permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>]

On 11/1/05 12:19 AM, "Jara" <jara@otenet.gr> wrote:

> Why not simply 
> broadcast super biodiverse (100 + indiginous species of trees, shrubs,
> canes, berries, herbs, annuals, perennials etc etc etc) Fukuokian seedballs
[snip]
> Having done this I can vouch for the efficacy of
>the whole thing

I am very interested in hearing more about your experience with broadcasting
over 100 species of native trees, shrubs, canes, and herbs in seedballs. I
would expect germination rates for native trees and shrubs in particular to
be so low as to make this unworkable; I would also expect the herbs and
canes to completely choke out the tender, slow-growing tree seedlings before
they could be established.

Or did I misunderstand the quote and you have worked with seedballs--which
are great--but not in the way you suggest? I don't think that idea will work
for the above reasons and a few more. The article that was cited described
an attempt to create crop-producing polycultures, not native assemblages.
It's conceivable that broadcast-seeding just the right natives (adapted to
specific soil, aspect, etc) would work since these are species that have
seen each other before and thus might, if properly chosen, be able to
partition resources among themselves without killing each other or
succumbing to deficiencies or pests. But it's rare that so many natives get
seeded at the same time in nature, hence I suspect the broadcast technique
is not actually mimicking nature at all! And if you're working with a
food-based polyculture with species from many regions, you're going to have
to do some selecting and nurturing and tweaking, not to mention successional
planting and replanting, to make sure all the pieces survive and can work
together. Fukuoka's plantings were very simple and painstakingly worked out
over time, not random jumbles. I've tried the "plant it all and let God sort
it out" method and it results in a vicious tangle followed by dominance of a
few vigorous or site-adapted species.

Broadcast seeding can work well with a single species, where, say, you are
planting many seeds from a promising tree and want to see what selections
result that are promising. And broadcasting a mix of annuals, or sometimes
perennial herbs, can work, but when you mix fast growers with slow growers,
big with small, usually the result is death of all but a few.

Toby
www.patternliteracy.com