permaculture

[Paul Cereghino <paul.cereghino@comcast.net>]

"I let the grass grow until after the petal fall and then scythe it down 
as a sort of mulch in place."
What about concentrating it to spot mulch new trees?  I have been 
playing with this approach... just because that nice tall succulent 
growth is easiest for the scythe.  The scythe also lets you place the 
material as you cut if you noodle through how to approach the job so you 
start from the center of the aisle and end your swath close to the row.  
So you end up with strips of mulch with mowed strips between.  I have 
been scything and spot mulching, and so I get increasing islands of 
mulch around each tree over time.

Plastic weed fabric is VERY effective -- and I have used if for many 
applications.  There was some research out of eastern WA, USA that 
clearly demonstrated that it not only passed rain and gas, and created a 
nice seed bed underneath, but also retained moisture well.  I have often 
laid a strip, then planted along an edge then laid a second strip with 
slits perpendicular to the role.  The problem is that it photodegrades, 
and get covered with litter and stuff... but it never turns to soil.  
Then you have this plastic fabric enmeshed in vegetation and litter.  
Something about this endpoint is unsatisfying.  I tend to like it as a 
temporary treatment (2 years will kill Himalayan blackberry).  In this 
way it can be reused a couple times, and is good for reveg where you 
just need a little edge to get the forest running again and you are 
short on skilled labor, but have a budget for some 1 time materials.  
Sometimes you can get these materials free and recycled off of a reveg 
site after a couple years of use.

Even then... I still look down on it... as an inelegant solution.  The 
fossil fuel dependance.  The cash outlay to a petrochemical industry.  I 
wonder what the embedded energy cost of fabric is.  It makes sense if 
you measure it in cash.  Can you compare it... weigh it against a 
machine and fuel costs for other treatment approaches.  My scythe and 
spot mulch approach wins hands down in carbon.  If you are running an 
orchard for maximum fruit production per unit area you will always make 
choices like this -- then your in agriculture trying to make use of 
permaculture concepts, not the other way around.

The other angle I am playing with is using a nitrogen fixing fuel wood 
intercrop (alder?) to help with weed control.  Overplant in a swath from 
seed.  The self thin, and replace grass with leaf litter.  Harvest some, 
girdle them, and plant with oyster mushrooms in 10 year.

Paul Cereghino

hris Jackson wrote:

> In the orchards I've worked at, I implemented what is known as the sod mulch 
> system.  Michael Phillips who wrote the Apple Grower is a big proponent of 
> this.    By letting the grass go, you are also keeping fungal spores in the 
> understory during the wet spring.  This has worked well on large projects 
> where woodchips or other mulches from off farm would be way too much.  This 
> can be done again in the fall to expose rodents to raptors and to add more 
> mulch.  This doesn't completely get rid of grass, but it speeds up succession 
> to more of a fungal balance in the soil, where as constant mowing keeps the 
> understory more bacterial.  The Apple Grower has lots of data showing 
> increased yields and reduced disease and pest problems using this method.  
> Give it a try!
> Chris
>
> Rich Blaha <rich@mossbackfarm.com> wrote: 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 
> > ------------------------------
> >
> >    
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