permaculture

[Neil Bertrando <neilbertrando@gmail.com>]

great summary Toby

On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 9:11 AM, Toby Hemenway 
<toby@patternliteracy.com>wrote:

> I like Tom Ward's 3-phase system for implementing solutions: first, what
> he calls "quick fix", then "retrofit," then what he calls "ultimate
> permaculture." So in this case the quick fix would be to get a municipal
> compost program to deliver two 10-yard truckloads of compost per acre.
> That's the solution if you need organic matter right now no delay, (say,
> hungry neighbors needing food!) and thus you will be a little less than
> choosy about what's in it. It's taking advantage of the crazy abundance of
> resources this culture has at the moment. Then, "retrofit" would be
> something like cover cropping and tilling it in. (We'll be doing a lot of
> "retrofit," in this society, given the existing infrastructure that is so
> badly planned or damaged. We can't tear it all down at once, so we must
> retrofit what we have.) But ultimate permaculture, like Steve says, would
> be a rotational grazing program, tree crops, and perennial fertility
> builders. That will take a few years to get going, hen
>  ce the hierarchy of approaches. It also works at various scales: quick
> fix on a small area to get a yield going, retrofit for medium size, and
> ultimate permaculture to transform the whole system.
>
> This 3-tier system has broad application to a lot of design problems; I
> appreciate that Tom has given it some nomenclature.
>
> Toby
> http://patternliteracy.com
>
>
> On Dec 27, 2011, at 8:44 PM, Steve Bonney wrote:
>
> > From a practical standpoint, 50,000 lbs of organic matter is a _lot_ of
> > material. That is 50 loads on a half ton pick-up truck, or about a load
> > a week per acre (208' x 208').  That would require  the application of
> > 1250  40 pound bales of straw per acre, for example. Since I only bring
> > chemical free organic matter onto my ecofarm, I have not found sources
> > for that much mass, and I really don't want to. Of my 63 acres, 20 are
> > tillable (the rest is hardwood forest), so I would need to bring in one
> > million pounds of matter to raise SOM by 1%. The most practical way to
> > increase SOM of any significance in temperate climates is by grazing
> > animals on grass. That is how and why the Midwestern tall grass prairie
> > (Eastern corn belt) and the central plains attained SOM levels of 8-10
> > percent. Louis Bromfield claimed he was generating 1" of topsoil per
> > year on Malabar Farm in Ohio, USA.
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEBoAEb7Opw
> >
> > Steve
> > Indiana USA
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 11:12 PM, Toby Hemenway
> > <toby@patternliteracy.com>wrote:
> >>> Although 50,000 lbs sounds like a lot, it's only about 20 cubic yards
> per
> >>> acre, 40 at most. So it's not that hard to boost SOM using compost
> (even
> >>> though I'm a big fan of mulches).
> >>>
> >>> Toby
> >>> http://patternliteracy.com
> >>>
> >>> On Dec 26, 2011, at 3:13 PM, Glenn Gall wrote:
> >>>
> >>> On 9/18/2011 2:03 AM, m_astera wrote:
> >>>> How much compost or manure would one need to add to raise the Soil
> >>>> Organic Matter SOM content of an acre of soil 6" deep by 1%?
> >>>>
> >>>> SOM percentage is calculated by weight, not volume. The convention
> >>>> used is that 1 acre of soil 6-7" deep weighs 2,000,000 (two million)
> >>>> pounds. Or a hectare of soil 15cm deep weighs 2,000,000 kg. One
> >>>> percent of that is 20,000 lbs/acre or 20,000 kg/ha
> >>>> Compost and manure can be assumed to be around 60% moisture and 40%
> >>>> dry organic matter. So
> >>>>
> >>>> 20,000 / 0.40 = 50,000
> >>>>
> >>>> To add 1% organic matter to the top 6" or 15cm of soil would require
> >>>> about 50,000 lbs/acre or 50,000 kg/ha of organic matter at 60%
> >>>> moisture content.
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> >
> >
> > --
> > Steve Bonney
> > Sustainable Earth
> > a 501(c)3 not-for-profit membership organization
> > to promote sustainable farming and food systems
> >
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