permaculture

[Rich Blaha <rich@mossbackfarm.com>]

In our small orchard, grass is the default understory, mostly because I 
haven't yet rustled up the gumption to sheet mulch it's entire 40x150' 
area.  Some of that was a lack of commitment, since I planted the fruit 
tree overstory, and never really settled on the entire understory 
elements of the guild.

In that time, however, we've cut swales into the slope, and ran chickens 
under the trees with some regularity...while the system is still 
dominated by grass, it has shifted from Agrostis species (bentgrass, a 
carpet-forming, drought-deciduous, shallow rooted grass) to a much 
higher component of fescue and orchardgrass, with more subclovers and 
chicory present.  Since the main income of the farm is from rotational 
grazing, those species are like gold, since they stay green all summer.  
Woody perennials that I've added on the outskirts (outside of chicken 
destruction range) are goumi and yellowhorn

I still have to mow it, but if I keep the chickens on it until April, 
they really stunt the growth of the bentgrass, and the other, more deep 
rooted herbaceous species are able to thrive.  As the trees mature, 
sheep will be able to do the mowing.  In the meantime, a couple of 
rounds with the string trimmer per year keeps the fire danger down...I'm 
not too worried about the cosmetics of it.

An added bonus of the chickens is they especially like to work over the 
drip lines of the trees...they keep the grass pretty wiped out close to 
the trunks, which I think should help reduce the water competition 
between my trees and the grass.

Cheers

Rich
www.mossbackfarm.com/journal

>   4. Re: grass in orchards (was Geese as guards?        Imprinting?)
>      (Paul Cereghino)
>  ---------------------------------------------------------
>
>  
>
>
> > > Marjory,
> > >
> > > It seems that many orchardists grow grass under their fruit trees.  I
> > > don't understand why.  My (limited) understanding is that the grass
> > > roots occupy roughly the same space as the fruit tree roots. 
> >    
> Depending on the scale you work at, it takes work to get away from 
> grasses, and grasses may dominate over time under neglect... then 
> mowing or grazing the grass becomes the alternative to letting the 
> grass grow and become more competative... but then mowing/grazing can 
> be a disturbance that encourages grasses which are well adapted to 
> that kind of distrubance -- you're in a feedback cycle. In some 
> settings, fruit yield is limited by soil moisture, and so reducing 
> transpiring leaf area in association with your trees could be a 
> strategy to increase monocrop yield. Not saying its a good idea, or 
> the best solution -- just is what it is and can pay the bills if you 
> happen to be brainwashed into thinking about bills ;) So Fukuoka has 
> good ideas for converting to non-grass plants, but it looks risky from 
> the perspective of someone conditioned to like the control of mowed 
> grass, and transition to a semi-wild system may in fact be risky for 
> yield as you figure out what the hell your doing. ~Paul 
> ------------------------------