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  • From: Rich Blaha <rich@mossbackfarm.com>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Field Transition
  • Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2006 18:54:33 -0700

Hey all

Depending on what your goals and preferences are, it could be worth you while to seed it to any of the mentioned crops, or to mixed pasture, and graze it with cattle / sheep come spring. It's far less energy and capital intensive, and with proper marketing you can get a pretty good return on an acreage described. A great site, that is now sadly defunct, is www.managingwholes.com . There's lots of info there about the benefits of managed grazing on larger landscapes

Cheers

Rich
Mossback Farm
www.mossbackfarm.com/journal


Message: 2
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2006 08:02:02 -0300
From: "darren@permaculture.biz" <darren@permaculture.biz>
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Field Transition
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID: <4538ACAA.4030407@permaculture.biz>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Lawrence F. London, Jr. wrote:


Mathew Boerson wrote:




Hello,

My partner and I recently signed on to caretake at a 350 acre farm in central Wisconsin that is the weekend retreat of the owner. We will be moving there in the spring and look forward to a season of observation, but the owner would like some of the land worked sooner rather than later. For the last few seasons, 50 acres have been rented out to a neighboring farm for corn, but the owner would like to transition out of that. He does not, however, know what to transition into as farming is not his area of interst.

I am learning as much as I can about permaculture, and have plans to take a design course in the next year or two, but at present I'm not in a position to make any concrete recommendations to the owner. He has asked me what should be done and I fully intend to offer an opinion so as to avoid a conventional course of action.

Could anyone offer a suggestion for a reasonable cover crop to follow corn? Zone 5, sandy to sandy loam soil. There is a possible interest in horse pasture at some point in the future, but at this point anything that will be beneficial for the soil and cover it would be great. Any recommendations for resources that would specifically address this situation?


Corn to any one of these combinations for the winter:
vetch/rye, clover - red, crimson, pea/rye
spring: soy/millet, vetch/millet or sorghum or milo or oats




G'day,

Following a "hungry" crop like corn you could try and get some pasture established as a ley crop, building up the soil carbon and structure. Combine this establishment with sub soiling to overcome any inevitable compaction that would have likely occured over time. You could oversow the mixed annual/perennial pasture with something like a pea/oat crop which can then be stripped for silage or hay.

I will be in Wisconsin in November at the University of Wisconsin Permaculture Design Certificate Course which you may be interested in having a look at.

Good luck and let us know if you want more help.

Ciao,

Darren Doherty







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