Subject: Re: Small scale permaculture sources (fwd)
From: [email-masked] (Steve Diver)
Date: 16 Feb 1994 00:18:38 -0500
Newsgroups: alt.sustainable.agriculture

> Can anyone suggest good sources of information on permaculture
> that are usable for people with large yards or small farms?
> Also information that is aimed at either southerners or
> midwesterners in the US?  The only thing I have ever seen was
> aimed at people on another continent and while the concepts
> were helpful, the specifics weren't.
> Sharon
> [email-masked]

 Permaculture, like sustainable agriculture, is a concept 
 that strives for a goal of ecological land management and 
 food production.  It is more specific in its set of ethics 
 and principles by which to design these systems, however.
 
 In practice, permaculture adopts alternative farming systems 
 that are regionally adapted.  Thus, in the United States, 
 some of the best examples of permaculture systems are in 
 agroforestry. 
 
 In Missouri, UMC people have perfected alleycropping row crops
 and forages between black walnuts spaced 10' x 40'.  A 
 permaculturist would use that as a base design and increase
 the density of perennials and annuals in the black walnut
 tree row.  Leaving the middles open for mechanical planting,
 cultivation, and harvest is a necessity for commercial production.
 
 This is but one example of how permaculture is definitely 
 adapted to temperate U.S.  Permaculture is by definition adapted 
 all anywhere in the world.  The principles of ecology are
 the same, it is we humans who must strive to understand and 
 apply these principles where we live.  
 
 Forst Gardening is a famous book that goes a long way 
 towards enhanced understanding of a food garden based on 
 a mix of perennials and annuals.  
 
 In Nepal, a lady villager had a field with three row crop 
 strip rotation--buckwheat, mustard, and [damn I forget]--that was 
 surrounded by a berm.  This berm was essentially a "forest
 garden."  By this I mean a highly intercropped polyculture of 
 short, medium, and tall trees and shrubs with annual herbs and
 veggies intermixed.   
 
 This scene could be replicated in any cropping system in
 any state in the U.S.  Highly diverse, strip crops in fields
 laid out for mechanical agriculture (using the best organic-
 sustainable farming practices, of course), surrounded by 
 hedgerows of incredible food diversity.  Increase diversity, 
 increase productivity, increase natural ecosystem effects.  
 Emmulate natural patterns as seen in nature, especially forest 
 eco-systems.  Take advantage of the "edge" effect and layer
 plants.  Plant "apparent disorder" by studying chaos in 
 nature and fractals on computers.  Study aerial photos of
 any river system in the world, especially deltas.  Or, study 
 mitochondria. 
 
 Another commercial ag example:  
 In Arkansas, Eric Ardapple Kindberg adapted the Keyline 
 Chisel Plow system to commercial, organic vegetable production.
 In "Permaculture One", see the Wallace Plow.  The Yeoman plow
 as it used to be called, is very similar.  These are all 
 based on para-plow points on the end of a subsoiler shank.
 These systems cut deep slots through the soil, thus enabling
 roots of cover crops to penetrate deeper, bring subsoil 
 nutrient to the surface, and depositing organic matter deeper
 down.  Eventually soils worked by this system are higher
 in organic matter, have good tilth, and more fertile.
  
 Eric says that periodic subsoiling results in "micro-bursts," 
 a term used to describe the well-known microbial population 
 explosions that result when you incorporate organic matter 
 (i.e., green manure, etc.) into the soil.  Microbes secrete 
 gluey slime that hold soil particles together and cause soil 
 aggregation and good crumb structure.  Eric operates Fertility 
 Implements in Bass, AR. 
  
 Permaculture as an agricultural science is largely 
 unexplored in the U.S. land-grant system but one
 that has enormous potential.  In fact, permaculture
 has great potential in the core curricula of our 
 colleges and high schools.   
  
 It's not just for farmers and gardeners either.  Cities
 are black holes for the earth's resources and cess pools of 
 pollution.  Get people thinking along the lines of permaculture
 and the planet will see a change for the better.  
 
 Think about it, we can't have a sustainable agriculture 
 without a sustainable city-culture. 
 
 Permaculture=permanent agriculture + permanent culture
 
 Steve Diver
 Fayetteville, AR
 [Hailing from the land of the oldest and largest agroforestry 
 system in the U.S., the Pecan Belt;; native pecans reaching 
 120 ft high into the blue Oklahoma sky, grass-legume mix, and
 cattle or sheep inter-grazing in the shade of the trees;; what
 better way to spend 100+ degree F. days, eh?]