design for self sustaining system

Discussion in 'Designing, building, making and powering your life' started by IntensiveGardener, Feb 16, 2008.

  1. IntensiveGardener

    IntensiveGardener Junior Member

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    Hi all,
    As i may have wrote before i'm trying to set up a food farm with minimal inputs, particularly of organic matter. I don't mind bringing in a bit of lime and soil amendments.
    I have vegie beds, berry patches, orchard, hay areas, cow pastures and chook runs.
    My aim has been to connect all these different systems together in a benificial way without using too much labour. Obviously design is important here. The chook runs are near the orchards and hay/pasture so i can run the chooks there too. Between the chook runs and the vegies is a composting area.

    I'm having trouble getting the ballance right. I know the question is highly subjective but does anyone have any expereince on how much pasture is needed to cut enough hay for a square meter of permanent mulch (15cms deep)?
    How does the equasion change is i graze cows on the pasture them use manure instead of hay?
    I probably need more deciduous trees too as i'm sure they would help that equasion.
    cheers,
    IG
     
  2. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    IG,

    I will have a go. Ultimately though it is all about variables, land quality, fertility etc.

    Where you are located there are both willows and poplar cultivars that are excellent cut & mulch plants and worthy of consideration. Field peas and broadbeans for winter would provide you with huge amounts of mulch. Forage maize or oats in summer.

    I dont know how much land you have but certainly any of the local hay contractors will give you an estimate of bales-per-area. Using contractors is pretty efficient if you have land.

    Good luck
     
  3. IntensiveGardener

    IntensiveGardener Junior Member

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    Hi ho-hum, thanks for the reply.
    I'v got about 10 acres of land to work with here. 8 of pasture 2 of cultivated land (vegies, berries, mulch crops etc..) Its pretty good land with red volcanic soil and decent rainfall.
    The hay contracters around here are hesitent to do such a small area so i'm grazing it with a cow & calf.
    I'v got quite a few japanese poplars and willows and also some tree lucerns becoming established. The poplars and willows are very large so i tend to use them for their decidous leaves. I also cut branches for the cow in an attempt to make up for the manure i take from the pastures.
    How big do you suggest i grow them for mulching purposes? I'v seen people cut tree lucern fairly low and keep cutting the young tender shoots for mulch. can i do the same with these?
    ig
     
  4. Jez

    Jez Junior Member

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    G'day IG,

    You can pollard young willows and poplars for stock feed at around the 2m mark, then they'll grow nice and bushy and easy to manage.

    You can either have a series of lock up/hedgerow fodder systems and let your animals browse them at their leisure (including the pasture), then move them onto the next area to let the just browsed area recover, or cut and carry to them and use the remains for mulch.

    Personally, I think the lock up/hedgerow fodder system method is superior...saves a fair bit of work long term and I'd imagine that is vital to you if your high production couple of acres needs to be the major focus of time usage. What isn't used for fodder is all gain on the mulch side of the ledger. If your poplar and willow trees start looking a bit ragged after browsing, you can cut them off practically at ground level once established and they'll thrive again.

    Tagasaste thrives on being pruned young and made to develop a low habit - so it can't be ringbarked by browsing stock. Aside from browsing by larger animals, you have the bonus of high protein taga seed for your poultry (they also really appreciate taga leaves).

    Some other trees you might associate here and there in the mix for all their benefits are mulberry, black locust and honey locust, plus a variety of bee forage plants and perennial pasture grasses.

    Fodder tree systems are in some ways an easier proposition for sub-tropical areas and upwards (certainly in variety of species), but they're also great for temperate areas.

    Undoubtedly you're going to get a bigger mulch yield by interspersing fodder/mulch trees through your pasture.

    From the notes I have, you're looking at roughly 500 taga's planted 0.5m apart in a hedgerow per full grown dairy cow - that's assuming only slim pickings of seasonal pasture in a relatively arid area. There's a lot of info out there on tree fodder dairy systems (right down to intense scrutiny of optimum nutritional intake), so you shouldn't have any trouble getting the info you need just off the web.

    Hope that was some help.
     
  5. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    IG,

    I concur with Jez.

    Something else you may wish to consider given your climate is 'sun traps'. I read about them in Perm One [I think] but because I live tropical it wasnt a strategy that applied.

    I thought I would bring it up as I cant remember seeing discussion about it on here. I was thinking some of your poplars may be huge and could be designed into a suntrap.

    The willows I would cut down as required with a view to having them nearly all as 2m stumps so you can use them as ongoing browse. From memory your area can have very dry summers so you will need a summer forage strategy to get you through.

    In NZ last year I saw a lot of 'chou molier' being grown as cattle fodder. It is called Jersey Kale or French Kale as well. It grows about 2m high and looks like a tobacco plant. You might find a space in your garden plot to grow some for yourselves and your cow. It seems to be able to handle frosts and a bit of snow.

    Here is a link to some suntrap sites.


    https://www.google.com/search?clien...permaculture&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

    cheers
     

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