevillea robusta is the dominant tree but that all comes back to bad land practises by commercial agriculture and forestry industries, they creat imbalances.

    and not jsut permaculture people could be fingered here the average gardener up here dumps unwanted bromeliads agave's etc in the bush they take over, and the queen palm as does the alexander palsm all seed readily in the bush around here carried by fruit bats.

    and the final say our native grasses are under serious depletion from all those exotic pasture grasses promoted by our gov' dept's for the graziers, now there's a problem.

    anyway that's my bit

    len :shock:
     
  4. Peter Warne

    Peter Warne Junior Member

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    circulating article

    Hi Len,
    David McMinn as I said willingly agreed to my posting his article, in fact he was interested to see how much of a debate it would stir up. So I think it would be fine for you to reproduce it again - it can only spread the debate further. It would be nice to acknowledge his authorship, and he also asked me to state that the art. originally appeared in the Nimbin Good Times of Dec '04.

    Cheers,
    Peter
     
  5. Tezza

    Tezza Junior Member

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    Weeds


    Heres My 5 bobs Worth..
    By Definition a Weed is a unwanted plant..ie.A Canola crop that has say a strawberry plant the strawberry would be the weed according to Farmers..
    So in a strawberry patch a canola plant would be a Weed Too?????
    Take a natural rain forrest.....in it 99.9% would be perfectly healthy.?
    If its healthy isnt that a sign that everything there is supposed to be a part of that ecosystem...Hasnt nature chosen or allowed the said species to grow there and multiply as nature intended.In that rain forrest there could be many nice cuddly trees, bushes, fruits and animals all living in harmony together.BUT I bet there are many dangerous ugly smelly rampant plants creatures etc in there as well..ARE WE going to classify them as weeds also
    No...In canola crops we would for sure!!Would canola be a weed in the Amazon?????....YES me thinks...IF i plant Tagasaties on my land and they grow well hasnt nature allready decided that maybe the tagasatie is an ok plant and if it grows isnt that a good thing....Better then bare soil any day me thinks...Eg..An average fruit tree could be classed as a weed in some cases eg (that damm canola crop again)I challenge any of you to show any thing usefull about a Canola crop especially if its a G.M commercial crop.....Fruit trees have many different uses as us permies would probly know ...How many uses does canola have,check out how they produce margerine youd never use it again i dont.How many of you grow canola in your gardens(NOT ME)
    A Sign in my garden says weeds are a matter of judgment....Who out there has the sole discretion to determine otherwise..NO ONE
    If we are really serious about weed control I Strongly sujest u write ur local member or garden centre to complain re the thousands of introduced species being entered into aussie every year.........OH i forgot, those same people are making big bucks selling all those pretty flowers to make them selves richer..How Hypocriticle.Nurserys dont want healthy growing specimens growing every where, They want us to, but there Duds so we keep going back and buying more of their crappy duds..Healthy plants dont make People money only week insiped annuals that die easyare any use to them..
    Wake up!!! Its the Chemical Companys who want all these healthy weeds removed from our Planet....Spray a plant make a doller!!
    Just as an example in my town every few years they chop /spray/remove hundreds of butifull yellow flowering native trees(there not indiginous) so
    they remove and replace with absolute zero,nothing,Zilch.stuff all,And they call them selves a Landcare town ...Wouldnt mind if the replaced them with a local natives ...but nothing!!!!!! This is a goverment that preaches landcare but only if it suits their agenda....Id rather have anything in the ground (within reason) then bare hard claypan
    Well thats all for today hope i havent ruffled any feathers with my comments 8)
    Yours Sincerly Tezza
    Please take care with our enviouroment its our only one we got being responsible is the main objective
     
  6. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    thanks peter,

    i will associate the article with david and the publication it appeared in.

    good points tezza, i believe in course and effect, if an effect is undesirable say for environmental reasons then we need to find the cause, the real cause it is too easy to make another effect the cause, if you get my drift.

    for me folk involved in permaculture on the ground are very small % in the total population and also the amount of land we laude over is even smaller in % when taken against broad-acre farms, housing development and timber industry, all out their causing imbalances in climate and environment.

    where i live the black acacia is viewed as a weed but if agriculture and the logging industry hadn't cleared the land in the first place and then if the land hadn't been degraded by agriculture then the black acacia would not be there, it is after all a pre-emergent type nitrogen fixer probably natures way to try and repair the massive damage.

    so if we are going to point any fingers lets make sure we point them to the right places, or the greater community will get it wrong and in the end permaculture will be the looser instead of the key to helping people change how we treat this only planet we have called home sorry earth.

    the greatest weed creators in the system up here is the state government and it's forest reserves, they are loaded with grounsel as large as small trees, the seeds from this noxious weed then progress down the gullies and streams on the flood waters until it lobs on private land like ours then the shire council want us to deal with it, yet the shire can't get the qld gov' to clean up its act, great hey.

    same as the state gov culls dingoes/wild dogs from fraser island and dumps them up in the hills and bush in our area then the shire says to landholders that we must deal with dingoes/wild dogs on our properties, gets better hey. the state gov' wouldn't deal with the creatures in the 1st instance as the publicity would have been horrendouse, so sweep it under the carpet.

    also heard of people where the bush on their land is protected to the degree they cannot even remove weeds like lantana??? doesn't make sense hey?

    anyhow this debate probably has a long way to go but lets not nominate ourselves as perpetrators, lets make sure the finger gets pointed right to where it belongs, those aforementioned sacred cows.

    len :evil:
     
  7. sundari

    sundari Guest

    Thanks for posting this lots of good points i thought. Climate of course plays a big roal in how out of control a plant gets so all choices and advice need to be taken with a clear understanding of your home plot. I thought the bit about economic motivation very important too. if your lively hood depends on your garden or land you use every thing so weedy plant might be apporite because they are made full use of where maybe for some of us here with more land or less need they become too high matience.
     
  8. Mont

    Mont Junior Member

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    Tagasaste

    Tagasaste and permaculture weeds have been discussed on this forum before. Here is part of the discussion from February 2003. I think what it boils down to is that we should listen to constructive critics of permaculture, learn as much as we can about the plants we use, and make better decisions in future if our early ones were flawed. - Mont

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Jeff Nugent



    Joined: 15 Feb 2003
    Posts: 66
    Location: SW W. Australia
    Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2003 9:27 pm Post subject:

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Mont wrote:
    Tagasaste seems to get a good run in Bill Mollison's books for its advantages. You just might want to suss what it's disadvantages could be before you go into it. The biologist Tim Low in his book 'Feral Future' takes Bill to task about various plants that Low says are weeds in Australia, including mesquite and honey locust. He doesn't say much about tagasaste except that it originates in the Canary Islands and is a 'rampant plant'. Maybe the appropriate government department can tell you if it has the status of a weed in Victoria, and if so why.

    Tim lowe has done somewhat of a turn around in his new book the New Nature. Surprise, surprise it seems as though all plants contribute to an ecosystem. The native honeyeaters on our tagasaste trees have known that for years. Tagasaste flowers at a time when not much else does in our region.
    Yes Tagasaste is a weed. It is a true pioneer, an invader of damaged landscape. By far one of my favourite plants. It grows in highland tropics too.
    _________________
    Jeff Nugent, SW W.Australia 34deg.S
    Mediterranean climate -
    Hot, dry summers. Cold wet winters. Rarely a frost.
    200m elevation, 75km from west and 60km from south coasts
     
  9. Chook Nut

    Chook Nut Junior Member

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    Great topic,

    I wont try to give a comprehensive reply to everything said but i have been giving this topic some thought of late.

    I have Camphor Laurel, Tipuana Tipu (a low level weed in my Shire), Chinese Elms, Leaucaena and Pepper trees on my small plot. These 'weeds' are insignificant compared to the other weeds that grow here and all of these existed on the land b4 i came here.

    I feel as though my only responsibility is to stop them spreading... but controlling this is difficult and very time consuming or quite a reasonable financial cost. I don't feel motivated whatsoever to remove some of these until the council forces me too. I plan on planting more and more endemic natives to replace the food these trees provide for the local wildlife which struggle in our over cleared area.

    Again climate and conditions are a factor to the spread of these plants... b/c this is high grazing area the cattle actually take care of plants becoming a greater problem, even in the creeks.

    As mentioned councils and local govts are the biggest culprits.... some farmers do try while others dont.... their weeds end up spreading to our properties over and over... so whats a permie to do!?!

    So in my case i dont see my eco foot print as too much of a problem to my area but actually enhancing/restoring it. These same critics of Permaculturists have no idea of tax funded blunders caused by DPI etc; and put blinkers on to the massive damage our mainstream agriculture has done or what it will take to fix it, (if thats at all possible!).

    It will be interesting to see what impact i can have against the weeds on my property.... but lets give that 5 years or so :?

    At the nursery i work at we try to promote endemic natives to our area and explain their virtues... its nice to see how supportive locals can be when educated.... the property the nursery is situated on is a 300 acre sheep farm that had only 4 trees on it 30 years ago and now has over 14,000!

    Cheers ... Dave
     
  10. Snake

    Snake Junior Member

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    Permaculture Plant Choices

    This is a very valuable discussion for me as I am yet to plant anything on our bush block, but what I do plant, I don't wish to see it run rampant in the bulk of the block which will remain zone 5. That said, I believe that wherever possible, permaculture should endeavour to find endemic species that perform the same functions of the potentially weedy exotics, so that the weed situation does not arise. I figure that every ecosystem has plants to fill every niche, albeit that the final result of the natural process is to restore the forest/woodland etc to its former glory, not create a productive food forest outcome. Such a search for local species demands an extensive botanical and practical knowledge to research and trial plants in the same genus/family that perform similar functions/have similar growth form and habit - this is quite a challenge for me in terms of both time and knowledge!

    I recall from my PDC the discussion on weeds, and the arguments for and against introducing exotics to natural landscapes, but Jeff Nugent's point about damaged landscapes is a valid one - e.g. as I understand it, Camphor Laurel thrives on ground compacted by grazing of hard-hooved species such as cattle, and performs useful restorative functions along creeks and waterways to stabilise the ground. It is obviously a better competitor for this purpose than most native species, but then the latter have had little need to adapt to compacted ground scenarios up until a couple of hundred years ago.

    So I guess the bottom line is awareness of the potential of certain species to become weeds and a commitment to manage them as necessary to prevent this, while getting what you need in terms of your outcomes. So, the more info available, the better! :D

    Cheers!

    Mark
     
  11. Guest

    Can't see the trees for the weeds...

    I'll go out on a limb here because I've over conservationists. I'm over the idea that the Australian bush is some kind of reverent chapel that must be worshipped and praised. Environmentalism that is rooted in deep ecology and puts the environment above all else is problematic for a species (us) that relies on living with it, and not for it.

    So - some species that permaculture promotes as worthwhile productive plants may in fact be environmental weeds. Not really a very surprising statement. Very few native australian flora are very productive - this country has never had the soil for it. Of course, our eucalypts are great carbon sinks and will no doubt serve our energy needs in the future, but overall Australian food plants need hundreds of years of selection to be at a level when we can truely enjoy them in some form of abundance.

    This country has the worst soils in the world. And, if anything permaculture holds some answers to addressing this problem.

    Landcare would do well to stop planting eucalypts - awful trees when you are trying to grow food - they suck the soil dry. And, start promoting the planting of food forests and vegetable gardens to provide for local communities.

    The debate is more complex that any of us give credit. But the likes of David Holmgren, Tim Lowe and Tim Flannery all show greater depth of understanding and argument based on reason that we should be improving our soils, adapting new species and valuing weeds for the role they play.

    Biodiversity is extremely important, but in a world with so much human occupation the changing of ecosystems is inevitab;e. They do it naturally anyway. Ecosynthisys is a natural process, everything is in a state of change.

    So, the real issue is the management of systems, not the irradication of weeds. If anything permaculture demonstrates positive approaches. If we all managed systems in the way permaculture demands of us, weeds would be used in ways that they need to be and not be the problem some believe they are.

    cheers.

    Dan Donahoo
     
  12. Mont

    Mont Junior Member

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    Dan Donahoo, I haven't seen one of your posts for a while - I've missed them! Just on the subject of weeds, a while ago I put together a written plan for getting rid of lantana without herbicide for friends on a bush property. They finally started cutting some of the lantana and straight away a baby possum falls out on the ground! They gave up disheartened but are now thinking of slowly removing the lantana a bit at a time to give whatever wildlife is in the clump time to adjust. Don't know if it will work but it's a reminder that weeds perform useful services like stabilising banks and it's advisable to be ready to plant something in their place that will perform the same functions.
     
  13. Tezza

    Tezza Junior Member

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    Weeds


    Hi Everyone again ..Just a Quicky to say that im enjoying this disscussion re weeds. I feel better as most of the replys agree with me in some part :lol: I was begining to think i was the only one who thought this way 8)
    Bye Tezza
     
  14. Richard on Maui

    Richard on Maui Junior Member

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    we are the weeds

    Nothing like a good weed debate to stir up the Permies eh? :lol:
    For crying out loud, we humans are the weeds. If we can't face up to that then we should just turn into gum trees and go up in the next bushfire... :lol: The least we can do is to try to feed ourselves from the smallest amount space possible so that we can leave some wild places at all.
    btw those possums and fruit bats sure don't seem to mind the rampant exotic fruit trees invading their habitat, do they?
    having said that, once that rare and endangered species is gone, it is gone.
     
  15. Andy

    Andy Junior Member

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    Vigin poster...please be gentle!

    Not sure if you've come across this from David Holmgren:

    "...If we are serious about reducing the environmental impact of our towns and suburbs then we need to focus a lot more on our use of transport, home energy use and where our food comes from and a little bit less on whether our backyard supports three or four species of honeyeater.

    In the end, a garden full of local native plants may appear to be environmentally sound but if we include the power station, the market garden, commercial orchard and the rubbish tip in the picture it doesn't look so rosy. I believe the real reason that more people prefer to grow native plants is that it involves less work and skill than growing your own food and that food remains so cheap (while farmers go broke and farmland degrades) that most householders can't be bothered. For those of us committed to household environmental responsibility, an apple is a better symbol than a gum nut."

    Full article at this link: https://www.holmgren.com.au/html/Writings/weeds.html
     
  16. Ichsani

    Ichsani Junior Member

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    Hello, fascinating discussion! Just have some ideas on weeds & permaculture that I wanted to share.....

    What gets me you see, is that consensus agreement on what is or isn't a weed and therefore what is or isn't the responsible action, is impossible to reach.

    Us silly Homo sapiens are trying to apply binary yes/no, good/bad, useful/useless understanding to Life (well scientists do anyway and they are the ones that create these classifications). Mostly seeing what is good/bad for us. If we could all agree that might be fine, we all dislike weeds, so lets get rid of them. But hang on, my weeds are different to yours!
    How can we agree? What are we to do? There must be a right answer!!!!

    The funny (or sad) thing about all this, is that there is never going to be just one answer or indeed one list. Because mother nature didn't make weeds and she certainly dind't make lists. A weed is what WE call a plant that WE think is in the wrong place....
    If there was no-one around to decry the lantana, do you think the other plants would scream 'WEED!'? (certinly not like I imagine they would cry 'CHAINSAW!')

    Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying that we should jam all the plants we can together and see what happens. That outcome would be disasterous for us, we have a vested interest in a biota that will provide us food.
    But what I am trying to say is that the title of weed is subject to CONTEXT and that context is subject to our understanding (which is also subject to our predjudices). The more we know about local context the more responsible we can be in our local decisions. Thus a 'weed' (or plant that runs contrary to our own interests) is something that is only really agreed upon by people with the same interests in similar context.

    Thus I say continue the happy permie life, its about relationship rather than recipe anyway. Mollison (in my opinion) described a METHOD for bridging the rift between 'White Western Man' and 'Nature'. He offered a recipe (according to a method) that was a thoroughly innovative for silly westerners yet I really don't think it was intended as Dogma.

    I suspect the method allows us think beyond a black/white fingerpointing world. And the more we think about things the more likely saner solutions can be found. Lists of good and bad can't even begin to encompasss the complexity of relationships between plants, let alone the entire web of life.

    Yet they are a place to start, and attentively up-date........
    .......one ear to the ground, another to the wind, an eye for the sky..... and one thought for the fading........ of the Brazilian Cherry pie!


    Cheers for the 'weedy' tips, theres some quality info in there....... who knows we might even have enough verbal compost (especially now that I have added my lot!) to grow us a beautiful permie garden.....

    Ichsani.

    An ultimate question, yeilds many answers. An ultimate answer, yeilds only more questions.
    :lol:
     
  17. SueinWA

    SueinWA Junior Member

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    A good, thoughtful post, Ichsani. Thank you!

    We humans may not be much good at living with the land, but we certainly are good at finger-pointing!

    I found the following part of the original post rather amusing: "The originators of permaculture in the 1970's, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, completely ignored one key factor: the environmental threat posed by many exotic plant species."

    HOW DARE MOLLISON AND HOLMGREN NOT BE PERFECT? How dare they come up with a concept that is basically new to a world full of self-centered, greedy little children, and not get it all completely right? How egotistical of them to offer us the basics of a system that could revolutionize the way our planet is treated, and not provide an inch-by-inch, minute-by-minute roadmap of a totally perfectly designed plan that requires no thinking or decision-making on our part!

    Human Beans are such funny creatures, so pompous, so used to having their thinking done by someone else and trying to pass it off as their own. And if the thinking isn't clear (which is more often than not), the first rule of the moment is to fix the blame. Not the problem, just the blame.

    If it weren't for us Human Beans, we would have nothing to laugh at.

    Sue
     
  18. peter hardwick

    peter hardwick Junior Member

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    weeds and permaculture

    Finding the discussion from the article interesting.

    I live in a gully where rainforest regeneration has been displaced by a shrubby monoculture of introduced lantana. The local native rainforest is rich in foods, medicines, timbers, and craft materials. It’s also the specific habitat for threatened native animals, and rainforest is also higher in biomass - via carbon sinking in the trunk and roots.

    But to regenerate the local rainforest, lantana has to be manually removed. It’s been estimated that there’s 4 million ha of lantana in Australia. That’s an impossible amount of “cut and drop”.

    Elsewhere in Australia, other introduced shrubby weeds are monoculturing the landscape, like blackberry (8 million ha. – especially displacing riparian forest in southeast Australia) and mimosa (threat to World Heritage wetlands in Kakadu) - displacing native ecosystems including a diversity of useful plants. While permaculturists were not responsible for importing these two weeds, it’s well within the realms of possibility that both mimosa (a legumous shrub) and blackberry (edible fruit) could have been promoted if they were not already established as weeds.

    In practice, weedy introduced plants don’t fit well into permaculture. This is because: a) a self-regenerating vigorous imported plant out of context of its natural ecology, with no natural predators, is a recipe for vegetation domination; b) weeds ruin the low maintenance quality by requiring removal; and, c) weeds are often marginally useful - displacing useful plants. From experience, weed control is the major maintenance input into more extensive permaculture systems in the field.

    Permaculture is also about sustainability, and that should include biodiversity conservation. The reality is weeds are cited as a major cause of species extinction by displacing native plants/habitat. How can a system that includes biodiversity conservation not acknowledge weed risk?

    After 27 years we are seeing outbreaks of introduced plants escaping from permaculture systems. David McMinn, the author of the original article that inspired this topic discussion, speaks from experience on the North Coast of NSW, where permaculture was taken-up early. McMinn had to poison a weed outbreak coming from his permaculture system to stop the introduced species invading his neighbors’ property. If this is the reality, why be Flat-earthian about weeds?

    Also, McMinn is not anti introduced plants. Like me, he’s concerned about rampant self-regenerating introduced species escaping from permaculture systems. I mention this because some permies typically mix-up the weeds issue with an anti introduced plants argument.

    In the context of all the wonderful stuff in permaculture this shortcoming could be forgiven if the movement addressed the issue realistically. Some people in this forum may feel that we are unfair in our criticism of permaculture and its founders. But the issue has a long history, and it’s a significant point because of the damage weeds cause.

    Also, to correct an assumption expressed in this forum - as a person who’s researched bushfoods: the idea that native foods are low yielding is a myth based on ignorance. Very high yielding individual specimens have been found in the wild – in fact, wild selections are being used in commercial cropping without ANY plant breeding e.g. finger lime, macadamia, riberry and Davidsonia.

    Thankyou, Peter Hardwick.
     
  19. AmandaM

    AmandaM Junior Member

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    Without criticising any of the marvellous and thought-provoking contributions to this debate, I have these points to make.

    Nature abhors a vacuum, where there is empty ground, something will establish itself to cover the earth and protect it from the elements. The something that establishes itself will be the plant that is best able to survive the conditions available. The more out of balance that empty ground is, the fewer plant species will be able to establish themselves there, resulting in a monoculture and the classification of a plant as a weed.

    If a weed really loves the available conditions (for example blackberry or lantana on a really acid soil), they will be vigorous enough to choke and kill other more desirable plants already established. This is not because blackberry and lantana are naturally predatory, it is simply because they are the healthiest plants in that particular environment, the ones around them are already trying to die because the conditions are no longer hospitable to them.

    An analysis of truly virgin rainforest soil from Australia is an interesting thing, it shows a PH only slightly on the acid side of neutral, a cation exchange capacity in the 50s or 60s and a very high level of organic matter. If we tried to insert blackberry or lantana or whatever into this environment, it would grow, but it would not become rampant because it would be unable to outcompete the already healthy and established plants.

    Generations of traditional farming practices in Australia as well as air borne and rain bourne pollutants have changed our soil conditions to the extent that remnant forest and land cleared even only in the last 40 - 60 years is no longer hospitable to most of our native plants. While we desparately try to revegetate with natives, we fight a losing battle in trying to create a healthy forest, when the conditions can not support it. Over time if we allowed it, nature would eventually repair the damage - it may take one thousand years or more but the PH will rise again, the humus levels will increase and our natives will start to fight back. The seeds are still there, just waiting for the conditions to improve. If you don't believe me, just read about the areas of London that had been cemented over since Roman times, but nearly two thousand years later during air raids when the soil was again exposed to the light, plants that had not been seen in the district for millennia started to grow!

    We don't want to wait millennia to fix our environment though, we want to do it as soon as possible. Even if we weren't in such a hurry, short sighted government agencies demand that we eradicate undesirable plants by whatever means possible and without a thought to whether we are exacerbating the very conditions that turn plants into weeds. The funny thing is, farmers are already spending millions on poisons every year to kill the various weeds that are taking over, and the same plants grow back each year! Why? Because they are the only plants that want to live there, they are the only things that are adapted to those conditions. Instead of recognising this rather obvious situation, farmers call for stronger poisons to kill the plants and more subsidies to pay for the poisons. Sure we can try reseeding with desirable species after we've poisoned and we can fertilise with superphosphate and the like, but eventually our 'good' plants will still sicken and die. We understand this in the garden when we create acid and alkaline conditions for our ornamentals, but we lose this basic knowledge out in the fields and the forests.

    The way to turn this disastrous situation around is not by killing one plant after another and then waiting for the next one to turn feral, it is by addressing the cause of the problem, which is our damaged soils. Neutralising agents like lime, dolomite, gypsum, sulphur and so on all produce DRAMATIC results in the space of 1 - 2 years instead of 1000 years. They are natural, organic, and when applied judiciously, on the basis of a scientific analysis will renovate a soil completely. They are also a hell of a lot cheaper than poisons. Only then will the trees and shrubs that we plant have a fighting chance alongside introduced species. Only when farmers and agriculture departments have realised that we need to fix the soils and not kill the plants, will there be no "garden escapees", because there will be no bare, depleted soil for them to establish themselves in.
     
  20. SueinWA

    SueinWA Junior Member

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    RIGHT ON Amanda!

    Government and many knee-jerk reaction farmers always find the need to fix the blame, then they find a short-term solutions with more drawbacks than you can name. Rarely, if ever, do they truly address the problem.

    Sue
     

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