What to do when your Permie role models contradict

I raise beef on pasture.  Two of the three people whose work has inspired me are Mark Shephard and Greg Judy, the other is  Joel Salatin.  Mr. Shephard plants trees in swales on contours and grazes beef and other animals in between the swales.  When I read his book he totally convinced me that that was what I need to do on my land. Made 100% sense.  Lately Ive been obsessively watching Mr. Judy  (Ive never met any of these men, so calling them by their first names seems over presumptuous, but that's my hang up) and he talks about how he tried planting trees in swales  and the swales made the fields too wet and the cattles hooves turned the pasture to mud.  He recommends just planting trees never mind the swales.  I am a bit torn on whether to install swales.   I live in an area that Ben Falk calls 'Hyper Resilient',  with the  Great Lakes / St-Laurence to the south of me and the Ottawa River to the north.  We always get winter snows and while past few summers have been dryer than usual we get rain so maybe I don t need swales.   But I will probably try them out on a 5 acre section of my farm and see how they do.  What are your thoughts?

I think there is less contradiction than one might imagine; but more of a definition of systems.  Swales, as you know, are tree building systems where water is an issue; either too much (erosion) or too little (dry land.)  I think your second author may have had a piece of land that did not need the swales (obviously.)  The question is:

What type of land do you have?  What is needed?  Silvopasture (Shepard's method) does not need swales.  (If I recall, Shepard is more about Keyline; but does use some swales)  What is your soil?  How much rain and how well dispersed over the growing season?  What will swale achieve for your piece of property?  

It all about finding the right tools for the job and applying them correctly.  Tell us more about your project piece.

We can never fully trust a land management recipe, unless its a neighbor next door. I think adding land features requires a long hard look at your land, imagining what form of moisture its getting in what quantity throughout the year and how its going to move across or through the soil/roots of your crops.

Permaculture is full of great ideas, you'll just have to game out which will fit best for you. If you want to write a lot this is the place to be.  

I think they are accomplishing the same thing in their own way. Greg Judy rolls his hay out, creating a lot of carbon in the soil. The carbon holds the water. If that works for him, why spend the $ on swales. Gabe brown talks a lot about this subject. Not rolling out hay, but how carbon in the soil absorbs and stores the water. In the beginning a rainstorm washed across the surface, now it soaks in.

I think in the end, you can't be Greg Judy. You have to be...you. Learn and apply based on your conditions. If both styles do the same thing, pick which makes better sense for you. In some of my areas there is little topsoil. The ground won't hold the water. I installed some swales, but I also focus my round bales on those same areas. In that case I am doing "all the above". A 100 yards lower and the grass stays green through the heat of my summer. In that spot i do nothing.

I think swales may not be necessary, and here are my thoughts as to why. If you're grazing the cows mob style (intensively managed rotational), that will build organic matter in the soil faster than compared to no grazing and just mowing those pastures a few times a year. I have read that for each 2% organic matter in a soil is a 1/2 inch of rain that the soil will soak up. This is separate from water that the silt and clay in a soil will absorb. Build the soil organic matter, and the soil will gladly soak up and hold onto the rain.