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Relationship between crop areas and and pasture area

 
pollinator
Posts: 1981
Location: La Palma (Canary island) Zone 11
9
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The excrements are left everywhere on the ground, sure, good for nature.
And good for more grazing the next years!
But but but! Most people want to get some pooh for their crops!

I see no way to have the animals pooping were it is needed in crops! Well yes, in rotations. Or else they would eat the crop if it is a perennial one.

If we speak about greening desert, I do see the advantages (I speak about goats as a local example of my place):
- Goats leave excrements into nature.
- People watching for goats also watch for starting fires.

I do know that some places are not suitable for growing crops, so I do really ask an open question, and I was enthusiast at discovering the method, because I did not agree with vegetarians about saving the world by eating grains and getting rid of animals.

If we want to feed animal manure to the crops, then a different system is needed isn't it?
So I wanted to know if holistic planned grazing is "only" (and great!) a separated grazing method, or if there is a link with crop management?

Thanks! Let spread more grazing animals for the good of the soil!
 
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Xisca
In any perennial crop field it is not easy as you state to learn ways of having animals dung and urinate directly and I have no experience doing that although it would be interesting to try to work out ways. Where we are gaining experience is where crop fields only have crops growing in them during the humid or growing season. And there we are pioneering work in Zimbabwe where we bring the crop fields (about 10% of the land) into the holistic planned grazing. We are using predator friendly ways of running the livestock and this involves moveable overnight holding places or kraals. With the animals in such kraals we can protect them from lions and other predators at night while in the day we have them grazing to plan under herding.
Those overnight kraals we place on the crop fields during the non-growing season prior to cropping for short periods of about 5 to 7 days. So we have hundreds of animals crowded in a small area on the field every night leaving a lot of dung and urine. And then we are planting generally polycultures of crops into those fields with no other preparation. So far this is working well with yields averaging 3 to 5 times former yields or yields on nearby untreated fields.
During the humid or growing period of the year the kraals are still moved regularly but are placed generally on land we are trying to change dramatically - bare hard capped areas, eroding gullies, heavy bush we are trying to open up and so on. There again the results are dramatic and I showed some in the TED talk.
 
Xisca Nicolas
pollinator
Posts: 1981
Location: La Palma (Canary island) Zone 11
9
purity forest garden tiny house wofati bike solar
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Thanks for this answer, again!

I mainly have an orchard at the moment, so I will try to get my neighbor lead his goat herd into my place some day!

I understand very well the use of animals in between annual crops.
The problem is to work with perennials, as in all permies project I think!
 
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