Sanjay Arora

What happens when aquatic plants and plant feeding fish are introduced into an earth/clay sealed aquaculture pond?

Do the roots of the plant create leakages as they dig through the soil below the pond?

Do the fish dig out plants while grazing on them, thereby creating leakages?

Hello All

I am thinking ponds. But gaps in my understanding remain and I ask all of you to contribute to my education on the subject.

How to plan a pond when you want a deep pond to maximize water storage, say 20 meters depth/approx 60 feet and you find that water table fluctuates between 40 feet to 75 feet. What are the issues here? What if this pond is to be dug in clayey soil & What if this pond is to be dug in sandy soil & sealed with various means? No plastic sealers.

How deep do freshwater fish live?

How deep do aquatic plants go?

What are the issues in very large ponds...say minor lakes...10 acres plus? Any pointers/resources to research on this?

Any/all help will be appreciated!

Regards.
Sanjay.

da wanderer wrote: I'll check my reference books and see what I can find.

Hello Wanderer

Can you please advise books which have this kind of information? Also, any books which tell what plant does what to the soil (fixes nitrogen, consumes nitrogen, makes x mineral bio-available etc.) and what leaves & wood of a given plant do to the soil, post-mulch and etc.

Will appreciate all/any advise.

With regards.
Sanjay.

osker brown wrote:From what I'm hearing, I would suggest that you spend some time reading the first few chapters of Mollison's design manual, and try to more clearly define your goal.

Thanks Osker

You can be sure I will be reading all the books I can, in addition to undergoing a PDC, and discuss the project with as many people as I can, before I start designing it. Maybe I will even hire a consultant, "after I can talk his talk" and of course if I can afford it.

With best regards.
Sanjay.

Robin Hones wrote:
If you pick up Bill Mollison's "Permaculture - A Designers Manual" and/or "Introduction to Permaculture" you will see many examples of larger scale permaculture projects. In these projects the "actively farmed" elements often include polycropping on a designed basis not a random basis. For example, a row of n-fixer trees that also supply mulch and shade, followed by rows of taro, casava, corn, pigeon pea, etc, etc in systems of strip planting on contour. How interactive or stacked these polycopping systems are depends on your climate, soil, target crops and imagination.

Taken down a level, there is no reason why you couldnt guild under a tree using a root/herb/shrub/vine combination (which might also be in concentric circles). If you kept the guild to, say, 6 members which had distinct physical differences (no more than 1 or 2 in each category) then there should be no issue about your laborers needing a botany degree. You could have mutiple such guilds, which would give you the variety you want of understory plants without the same level of headache for identification and harvesting.

Thanks Robin

I believe you just removed my misconception. I eagerly await the books!

On question though, does Permaculture have any Pattern (existing) for using poultry or anything else to clean insects on a large scale? I couldn't find one. Creation of small sections would be too costly on a large area. Looking for an alternative here!

IAC. Thanks again.
Sanjay.

osker brown wrote:From what I'm hearing, I would suggest that you spend some time reading the first few chapters of Mollison's design manual, and try to more clearly define your goal. A lot of the things you mentioned like "keeping it all zone 1&2" are not compatible with whole systems design. I'm not an expert, but 100 acres of intensive crop production does not sound permanently sustainable to me.

I have ordered the books and am yet to get them. What I have learnt about Permaculture is from the Net. From the moment I started reading about it...it made sense except for a few things and am awaiting the books to see if I get clarity on those.

To me sustainability means that land should not be degraded, but be enhanced, even if at the cost of some productivity. Wether that intensive crop is 1 acre or 100 acres....is immaterial.

osker brown wrote:I'm currently working on a design for a 110 acre site and zones 1 and 2 as of now comprise about 5 acres. Zone 3 is probably 10-15 acres, the vast majority is zone 4, where we'll be doing coppice/standard systems with nut crops, small animal grazing, and diverse understory plantings. By designing most of the acreage with low maintenance systems, it will be easily maintained by 2-3 people.

In the west you have a high labour cost. It is therefore natural that whatever design you build, you will decrease the requirement of people as much as possible...and it makes sense too. Hence the need to have bigger zone 4 & 5 and smaller zones 1 & 2, which have intensive cropping, requiring people.

This does not apply everywhere in the world. All low labour cost countries, including mine, India, would prefer to have higher intensive cropping (of course, sustainable), even if it means that we must employ more people.

osker brown wrote:The object of your design is the thriving health of the humans involved, with a healthy regard for the ecosystem they inhabit. Statements like "That would decrease the high value crops we are looking to plant." sound out of place to me.

I do not mean this negatively...but Permaculture movement has a lot of purists. Profit is not a four letter word. It is when People & Companies forget that Profit is a means to an end and not an end in itself, it is then that the rot steps in. Realization of maximum yield from the Permaculture farm, or profit if I dare say so, does not mean end of sustainability.

On a farm, as long as we add nitrogen fixing plants, don't remove biomass, encourage humus formation, soil improvement etc...it does not really matter wether we crop intensively or not. It is not chemical farming with monocultural crops.

I believe that Permaculture can deliver higher crop yields than that are being planted till date. World will need a lot of food....especially if we are looking to replace the chemical monocultural farming. Either Permaculture will evolve to find ways for crop intensification or some sort of polyculture cropping system will evolve with some of Permaculture's tenets built in.

I am a newbie and don't mean to say that I know a lot, but I can see that Permaculture is a great system. Here, in low cost labour countries we can afford some specific enhancements suitable for us....till labour costs rise and we need to adopt your model...but its far...far away.

In the west, you have no choice....its either machines & chemicals....or allowing additional immigration, temporary or not, to harvest all that food in Permaculture farms. Both would not be acceptable to you.

Phil

Yes, Neem is frequently planted here to take care of the insects, and I certainly intend to do that.

What I need is an idea of a pattern that can be used, making picking of the herbs easy and other issues laid out in my earlier posts. Pigs I don't think are an option, as they dig up too much and around the herbs that would be problematic.....or so I think. And dairy animals would have their own issues. Normally 100 cows would need 20 acres of fodder, if planted in a monocultural way. That would decrease the high value crops we are looking to plant.

Role of Animals in our farm would be minimum possible required by Permaculture methodology. We would not be selling any meat, so that's not a harvest for us...Milk & eggs, yes.

Phil Williamson wrote: I don't see how mixing ground crops in is a problem plant them in between the fruit trees in selected areas. One area you plant a certain under-story another area you plant another under-story.

Are you telling me we could plant one herb intercropped as an undercrop in one area and second herb as an undercrop in another area? Wouldn't that be normal intercropping under a monocultural system. I thought Permaculture always required Plants to be mixed (by mixing the seeds, so that one has little control over what comes up where) and that Permaculture is looking for companion cropping benefits in such ways, e.g. so that one plant is fixing nitrogen while the other is consuming. Maybe I'm wrong but that seems monocrop intercropping, done frequently here in Orchards....isn't Permaculture different in this by mixing up of all understory plants?

With regards.
Sanjay.

Before I came upon Permaculture, I was fixing up on companion planting of fruit trees of two or three varieties, plus other intercropped crops & some veggis, honey bees for pollination & so on. One of the major issues there is the fruit flies & the pesticide use to control it, chemical or organic.

What I liked in the Permaculture approach there, was the use of hens, ducks & toads to pick out insects and especially in the case of fruit flies...hens pecking out larvae out of the fallen dead fruit.

The mixing of multiple varieties of fruit trees was also attractive, each flowering at a different time, derisking the marketing...even though the picking was problematic, it was acceptable.

Problem came with herbs, IF planted as an under-crop in the food forest & that too, all mixed up.....and this problem applies wether 1 acre or 100 acres. To distinguish between these co-planted (seeds mixed & planted without any control of what herb is where) plants, the gatherers would have to be or will have to become botanists!

And if herbs crop is planted as a garden crop in beds, with different varieties in different beds, then the problem goes away....but the forest concept remains stopped at trees....it becomes the normal cropping pattern, of course with circle one permaculture methods. But the crop does get reduced too much in acreage.

In the west, cost of people is the biggest deterrent to achieve this. Here in India, It does not bother me if I have to hire 100 employees to tend to my 100 acre farm and have it all as zone 1 & 2 and no or minimal zone 3, 4 & 5. It does not also bother me to create couple of small villages on the farm for the employees. In fact, if the farm generates higher employment, that's good!

I am happier with a Permaculture farm if it requires no machinery & more employees than the partially mechanized farming I was proposing to do earlier. I am especially happy with the soil improvement I am going to get in addition. We need employment generation here in India, alongwith sustainable farming practices.

I have checked out Mark Shepard's site....although he has given indication of his tree crops....he has not mentioned undercrops. And although he has mentioned mechanical harvesting...he has not mentioned how or what. Maybe I should get in touch with him to join this thread But from what I could see, his solution would probably not work here because of lower labour costs & high unemployment, variables are altogether different here. Due to that intercropping of veggies or ordered planting of herbs would work better, much higher returns than feeding animals among the orchards.....but that would seem to upset this mixed planting that Permaculture advocates.

Thanks....Hope some else gives another viewpoint and I can understand that Permaculture is workable for me, so as to intensify my study efforts.
Sanjay.

Rabid Chipmunk wrote:The diversity of permaculture is also it's achilles heel when it comes to competing with traditional commodity crops.  I mean your harvesters would probably need a degree in botany to figure out what was a crop!

I think most large scale monoculture societies have forgotten the real reason they are farming and that is to produce ample & nourishing food. Its NOT to run harvesters!

When Corporates run farming....they want machines....who won't want minimum wages, pension schemes, good working conditions & so on. Humans want all these & they are costs. Many run in perpetuity, like the liability for pensions. Corporations don't want to produce nourishing foods. Their target is to earn long term & short term money, while reducing short term & long term liabilities. That the business that is earning them money is that of farming, is just incidential!

That is why they want harvesters, pesticides, terminator genes (<start rant>I sometimes idly wonder about the terminator gene, if transfers itself to humans, what would it do...require humans to buy a child from Monsanto?!!...and BTW, many things they say can't happen..do happen...<end rant>). They don't want seasonal food pickers from Africa or other third world countries. What if someone suggested that they be given better pay, better conditions, more security & so on......oh no...machines, monoculture, non-nourishing foods & pesticides are better! BETTER FOR THE BOTTOMLINE!

Sorry for the rant...but that's the way I see it.

Ciao.
Sanjay.

Hello All

I am a 43 year old guy from India and have been reading voraciously about Permaculture from last one month. I am a SME businessman with little experience of farming, beyond occasional work in the home garden.

My life style till date has been frequent travel within the country & internationally, long & uncertain working hours to the extent that my body does not know its own sleep and wake-up rhythm. However, I am physically OK, just the effects of too rich food and too much work & partying. In the years past somewhere, I have lost my love & zest for travel. Even on a holiday or in the evenings, all I want is to curl up in a chair & read a book and eat home food, rather than go somewhere out.

Sometime ago, holidaying in a rural area, I decided this is what I want for the rest of my life. I decided to quit my business and go in for farming. It was in this context that I started researching farming, organic agriculture etc. when I came across permaculture. Everything I came across made sense instinctively, so I knew I was going in this direction, if I could swing it.

I have ordered Mollison's Intro to Permaculture & Designer's manual and Gaia's Garden. Looking for recommendations for others.

Meanwhile I have several queries about Commercial Scale Permaculture. Despite looking I could not find examples of large scale permaculture food forests. I target a 100 acre food forest (on flat land)....fruits, herbs & veggies. Can someone please point me in the correct direction.

My questions e.g.

- How does one use hens/ducks to pick insects in a 100 acre farm...the sheer management seems undoable!
- Using Toads...just how many ponds does one construct, in 100 acres and linking them...just how?
- Picking fruits from randomly mixed trees or worse picking herbs in randomly planted plants/shrubs across 100 acres....nightmare!

and many more similar ones....for a small farm, all examples are there and frankly, I like & appreciate them and they seem workable. But the moment one changes the context from a small personal farm to a big commercial one...I stop getting things.

Issue is....despite a hankering for simpler life....doing without business is not for me. I am thinking that a big farm would be good amount of business as well as a much simpler life than the one I now lead.

So, I am looking for guidance & pointers at this forum, on all aspects of my query....especially the large commercial permaculture examples.

With best regards & thanks.
Sanjay.