permaculture

[Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>]

Rain,
 
I live in a severely dry type of Mediterranean climate with between 12 to 25 
inches of rain per annum usually between October and April.  However, this 
year we didn’t get any real rain from February to November, and with 
temperatures in the 80 to 90 F range from March through October, the soil has 
been dry for about 9 months.  We have a badly eroded hillside property with 
heavy clay and hardly any top soil.  In some places there is not more than a 
foot of clay and rubble on top of the solid rock.
 
Traditional farmers here, like in most arid regions of the World, use tilling 
and manure for Dryland Faming with a Dirt Mulch.  The dirt mulch is extremely 
efficient in cutting soil evaporation to zero.  If it does rain or if 
irrigation is used, the soil needs to be hoed immediately afterwards to 
prevent soil humidity evaporating through the capillaries forming in the soil 
crust.  Irrigation is performed by flooding channels between the rows.  
Plants are widely spaced.  With zero evaporation, no transpiration through 
weeds and wide spacing it is possible to grow crops from May to August with 
_zero rain_ because all remaining soil humidity can go to the food crops.  
Wheat is grown from November to June.  This season, farmers will loose the 
cool season crop, because it only started to rain in December, which is too 
late for sowing so as to get a harvest before the next dry season.
 
This type of _bare-soil cultivation_ has permitted generations of farmers to 
make a living under very difficult circumstances.  On the downside, it is 
extremely hard labor to hoe a field in the scorching sun from morning till 
night.  There are a few old farmers who continue the tradition even today, 
but for young people who leave the land for the city it is far too hard.  The 
constant soil disturbance due to tilling and hoeing which is often performed 
during high temperature is also very bad for the soil.  As long as the soil 
was fed with manure, soil organic matter and fertility were maintained, but 
with the increasing use of synthetic fertilizers, the soil is bound to suffer 
even more.
 
I have therefore experimented with _covered-soil cultivation_ typical of 
Natural Farming from rain-rich Japan.  My experience is that an _organic 
mulch_ can never be as efficient as a _dirt mulch_ in preserving soil 
humidity.  After years of tests I found that, in my unimproved clay soil, dry 
land crops like beans etc. will at most survive for 2 months under an organic 
mulch without water (no rain, no irrigation).  In a soil that has been 
improved by compost, mulch and cover cropping for 5 to 10 years, the same 
crop may survive for 3 or more months and even produce a meager harvest, but 
it is hardly worth the labor.
 
When irrigation is used with a covered soil, much water is lost because it 
evaporates in the soil surface or the mulch layer.  Once the soil is dry, 
most irrigation water will run off the surface, vole tunnels or ant hills, 
without penetrating the soil.  Here again, the flooding used in traditional 
farming is a lot more effective since no water is lost; it all goes directly 
to the plant roots in the subsoil. 
 
After about 10 years of soil building in which I put a new humus-rich layer 
of topsoil onto the clay, I can grow most of our food without plowing, 
without fertilizers or any external input whatsoever, simply by returning 
organic matter to the soil.  But if I wanted to make a living by farming, I 
would have to use manure and tilling as in traditional farming.
 
I think organic matter ought to be returned to the soil as _a living 
substance_ to feed the soil organisms and not as _a biologically dead_ 
charcoal substance.  Biochar advocates claim that it improves water 
retention.  This may sometime be the case for sandy soil, I have no opinion 
on that.  But I believe charcoal may even reduce water retention in clay soil 
or make it water repellent when it dries out completely as it does in the dry 
season.  I have made very good experiences with organic matter in different 
forms (mulch, compost, humanure and even entire wood logs).  It is the best 
way of improving depleted heavy clay.  I do sprinkle the ashes from our wood 
stove on the fields, but I would never add charcoal.  Nor would I add lime, 
rock dust or a million other soil amendments offered by the shopping malls of 
alternative farming.
 
Dieter Brand
Portugal


--- On Thu, 12/3/09, Rain Tenaqiya <raincascadia@yahoo.com> wrote:


From: Rain Tenaqiya <raincascadia@yahoo.com>
Subject: [permaculture] arid soil building
To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Thursday, December 3, 2009, 9:21 PM


We live in a classic Mediterranean climate, with about 35 inches of rain that 
comes in intense bursts that usually start from the middle of October and 
start petering out in April.  I feel there must be a lot of knowledge about 
this climate given its long history in Europe.
 
I have started to compost in pits because it takes so long above ground.  I 
have even used tarps, as was recommended.  They help, but I really need to 
irrigate the piles to see reasonable results.  We have all sorts of fungi 
from the forest nearby, so I don't think inoculants are necessary.
 
Part of my problem could be that aside from the first year, when we had 
record floods, we have been in a drought.  Maybe this is the new normal, 
however.
 
We collect and use all of our humunure and urine, and I bring in a ton of 
leaves and straw from around our site.  I also have several long-term wood 
compost piles.  I finally broke down and got some rock dust, zinc sulfate, 
and gypsum, for specific areas.  I've also brought in forest soil from nearby 
for the main food forest and kitchen garden, which also got a layer of horse 
manure from a neighbor.  I'm thinking about spraying seeweed on trees that 
are doing the worse.  In general, however, I really want to minimize off-site 
inputs.
 
As far as biochar goes, the soil actually has a fair amount of charcoal from 
past fires.  I couldn't justify putting all that carbon in the air by burning 
all the wood around our site.  If I wait long enough, a wildfire might do it 
for me, however.  Hmm, interesting.
 
Rain


      
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>From lakinroe@silcom.com  Fri Dec  4 09:11:41 2009
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Subject: Re: [permaculture] 3rd ethic; toby hemenwat
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Ted Leischner wrote:
Hello Toby, or one who can respond to my important question about/ /'the
third ethic, *inconsistency* in Permaculture teaching circles.

This is request for clarity and for an brief explanation, please. I am
coming out of retirement to put my college ecology teaching experience
to work teaching and doing permaculture projects in the Okanagan
Similkmeen region of BC which does not yet have a permaculture
presence.  I know I am going to be asked about this eventually and the
inconsistency bugs me big time.

Mollison's manual (p.2) lists three parts of the ethical basis of
permaculture. His third one is, "Setting limits to population and
consumption". However, most of the newer books on permaculture, state
the third ethic as, Share the surplus, return the surplus or invest the
surplus. Bill's original third ethic statement seems to be more
consistent with what and how Earth Systems put the brakes on to achieve
ecologically sound sustainability. Holmgren, in my assessment states the
third ethic even better as, "Set limits to consumption and reproduction
and redistribute the surplus".  This is the reality that we need to
embrace if we are going to resolve our crisis situation on this planet
(which as a system may be resolving things anyway following a 'humans
lose, Earth living systems win' course of history).

Who and what are the reasons for the watered down version of the third
ethic?
Was the change needed to barter greater acceptance of the permaculture
movement?
Does Mollison's and Holmgren's versions of the third ethic transcend
religious, cultural, political and economic boundaries world views to
fast or too directly?
OR are their tribes of different belief systems in the permaculture
movement placing conditions on the  original hard core ecological
version of the third ethic?

Or simplified, do I socially market permaculture more effectively by
promoting the watered down version of the third ethic?

Thanks for your time with this important issue and thanks for your
excellent book, Gaia's Garden.

Ted Leischner

reply:
Dear Ted,

Thanks for the interesting question.

Part of the 3rd-ethic issue is a simple historical artifact: Mollison
married a woman, Reny Slay, in the eighties, who was a pretty good
editor, and I'm told she cleaned up and streamlined some of his writing.
The Designer's Manual was written early in this process (it's easier to
read than Permaculture One and Two, thanks in part to Reny), and therein
is Bill's original wording which includes the "limits" phrases. Reny
helped write "Introduction to Permaculture," which is easier to read,
and she and a few others were largely responsible for organizing the
ethics and principles into a more coherent form during its writing. I
believe that's when the 3rd ethic was trimmed to simply "share the
surplus." It later evolved into other variants such as "reinvest the
surplus." So some of it stems from editorial decisions, and begins with
"Intro to Pc."

My own take is that the 3rd ethic has always been slippery and
problematical for many reasons. First, even if we accept the abbreviated
"surplus" ethic, what does it mean and how do we say it? How do we know
what is surplus? And what's the best thing to do with it? This shortened
ethic has morphed from "share the surplus," which many took to mean
"give it away," to "return the surplus," which suggests that we need to
give back to the systems that support us, to "reinvest the surplus,"
which says the same thing in a more explicit way. So we're still hazy on
what surplus is and what to do with it. (I wrote an article about this,
now at
http://www.patternliteracy.com/surplus.html  )

Though I like the completeness of the phrase "Set limits to consumption
and reproduction and redistribute the surplus generated thereby,"
(another wording I've seen and one that covers the bases clearly) the
clauses and compound phrases make it a verbose mess, compared to the
clean wording of ethics 1 and 2. I can see why someone with an editorial
sense would want to clean this up to match the conciseness of the other
ethics.

But there's a deeper issue for me. "Care for the Earth" and "Care for
People" are broad and non-prescriptive. They leave the means (the
tactics, if you will) of implementing the ethics up to the individual.
There are a million ways to care for the Earth, and people can choose
the approach that suits their conditions. But when you say "set limits
to consumption and population" you are prescribing pretty specific
behavior, and it would be easy to slip into finger-pointing: "Are you
limiting your consumption as much as I am?" I don't like that, even if
the goal is both admirable and necessary. And I think a philosopher
would say that ethic 3 in the long form is in a different logical
category from "Care for the Earth." It also carries some ideological
baggage. One could argue that since one American birth has 8X the impact
of one Brazilian and 25X that of a Zimbabwean, the impact of setting
limits to population does not fall fairly on the 3rd world, and that
sort of thing. And if I conserve by driving a Prius, should a Zimbabwean
make an equally proportioned belt-tightening step, by, say, going
without food one day a week? I would save more fuel each year by driving
a Prius instead of an SUV than they will use in a lifetime, probably. So
am I limiting my consumption more?

Should I insist that a Mali farmer only have two kids, when their family
is their work force and old-age care? That's why I don't like
prescribing specific behaviors like population control for others. "One
solution fits all" is very unpermacultural; we design for specific sites
and conditions.

So I'd say the 3rd ethic still needs work. My current thinking is that
the 3 short-form ethics work as an ethical basis, and that if you follow
permaculture principles, setting limits to consumption and population
will be the inevitable result of practicing those principles. I''m not
sure the long form is necessary or worth its problems. But there's room
for debate.

I'd be surprised if anyone interested in permaculture is unaware of the
problems of consumption and population, so we may not need to beat
people over the head with that as an ethic. The principles teach us to
set limits. But the third ethic is an evolving and stimulating issue,
for sure.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com



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