permaculture

[Claude William Genest <genest@pivot.net>]

Wow great input - so concise too ! Yes it came from Abe who's doing a  
whole Yeomans style makeover of his farm. I think the idea of soil  
creation and carbon sequestration might come from Yeomans ?

Re: methane - I understand that what makes cows so flatulent is the  
grains and that this is reduced by pasturing ? also, there are the  
biodigesters for recuperation of methane = electricity....

I wish we had a drawing of what you are describing....


Best Regards,

Claude William Genest

 - Founder  Green Mountain Permaculture Institute of Vermont
Solutions, Sustenance, Sustainability
www.greenmountainpermaculture.com

- Creator  "Regeneration - The Art of Sustainable Living"
From "Something-Must-be-Done" to Something we can do !
www.regenerationshow.com

- Ecological Coordinator
Club St.Paul Ecological Golf Course

- Vice-President  Green Party of Quebec "pour nous et nos enfants"
www.pvq.qc.ca

- National Spokesperson Green Party of Canada
"The Future is Now ! "
www.greenparty.ca




On Jan 27, 2006, at 2:57 PM, Will Carey wrote:

> Claude...
>
> I'm guessing that you're quoting from a previous email (below) by Abe
> Collins? You didn't refer to him, but I did a bit of research about  
> the
> Cimmaron Dairy reference and found this link to his HRM class  
> offerings:
>
> <http://vtcommons.org/node/316>
>
> So he's evidently quoting Allan Savory about the amount of soil  
> building and
> CO2 reduction.  My copy of Holistic Management is buried at the  
> moment, so I
> can't look up a reference, but it sounds like something Savory  
> would say.
> And it could be true..I don't have any references to look up.
>
> But there's a problem with the quote at the bottom:  methane  
> emissions from
> the bovines..... And frankly, all ruminants.  Methane is a much more
> destructive greenhouse gas than CO2, from what I remember.
>
> While I'm a meat-eater and dairy consumer myself... And speaking as  
> a man
> who just threw a bale hay to the heifer about 15 mins ago..... We  
> need to
> re-evaluate some of our blanket assumptions about "Grass  
> Fed=Good."  In
> general, yes,it's better than feedlots, but free range doesn't mean  
> free
> lunch. I hope we'll start taking a systems view of the pasturing  
> and feeding
> of ruminants.
>
> We can probably cut down the methane production of ruminants by re- 
> thinking
> the use of "predigested" feeds like silage.  If we could also think of
> incorporating alcohol fuels as a bi-product of the silage making  
> process, we
> get a double yield:  alcohol fuels for the machines and low-methane- 
> emmision
> cows, etc.
>
> And if you add to that the use of high-yield grasses... Such as  
> bamboos...
> Planted long the nutrient-reuptake bioswales at the bottom of  
> pastures...
> And use those for the silage/alcohol fuel making, you get a third  
> benefit of
> clean run off from the grassland pastures.  Which cuts down on  
> algal growth
> in the ponds, creeks, ditches, etc...making the "nutrient sump"  
> area easier
> to clean. Giving you a fourth benefit.
>
> So the system looks like this:
>
> Pasture runoff =>Nitrogen fixed in Bamboo Bioswales => Bamboo  
> chopped for
> Alcohol Stills =>Predigested "Stillage" fed to Cattle=>lowered Methane
> emissions from ruminants and Biofuels yield.
>
> The late Simon Henderson... Our Bamboo Guru in Seattle.... worked with
> Washington State Extension service on field trials for this sort of  
> thing.
> They had great yields and good results for nitrogen uptake.  But  
> the results
> have not been published, according to Daphne Lewis, who worked with  
> Simon on
> the project.
>
> I posted something about this before..... If anybody's interested in
> following up on this, let me know.  I'd love to see
>
> Will from Oregon
>
>
> on 1/27/06 09:00, permaculture-request@lists.ibiblio.org at
> permaculture-request@lists.ibiblio.org wrote:
>
> >    Our atmosphere is comprised of the waste gases of life on earth,
> > or life within a living earth.  The atmosphere is the breath of
> > Gaia.  By increasing biodiversity and building topsoil,  through
> > eating the meat and dairy produced by holistic grassfarmers, humans
> > can reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to pre-industrial levels
> > within a decade.
> >    I hope that this news gives you hope."
>
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