permaculture

[Cory Brennan <cory8570@yahoo.com>]

I was told by someone that Oikos plants 4000 trees to get four that they will 
use. So you do need some land to do that. But we can all do that to some 
degree - I have my "experimental zone" on land that I'm working where I just 
try stuff just to see what happens. 
 
 

________________________________
 From: Ben Martin Horst <ben.martinhorst@gmail.com>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org> 
Sent: Sunday, December 23, 2012 12:59 PM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] fruit trees
 
At least some evolutionary biologists have attributed the
on-again-off-again production of mast crops as an adaptation to prevent
predator populations -- e.g. squirrels -- from growing to damaging levels.
The squirrel population (for example) is essentially limited by the oaks'
production of acorns in poor years, so in the good years there are huge
quantities of acorns left for propagative purposes. I don't know if this
applies to other irregular producers (like apples) or not, but might be
worth bearing in mind.

-Ben

On Sun, Dec 23, 2012 at 9:17 AM, Douglas Hinds <cedecor@gmx.net> wrote:

> On 12/23/2012 8:33 AM, Frances wrote:
> > Sea buckthorn not only produces a highly nutritious fruit (which
> requires processing and gloves to harvest), but it is, reputedly, a most
> adaptable plant to earth conditions, and has natural protection from other
> creatures that might want to harvest the fruit. And, it is a nitrogen fixer!
> Many excellent tropical fruit bearing trees are also legumes.
>
> > ... an apple and pear specialist ... explained what the off/on nature of
> apple harvests was about – this, no doubt, applies to other fruit trees as
> well...
> Yes but - from my experiences (primarily with subtropical fruit, i.e.
> avocados), some varieties are prone to this behavior (heavy crops one
> year but light crops the next) while others are not. Furthermore, while
> thinning may be good anyway (to obtain larger fruit), there are other
> alternatives, such as growing a variety that produces it's heaviest crop
> during the off years.  That way you'll have plenty of fruit all the
> time, to eat and sell.
>
> In any case, these are genetically based traits, so how hard can it be
> to develop a cross that tends to produce every year?  After all,
> _somebody_ had to develop or reproduce the varieties already in use.
>
> > People often refer to the phen. of an ‘on’ year and ‘off’ year for apple
> harvest.  What Bill explained was that, the trick is to thin the apples
> when they are the size of ping pong balls, making selections among closely
> located specimens... Otherwise, the tree has such a huge hormonal output
> that it has little energy for the buds it is also preparing for the next
> year. The trick is to even out its hormonal workload with a result of a
> more consistent year-to-year yield. Otherwise, what happens is that the
> buds are few for the following year on the year of a huge apple outlay, and
> then, in the year with less apples, the buds for the following year are
> proportionately higher in number... Very interesting to learn about the
> life cycle of the apple tree, we thought, and to understand more about its
> productivity cycles.
>
> Once again - I seriously doubt that the phenomena you refer to is an
> innate characteristic of apple trees per se. I would expect that trait
> to be present in _some_ apple varieties but not all. And remember, those
> of you who think seedling apples are inherently bad are rejecting the
> means of resolving this issue.  IOW:  If the quality of most seedling
> apples is less than ideal, all it means is that we human animals still
> have more work to do, since that is exactly where all new varieties come
> from:  Chance (or intentionally crossed) Seedlings that are then
> reproduced by whatever means, and if the means isn't planting seed, the
> genetically instability will continue to remain.  So plant the seeds,
> see what you'll get and then plant again. :-)
>
> DH
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Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 13:52:07 -0600
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The third paragraph down was sent unfinished. This post corrects that.

On 12/23/2012 11:59 AM, Ben Martin Horst wrote:

> At least some evolutionary biologists have attributed the
> on-again-off-again production of mast crops as an adaptation to prevent
> predator populations -- e.g. squirrels -- from growing to damaging levels.

Squirrels collect acorns and bury them in the ground, where some of them
sprout.  That makes squirrels the oak trees best friends and
evolutionary partners, who do more good than harm, as long as oak trees
keep producing more than squirrels can eat.  In that sense, for an oak
tree to develop an alternating high/low production strategy (which
attributes anthropomorphic motivation to oak trees), it would be
counterproductive to it's own reproductive success, since the squirrels
would eat them all and none would create baby oak trees.

Also, not all evolutionary biologists think alike.  Personally, I
subscribe to Lynn Margulis's Serial Endosymbiotic Theory (SET) which
emphasizes Fusion and Association (essentially collaboration, mutually
beneficial survival strategies), over Darwinian Natural Selection
(essentially, Competition). Lynn (along with the English environmental
scientist James Lovelock), is associated with the Gaia hypothesis.

She died last year and Wikipedia has an excellent summary of her
considerable contribution to science, including:

   She later formulated a theory to explain how symbiotic relationships
between
   organisms of often different phyla or kingdoms are the driving force
of evolution.
   Genetic variation is proposed to occur mainly as a result of transfer
of nuclear
   information between bacterial cells or viruses and eukaryotic cells.

   While her organelle genesis ideas are widely accepted, symbiotic
relationships
   as a current method of introducing genetic variation is something of
a fringe idea.

Well, if our mitochondria contain DNA of a bacterial origin, and life
began with single celled organisms over 3.5 billion years ago, it means
that we (and all other living organisms) are descendents of bacteria.

Read "Symbiotic Planet : A New Look at Evolution", Basic Books, 1998
ISBN 0-465-07271-2

Also:

Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origins of Species, Perseus Books
Group, 2002 ISBN 0-465-04391-7

   She also holds a negative view of certain interpretations of
Neo-Darwinism,
   excessively focused on inter-organismic competition, as she believed
that
   history will ultimately judge them as comprising "a minor
twentieth-century
   religious sect within the sprawling religious persuasion of
Anglo-Saxon Biology."[9]

   She also believed that proponents of the standard theory "wallow in
their
   zoological, capitalistic, competitive, cost-benefit interpretation of
Darwin
   � having mistaken him... Neo-Darwinism, which insists on [the slow
accrual of
   mutations by gene-level natural selection], is in a complete funk."[9]

   She opposed such competition-oriented views of evolution, stressing the
   importance of symbiotic or cooperative relationships between species.

She is smiling down on all of us at the moment.

> The squirrel population (for example) is essentially limited by the oaks'
> production of acorns in poor years, so in the good years there are huge
> quantities of acorns left for propagative purposes. I don't know if this

> applies to other irregular producers (like apples) or not, but might be
> worth bearing in mind.
>
> -Ben

Yes I agree.  Particularly on Sunday.

DH


> On Sun, Dec 23, 2012 at 9:17 AM, Douglas Hinds <cedecor@gmx.net> wrote:
>
>> On 12/23/2012 8:33 AM, Frances wrote:
>>> Sea buckthorn not only produces a highly nutritious fruit (which
>> requires processing and gloves to harvest), but it is, reputedly, a most
>> adaptable plant to earth conditions, and has natural protection from other
>> creatures that might want to harvest the fruit. And, it is a nitrogen 
>> fixer!
>> Many excellent tropical fruit bearing trees are also legumes.
>>
>>> ... an apple and pear specialist ... explained what the off/on nature of
>> apple harvests was about � this, no doubt, applies to other fruit trees as
>> well...
>> Yes but - from my experiences (primarily with subtropical fruit, i.e.
>> avocados), some varieties are prone to this behavior (heavy crops one
>> year but light crops the next) while others are not. Furthermore, while

>> thinning may be good anyway (to obtain larger fruit), there are other
>> alternatives, such as growing a variety that produces it's heaviest crop
>> during the off years.  That way you'll have plenty of fruit all the
>> time, to eat and sell.
>>
>> In any case, these are genetically based traits, so how hard can it be
>> to develop a cross that tends to produce every year?  After all,
>> _somebody_ had to develop or reproduce the varieties already in use.
>>
>>> People often refer to the phen. of an �on� year and �off� year for apple
>> harvest.  What Bill explained was that, the trick is to thin the apples

>> when they are the size of ping pong balls, making selections among closely
>> located specimens... Otherwise, the tree has such a huge hormonal output
>> that it has little energy for the buds it is also preparing for the next
>> year. The trick is to even out its hormonal workload with a result of a

>> more consistent year-to-year yield. Otherwise, what happens is that the

>> buds are few for the following year on the year of a huge apple outlay, and
>> then, in the year with less apples, the buds for the following year are

>> proportionately higher in number... Very interesting to learn about the

>> life cycle of the apple tree, we thought, and to understand more about its
>> productivity cycles.
>>
>> Once again - I seriously doubt that the phenomena you refer to is an
>> innate characteristic of apple trees per se. I would expect that trait
>> to be present in _some_ apple varieties but not all. And remember, those
>> of you who think seedling apples are inherently bad are rejecting the
>> means of resolving this issue.  IOW:  If the quality of most seedling
>> apples is less than ideal, all it means is that we human animals still
>> have more work to do, since that is exactly where all new varieties come
>> from:  Chance (or intentionally crossed) Seedlings that are then
>> reproduced by whatever means, and if the means isn't planting seed, the

>> genetically instability will continue to remain.  So plant the seeds,
>> see what you'll get and then plant again. :-)
>>
>> DH
>>

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