permaculture

["Lisa Rollens" <rollens@fidnet.com>]

Hi All,  

Everyone must be out in their gardens because the list is so quiet!  Hope 
everyone is having a successful season.

Here in the Ozarks it's so HOT and humid that we are all dying, or staying 
inside.  With the windows closed and fans on, even without A/C, it's 10-15 
degrees cooler than outside.

I have a question that maybe someone can help me with.  We all read in most 
PC literature to use N2 fixing trees as nurse trees and for soil building, 
etc.  Seems like a fine idea.  But one of my PC friends said that in our 
temperate climate, trees just do not fix worthwhile amounts of N2...that is a 
tropical phenomenon.  True or false???  I have not read or heard a single 
thing about this being false.  If you have read anything that backs this up, 
or have any experience, one way or the other, please let me know.

Thanks!  Lisa, in the MO Ozarks, USA
>From dwoodard@becon.org  Tue Aug  5 19:26:00 2008
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Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:25:39 -0400
From: Douglas Woodard <dwoodard@becon.org>
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Subject: Re: [permaculture] Nitrogen fixing trees in temperate climates
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A few years ago I encountered a book several decades old at that time (I
think a Dover reprint, can't remember title or author, just possibly
Aldo Leopold's "Game Management") which showed pictures of conifers (I
think white pine or white spruce) grown in Wisconsin with and without
black locust. The conifers grown with black locust grew much faster.

Around 1980 I read an account of some Russian work (possibly from
somewhat earlier, 1969?) which reported that poplars grown with caragana
grew faster.

I have been told that dwarf hackberry in the Niagara Peninsula here show
a growth spurt a few years after planting which is due to their picking
up helpful symbionts which grow in association with their roots,
producing root proliferation. I don't know if they fix nitrogen or not.

Doug Woodard
St. Ctharines, Ontario, Canada


Lisa Rollens wrote:

[snip]

> I have a question that maybe someone can help me with.  We all read in most 
> PC literature to use N2 fixing trees as nurse trees and for soil building, 
> etc.  Seems like a fine idea.  But one of my PC friends said that in our 
> temperate climate, trees just do not fix worthwhile amounts of N2...that is 
> a tropical phenomenon.  True or false???  I have not read or heard a single 
> thing about this being false.  If you have read anything that backs this 
> up, or have any experience, one way or the other, please let me know.
>
> Thanks!  Lisa, in the MO Ozarks, USA