Mohamed Ahkim

Matt McSpadden wrote:Hi Mohamed,
I'm a little late to respond, and I certainly think that there is a time and a place for picking an animal or plant and adding it to your land because you want to. But I want to suggest that you back up a little. All too often, people (like me) will find a permaculture technique (swale, keyline, herb spiral, keyhole garden, hugelkultur, food forest, etc) and have a desire to add it to the land. Not all those techniques will work well in all landscapes. They are different tools for different places.

It sounds a little bit like you are saying that you want to do what Richard is doing in your area. The reason Richard is successful is because he is applying techniques (and even animals) in a way that works for his climate. I would like to suggest that instead of asking "How can I do that here?", that you ask "What can I do here?". You will have all sorts of cool things that you can do, because you are in a dry area, that Richard cannot. And he will have things that you will not be able to do because he is in a different climate.

The best examples I could think of are Geoff Lawton and Brad Lancaster. Geoff Lawton is probably the best Permaculture designer in the world (my opinion), and years ago was featured in a documentary called Greening the Desert. I cannot find the original, but I did find a playlist with all kinds of updates about it. Explaining how he did what he did. I would definitely check that out. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL321kfqP1fZnWTPPpqZUN9ntP2-rjIP39

Brad Lancaster from Arizona also has some pretty cool stuff... though most of what I have seen with his stuff is Urban.

Hi Matt, thanks for the post.

I am aware of the danger to go and imitate someone in a totally different climate zone. I need solutions which work in my region.
You can read about what I currently think to do my previous post.

The permaculture movement is great, but people like Richard offer more realistic solutions to use permaculture in agriculture and food production.

I also think there is no other solution to combine vegetation and animals in my region, than using tree rows and mostly small animals between the rows. Note that I want to create a regenerative business.

I think the big difference between me and richard is that I need more tree rows, and let the 'pasture' rest in the summer (instead of winter on richard's land).

Mohamed

dee Vos wrote:Hi Mohamed

There is no-one that immediately springs to mind, but perhaps some more context might help.

What parts of Richard's operations do you want to implement? Is it just the pastured layers?

What is your current set-up in the area where you want to integrate chickens? You mention tree rows, and your hot-dry summers - what is your water retention and access situation, what is currently between the trees, are there any other systems in the same area that need to be considered?
Also, are there suitable local chicken breeds?

Sorry for all the questions but the right information will make all the difference.

Hi Vos

I want to implement his whole idea of 'grazers (sheep) first then layers' and growing fruit trees in between. But the business part is clearly the layers.
So in my region the fundamental trees are olives, nuts, figs ...
But Olives is number one importance.

I need to say that I am still searching for the right land, where I hope to have groundwater (even if it is 200m deep). So currently my goal is to use my time efficient and think about good possibilities.

We can count on approximately 40cm of rain yearly. That is not much, but I think I can apply irrigation splinker daily (from october until mid june) on 800m² for the grazers so that when the 1200 layers follow (If I assume I can have the same density as Richard) there is much more life in the soil (insects, greenery). Mid june to october I need to think about where to put those chickens, because it will be hot and I prefer to let the 'pasture' rest with its long grass to keep the moisture in the soil high.

My hope is that by doing 'regenerative' agriculture the soil quality will be much higher so that the rainfall will mostly be absorped by my land. Therefore I need to sprinkle less and less in the future, + my land will hold more and more moisture.

Thank you for mentioning the chicken breed, I is evident that I need one for my climate (those with big red 'combs').

Mohamed

Hi people

I hope you are doing good!

I have the ambition to run something similar as what richard perkins does in Sweden, in northern Morocco (hot and dry summer, +-30cm rainfall). Of course our climate and Richard's climate are opposite.

Therefore it would be great if I can find someone like Richard whom I can learn from or follow a course on how to raise pastured layers. I think that in my climate we must use tree rows (olives and so on) and leave more space for the pastured layers/broilers.

Thank you for any lead or advice (y)

Mohamed

We have a small olive grove of about 40 trees. I noticed
a significant amount of olives fell of almost all trees. The olive
become brownish and when it is all brown covered the olive falls by the smallest
breeze. I took a picture of some of them from one particular tree, these were not yet on the ground.

I would be happy to know why this happens and what this disease or pest is. Thanks!

Roberto pokachinni wrote:There is a lot more information, if you are just beginning your permaculture research, so what I wrote is a basic layout for general desert ideas.  I suggest that you invest in a PDM (Permaculture Designer's Manual), written by Bill Mollison, and check out the drylands section.  Beyond that you should watch everything that you can find online about Geoff Lawton's greening of the desert project.  If you have degraded land with existing trees, or existing remnants of living trees, then you should probably also check outFarmer Managed Natural Regeneration  

I am a few years into permaculture with quite many hours of thinking about it. The book of Bill Mollison is already in my library, it contains so many ideas and facts. About your latest remark: there are some trees (sidr )in the surroundings of the land so copying the trees would be helpful.

Along the journey I will ask more questions God Willing

Thank you for your answer Roberto. You gave me important information which i should consider further. I dont have really real experience with (dryland) farming but I am totally convinced that is the path for me.

The title says it. I am thinking about how to design a possible land including fruit fields and crop fields (see for example the Wadi rum permacukture project in Jordan). See the attachment for a drawing to make the problem clear. The climate is semi desert, rainfall is say 5 inches yearly.

I know that we should keep in mind that wind barriers etc should be included in the design.

Thank you

Thank you for the information, now I know better what to do

Thank you for the replies

Tyler Ludens, your idea sounds ok when you indeed need small quantities of soil.

Su Ba, thank you for the advice. How do you incorporate the compost in the topsoil without destroying the top soil? When you put new plants in, you can add the compost first than you add the plant. When you have "perennials", why don't you just 'mulch' it with compost?

Peter Ellis, your philosophy is correct. I thought too much in terms of working less instead of "keeping all the energy and fertility on the property".

Thomas warren, I am thinking about a dry climate (20 cm of yearly precipation, 1100m altitude East Morocco). Is the compost usable months after it decomposed?

Hi,

this is a great forum. I was thinking about mulching and compost. Is the "permaculture" mindset that you mostly use compost for plant nursery (you need transportable fertile soil), otherwise you just mulch the (fixed) plants?

Is it possible to create a (stable) manure 'bank' and a (stable) carbon bank (wood, leafs,...) so that you combine them only when you need fertile soil? I was thinking about this because I saw how Goeff Lawton created his 1 m^3 compost heap and made it use ready in only +-20 days. This way I would know when I need to start 'combining' manure with high carbon stuff and gives me a lot of freedom to manage fertility.

Mohamed