Land Planning High Desert

Some ideas… If you type the lat/lon coordinates into a website like this one:  http://contourmapcreator.urgr8.ch/  It will create a contour map. Having this and site maps and satellite photos, you could begin to consider where water is flowing, types and location of vegetation, road access, and where a road / 4wd access might be. To prevent a road from washing out, it’s good to design it so water flows to the side of the road not down it.  A roadside culvert could also be a way to start water collection.  

You mentioned dolomite, so I assume there’s caliche there?  Are you thinking of a simple dirt road to start?  

In my dreams and fantasies, I imagine this: find a low spot where water flows to.  Dig a deep hole near there to mine-out the dolomite/caliche. convert it to lime mortar or cement. Use that to make stabilized earth for a road/pond/tank/windbreak/building etc. Fill in the hole with pruned material and manure and let compost. In a couple years hopefully you have fertile soil there and can plant a tree.  

Ann,

I recommend checking your soil using:

USDA Soil Map

It always agreed with what I observed in various locations.

More ideas…. Plant legume tree pioneer species (or nurture ones already there), especially ones that produce forage.  A common example is Prosopis/mesquite. These will even start nutrient cycling and soil building naturally.

There is probably already some wildlife feeding on the plants there. (For example Google says Sage grouse eats mostly sagebrush). Also, some people claim that wild pigeons will nest in a bird house made of essentially a tower of rocks. (Like a chicken coop, a bird house may ward off some predator pressure.) You could put a deep mulch bed underneath to collect the manure. What I’m getting at are possible ways to start creating desert pasture/forage, compost and soil fertility, in the case that you aren’t/weren’t keeping domestic animals on site yet, and supposing you didn’t want to truck-in soil amendments.

Like you I was wondering about inexpensive ways to store water. I don’t know of any ideal solutions.  I guess the least expensive overall (at least for “irrigation” use) is to store water in the soil itself, since people say that x% of soil organic content can hold x inches of water.

One idea is to use a free tank/container/swimming pool/hot tub.

IBC totes seem to be commonly used for this.

Steel reinfored concrete tanks can be DIY custom built onsite, but building can be expensive or labor intensive.

Clay-sealed ponds are interesting.
Yes a plastic liner is not ideal, although polyethylene seems about as benign as plastics get. (It’s a hydrocarbon like wax only a bigger molecule. That may or may not mean anything:)

A lot of pond liners seem to to be rectangular. I was curious about the optimal dimensions of a box shaped cistern to hold the maximum volume for a given size liner.  The math suggests that for a square liner, the depth should be 1/6 the length. For a rectangular liner, I figure the ideal depth is approximately:
(1/3)*(L*W)/(L+W).  (I spared you the more complex exact formula:)

Ann Davis wrote:Tony,

In my experience, fresh mulch absorbs water, but as it breaks down, the lower layers become more and more useful. At least in my old climate (18” rain annually, extremely hot/dry summers). Do you think it’s better to compost the mulch before applying? Or would it still be helpful fresh?

I want to get into rainwater harvesting, but the cost of water storage tanks is pretty high. Anyone know of any alternative storage solutions, preferably non-plastic? Besides a well and rainwater, the other thing I want to complete is a series of pond systems, I was hoping something like Sepp Holzer’s setup might work, but I feel like the learning curve for installation is pretty high. I don’t want to destabilize the hillside.

I’ll be sure to give the nursery a glance, Reno is pretty far, but I can definitely make a trip to Elko.

I really feel that bio-char will be a great asset. I really don’t know much about it, but my fiancé has brought it up to me multiple times. I’ve heard that it can increase pH, but then I read conflicting information. I need to do more research. I want to keep as many trees as possible, but I’ll definitely remove any junipers that are too close. The junipers seem to grow well with at least the pinyons, do you know any other (especially edible!) trees that grow well near the junipers?

Definitely like the pathway idea, I’ve done something similar at my parents place with front yard fruit orchard, cardboard definitely keeps those weeds down.

For the mulch, I think a lot depends on what your mulch is. Mine is made up primarily of conifers so lots of bark and pine needles. The pine needles apparently have a an anti-microbial layer on them which you can smell around the wood chipper, that pine oil smell that people use for disinfecting floors and the such. I don't mind dumping mulch directly on the ground but I try to keep new mulch farther than the dripline of a tree so that it's not futzing with the bacteria / fungal world that the plant needs. Definitely new mulch can go on paths. If you have leafy oaks and elms for your mulch, maybe a lot of this isn't a big deal. In a pinch I would use new mulch if I didn't have any other options but getting that pine oil dried out is something I try to do. The pine needles will be clearly dry and brown, that's what I look for. I've even dug up two year old mulch from paths and replaced it with new stuff, using the old stuff for plants.

And total agreement that new mulch tends to absorb some water but on net as it gets into the top soil it becomes a really positive amendment. I do add a lot of organic fertilizer because it's (literally) a ton of carbon and breaking that down uses up soil nitrogen.

On the water storage tanks, there's some cheaper options if you're handy. One that I like is taking some water tight metal culvert, stand it up vertically and sink the bottom into some wet cement. Drill a hole in the bottom side for a spigot, and bam, you've got a sun proof water storage system. https://harvesth2o.com/images/Culvert_web9.jpg . They look pretty cool too.

For the nursery they sell out early in the spring, so if you do make the drive to Reno or maybe you can tie it in with other trips to the big town, you can put your order in online so that everything you want will be there waiting for you when you arrive.

On the biochar side if/when you end up needing to burn a bunch of sage and other bushes you've cleared, get to the point where it looks all black and then dump a bunch of water on it. A 5'x5' brush pile that you quench with water at the right time will give you half a wheel barrow full of biochar, it's a very easy way to make it since you're burning anyway. I get the pile going, burn everything I want, then use a landscape rake to spread out the black-ened and still burning contents, then use a watering can to dump a few gallons on it. Whammo, bio-char. I have a complex retort I use for larger logs and the such but the burn-pile approach is really stupid easy. The ash is what makes it really alkaline, so just flat shovel the black stuff, try to avoid the ash, rinse it in a wheelbarrow, pulverize it, and if you have some mulch you're leaving out for a year, mix in there if you don't have any other ideas. Dump some organic fertilizer on it to inoculate it. You'll be done with all of that in an hour's time. And then you have this kick ass mulch with biochar just getting better and better over time for you to put it on top of other mulch in a few months or a year. Optimally I like to let it over-winter because the snow and spring does a good job of wetting / rotting things a bit. Not much of that happening in the summer. What you really want is that spider web fungus to start growing on your mulch and getting into the biochar.  And just like the wood mulch over time works its way into the soil, the chunks of biochar mixed in do the same. I also add some well innoculated biochar into holes I'm planting, maybe a fistfull for a tree, a smattering for smaller plants.

I really don't know anything that works well with Juniper, they're just terrible plants to any of their neighbors. I don't mind having them on the property unless they're close to something else I care about, then it's bye-bye juniper. You'll start to see it too. A plant might not be doing so well, you'll dig it up, and right in it's root area is a massive juniper root from 50' away, just sucking up all the nutrients and water.

Edit: and about the biochar, ash and smoke are products of incomplete combustion so if your burn pile is getting a ton of oxygen and is burning really hot you'll actually have very little ash. Sage (alive and dead) burns up fast and out in the open on clear dirt it's got no problems breathing so again, not a lot of ash. That means you're burning when it's dry outside which has its own risks, but I think that's pretty manageable. Low wind days, early morning, add things bit by bit, have a lot of clearing between your burn pile and other vegetation (maybe 20' in all directions) with some rakes/shovels and a fire extinguisher nearby.

Check the state of Nevada hunting regs before planning on hunting anything. I believe the whole state is a controlled hunt area for deer and elk. You may not be able to legally hunt big game on your own land without the proper tag for your area.

As far as grouse hunting goes, Sharp-tail Grouse and Sage-Grouse (the types that are in your area) are scarce and I don't think you would want to kill what few grouse may be on your land. Chukars and Gray Partridge (introduced species) are fairly common and have more liberal possession limits.

Get to know the people who are farming those irrigated hay fields in the distance, there will be more game down there if you can get permission to hunt. Those snowy mountains will probably have Ruffed Grouse which are more numerous.

Have you met any neighbors with land similar to yours?

The biochar craze seems like an over-hyped myth. I watched videos of comparison test trials and biochar didn’t help.

I found an article claiming many options for juniper guilds.  

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Biochar as a cure-all magic potion is definitely overblown, but there's evidence you can't dodge that says it's beneficial in a variety of settings. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8470807/ . And there's a lot of variation in terms of the soil it's going into, what it was made from (feed stock), how hot it was cooked, if it was inoculated, etc.

Brondo’s got what plants crave! Brondo’s got electrolytes!

Thanks for all the tips and ideas guys, sorry I haven’t responded, I’ve been mighty busy working to save more money for the move plus putting in the infrastructure before the snows hit (planning on settling here after the snowmelt in spring). We are currently building our road, but the might have to break out the hand shovels due to the slope (we have to put the access road in a specific location due to our easement rights). The road is just in the beginning stages, we’ll need to flatten it and possibly add gravel depending on the cost. The animal life up here has also been amazing, the amount of pronghorns and grouse is just mind boggling, unfortunately no pheasant as far as I can tell.