Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Coconuts & permaculture

permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: permaculture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: christopher nesbitt <christopher.nesbitt@mmrfbz.org>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Coconuts & permaculture
  • Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2008 19:50:58 -0600

Hi Jurgen,

It sounds wonderful where you are. I have never been to Brazil, but we are having a PDC here right now with Albert Bates and Andrew Goodheart Brown and Albert has pictures of a very large and impressive permaculture project in Brazil, which I would love to visit. Also, Bahia is a large cacao producing area, using the cabruca style of production, which I have wanted to visit since I worked in the cacao industry. Cabruca is now a favored method of production after being displaced by chemical dependent monoculture. Do you have any pictures on line of your place?

What cultivars of dwarfs do you have? We have the Phillipine and Malayan dwarfs, plus the large coconuts (many have died) and the "Maypan" which are dwarf/large hybrids. We also have some coconuts from the village of Barranco, a Garifuna community, which are enormous. I have them planted, and they may fruit in the next few years (if they don't die. I am not sure if they are LYD resistant).

We have tried arachis pintoy below our coconuts, and, when there is enough sun to warrant it, cannavalia ensiformis as a cover crop. We are intercropping many of our coconuts with glyricidia stakes for living tutors for vanilla, too. Most of our dwarfs are less then 10 feet tall to the bottom of the fronds (the older ones got toppled in our hurricane in 2001), so not much opportunity to underplant or intercrop with cacao or coffee, one potential future model which we aspire to, but we have used maize, pigeon pea and pineapple as companion plants in coconut dominant polycultures during establishment to get a quick return.

Our coconuts are spread out all through our agroforestry system, so they are part of a larger matrix of plants. We have 400 plant species we work with and are building an ethnobotanical collection with the University of Floridas ethnobotany dep't, with about 300 other species.

We also have a fair amount of peach palm, which is also a good energy producer. We are applying a patchiness to our coconut production, looking for suitable microclimates and spaces in the canopy for coconut, planting 3-15 in an area, then large areas with few coconuts. Sometimes we have coconuts within 8 feet of each other, which is less space than suggested by most people, but it works for us, less mulching to do, and the over all effect is positive. Close planted trees did not tip over in the hurricane, for example. Most of our cultivated area faces the equator on an east west ridge, though we have a few other slopes that face east or west. Mulching is important for moisture retention.

We get 160-180 inches of rain a year, with a pronounced dry season from February through June. Most of our rain falls in June, July and August. We don't irrigate our tree crops, though we do a lot of mulching for target trees.

We grate our coconuts, strain them to make coconut milk, then let the water settle, skim the top, boil down the balance to oil. We get a lot of coconut meat when we do this, which our chickens eat, and we have a place to put a piggery in the next few years, which is going to be fed with much of the partially defatted coconut meat.

Also, husks can be used for fuel, and shells, but we use some for mulch for vanilla. The fronds are used extensively as mulch, and we are running trials on direct contact with the root zone and away from the root zone. A theory is that mulch close to the tree could be a vector for "red ring disease" which is caused by a nematode. Even LYD resistant cultivars are susceptible to red ring. So far we have not had a problem.

I would love to hear more about what you are doing.

Best wishes,

Christopher






On Mar 15, 2008, at 3:42 AM, JŸurgen Botz wrote:

Hi Christopher, and thanks for your response to my query about
coconuts. We have a little farm in Southern Bahia, Brazil...
the climate here might be quite similar to Belize, since you're
at about 17 degrees North of the equator and we're at about 17
degrees South. But, graças a deus, we don't have hurricanes.
So I'm particularly interested in learning more about your
farm and what works for you.

Our farm is 18 hectares, two thirds of which are Atlantic rain
forest... the rest had been cleared by the previous owners some
years ago and planted with coconuts and pineapple. The soil is
poor to very poor clay loam and sandy clay and the coconuts were
planted rather closely spaced (4m x 5m) in rows. They are mostly
of a dwarf variety, with a few rows of talls here and there. All
in all there are about 400, 200 of which are still too young to
produce.

We're in our second year here now and I've made some progress in
soil improvement, gardening, raising chickens, etc. The dwarfs
in our "zone 1" are now doing quite well, thanks to graywater,
nearby compost piles, etc. (The clusters on the ones near
compost piles are now growing with 20-30 nuts!) But I'm
thinking that we will have to take some more drastic meassures
about the rest... removing at least 1/4 or them altogether,
and replanting some of the remainder in a more harmonious
relationship.

How much rainfall do you get and how regularly? Do you
irrigate? What have you found to be helpful or harmful
to grow immediately under your coconuts?

Also, how do you produce coconut oil? The oil on the local
market here is all produced the hard way... manually opening
the nuts, grinding the copra, roasting and then boiling it,
and finally skimming off the oil.


Thanks,

:j

_______________________________________________
permaculture mailing list
permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Subscribe or unsubscribe here:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
Google command to search archives:
site:https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/permaculture searchstring





_____________________________
Christopher Nesbitt

Maya Mountain Research Farm
San Pedro Columbia, Toledo
PO 153 Punta Gorda Town, Toledo
BELIZE,
Central America

www.mmrfbz.org







Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page