Desert Tree Establishment

I guess this will be my thread for my Desert Tree project.....

THE LAND:
Site#1 - Sonoran Desert, USA.
- is around 33N latitude.  
- about 1100' above sea level.
- around 9" of rain per year, most of which hits in the late summer.
- hot, highs are 105-115 F + in the summer.
- lows in winter are 30 to 50 degrees.  Freezing is very rare.
- property is almost perfectly flat, there is slope, but almost imperceptible.
- water table used to shallower in the 1950's, maybe 70-120' (lolz at "shallow").  Now its 500-600'+ due to over pumping.
- the property is in a small flood plane or sorts, but it takes LARGE storm events to flood (a few inches).
- soil is primarily a silty clay.  The top 3" stays soft, below that, its dry and hard.
- little vegetation, there a few scattered mesquites, some kind of small sage bushes/salt brush things.
- (actually, they are complete dried out "sticks" now, but I believe there are Wolfberry plants here.  Some are still alive)

Its some piss-poor property a got duped into buying when we were having a real estate boom pre-2008-ecomonic-distaster.

THE METHOD:
I'm going to use a type circular depression to for a rain catchment to establish some trees.
I have access to some drilling equipment I modified....
....I actually came up with this idea decades ago, but never got around to implementing it.
Our equipment makes different type of circular dirt mounds, or volcano shaped piles, depending on what we are doing.

Here was the 1st experiment in our equipment yard.



After we shaped the ground, we set up a simple yard sprinkler.
The conical shape of the ground initiates sheet flow toward the center of course....it doesn't take much water sprinkling down to get things moving.
The other 'idea' is the reamer arm leave a small berm around the edge of the depression.
In the case of a MAJOR storm event, I don't want the entire sheetflow for several of the surrounding acres to wash out the system.
I think there would be too much erosion and silt deposition rendering it in effective....also worried all waterlogging the plantings for several days.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CB5rljLJiEH/

So we dug in (10) of the Water-Lenz®© and we tried to plant in some Moringa Trees using the Groasis Waterboxx to nurse the saplings.
The thinking was there they are super fast growers, and drought tolerant.
Problem was gophers ate them.  Twice!
We evolved 3 generations of protective wire baskets and covers to keep them away...
They actually started off quite well and grew quite a bit.   Its a shame because one of the same set of saplings I planted my backyard grew to 9' tall with almost no water.
(had to top it already).

So after designing up a subterranean basket system, with a wire protective (above surface) cover, I decided to just try native mesquites.
They have been in for 2-3 weeks and appear to have not-died.

I may try the Moringas again.   As I think the current wire basket design is working.
Not only do the gophers want to eat the plantings, the earth around the Waterboxx is cool and moist !
They want to move in !  
The moringa was long since gone, but the gopher was really enjoying its new micro-climate here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CD1wWgnJrFK/
They also chew down the wick on the Waterboxx ....sucking the water out!

Actually, if I can keep the gophers outside of the (new) basket system,
their holes and burrows will be an advantage once it rains and ponds.
Rainwater will obviously flood the burrows and will be "planted" down deep in the subsurface.
The burrows probably have feces, organic debris, etc in them.
(I'd rather not kill off the gophers, with traps)


I only planted 5 locations to start.
I'm glad i did NOT 40-50 ..... I would have had a massacre.
The slow proto-typing is working out in the end.

I think I will also try Mexican Palo Verde (parkinsonia aculeata)....just from a biomass accumulator standpoint.
Out of all the native/quasi-native palo verdes here, the M.P.V. is the one the drops its pine-needle-like stems.
The other just shed the small leaf-lets.   The stems tend to accumulate around the base providing a "mulch" and biomass.....they don't blow away so easliy.
The other aspect of the WaterLenz®©TM .... is it should just start collecting and trap any plant-debris blowing around.

I may try to plant the  M.P.V. along with a Wolfberry as a symbiotic partner plant .... someone or something could eat the berries obvs.
MPV would be the legume, the Wolfberry the 'crop'.   Also, I think the Wolfberry would trap a lot of the MPV's leaf litter as well.

The bad thing about this whole deal....is since breaking ground with the rain catchments, I've cursed myself and there has been no rain.
Sure using the Waterboxxes just to establish things, but I'd like to see the Lenzs fill up at least once!
Its like the reverse-effect of washing your car and having it rain the next day.


THE PURPOSE:

To be honest, I have no idea.  
I just know it will work....but to what degree?

I think I could make a hand version, that could be assembled in the field, and either turned by hand, or pulled around a pivot-center (with a bearing) by a mule or something.
You'd pound a huge center stake and turn a cutting arm around the pivot.
That machine you see is hardly using much power to do it.
Maybe for 3rd world countries or something.....the establish trees or orchards in drylands.
Sure, people could do it with shovels, pick ax, rake, etc ....but the more perfect that cone shape is, the less rain it takes to make it sheet flow.
....eyeballing it you are going to get irregularities.

It's really only beneficial in 'dig-able' clay soils that are flat .... but I see a lot of those where I'm at.
Any kind of slope, either swales or boomerangs or Zia-type pits are best .... sure I get that.

Maybe habit restoration? (wildlife, other)

Or obvs desert afforestation.
With a machine, I could put a crap ton of these in very quickly.
With very hardy desert trees, I don't know if we would even need the Waterboxx device.

In clay soils I do not believe the ground would erode too quickly to alter the rain-catchment features.
Maybe in area with livestock they'd get trampled out to a degree.   IDK.
After many decades sure.   But by then the landscape and topsoil would have significant organic matter added to it .... aiding water infiltration.

11-3-2020
Checked on things,  all of the mesquites are still there.  Some show growth.
Gophers appeared repelled.
One Lenz has two new/fresh gopher holes around the protective screens.
Waterboxx levels have maybe dropped a 1/4" (or less) over the last 2 weeks.

11-9-2020

lolz ...not even worth posting really, but the irony here ....

I had a couple of moringa seedlings left over, since the new gopher cages-and-ground-baskets seem to be working....I decided to go out and just try two more.
Saturday I hogged out the center holes, and did presoak.  (this was during a dust storm by the way) .... let drain down.
Sunday I backfilled, mixed in some compost, and presoaked that material ....left site to let it drain down/stabilize.

I go out today with the intent to plant and install the waterboxxes.  
Nope, it rained earlier in the morning, too muddy in the holes !!!  yea!

The irony part is that I dropped my cell phone earlier this morning and the screen broke; couldn't film anything.
First damn time its rained since March ! (well, more than just one day when 'Trace' was recorded at the local airport).
Today, it probably only rained a tenth of of an inch....but I think that all came in a short burst.
(NOTE: I should leave an impromptu rain gauge out there)

One or two of the (unused yet) Water-Lenz had teeny-tiny ponds in centers.
These holes were full of fluff/dust/poof dirt prior to this.  It's clearly going to work.

Another interesting observation, is most of the lenz surface, say from say radius-point 3' out to the edge, is visibly drier....
....much lighter in color, and absolutely NO mud will stick to your boots as compared to the surrounding flat ground.
The center is obviously wet and muddy; but I thought the contrast with the rest of the site (which is ~0.05% slope) was interesting.

All that said, the two new holes I prepared are way too mushy to set up the box.
So ineffective trip.

I checked the other (5) mesquites/waterboxxes:
A couple of the waterboxxes actually cleared the dust/mud that was building up around the refill ports.
Dirt was just starting building up from the previous dust storm.
They are pretty much full of water now.... (its only been a couple of weeks since first topped off).

I wish I had my phone/camera to document.  Just Damn.

----------------------

The other crappy part about the phone blowing up.   I had some good footage of the dust storm.  
And the next morning I arrived right at dawn, the low sun angle and long ahadows really shows the shape of the WaterLenz.
I lost all that I think ....

-----------------------

11-11-2020  PM

I planted two more moringa trees in the evening.  lolz ran out of daylight; did it under headlights.

Only reason posting this is: after I was done, I went over to the last three Lenz that I have never done anything with.
Previously, the center holes were full of pure ground up completely dry poof-dust-clay-silt.  
Now, prodding around them that night with a shovel, the ground/clay is now wet and heavy with moisture.
I checked the closest weather station that posts their data online ... it was 0.1".

Just a note about gopher deterrents.  In Practical Permaculture by J. Bloom, when discussing plant guilds, daffodils are recommended as a gopher deterrent.  Not sure how that would work with your Lenz but thought I'd mention it.  I also live in AZ; very interested in your trials and hope they are successful!

Ellen Sanford wrote:Just a note about gopher deterrents.  In Practical Permaculture by J. Bloom, when discussing plant guilds, daffodils are recommended as a gopher deterrent.  Not sure how that would work with your Lenz but thought I'd mention it.  I also live in AZ; very interested in your trials and hope they are successful!

Thanks Ellen

Hmmmmm ... I was thinking about incorporating somekind of tree well/circular berm a distance aways from the tree's trunk .... there I was going to plant native grasses, forbes, etc.  
Maybe I'll mix daffodils in with the seed mix.

12-10-2020 Thurs.
Well, it finally rained.

That old rusty can I picked up at the beginning of the video was sitting vertically, and is a straight walled cylinder.
It had just shy of a 1/4" inch of rain in it.   Its probably pretty accurate.

Doing some math with a spreadsheet, judging the diameter of those ponds on the interior of the Lenz, and making some of other assumptions  .... I think the run co-efficient is "high" in this scenario.
I was there about an hour or two after the rain quit, I think I can see a high water line up the slope a foot or so.
I know the 0.2"-0.25" is accurate.   That clay surface is pretty hard after the Lenz is cut.   Run-off should be high.

I apologize for my rambling, I'm not a good narrator.
At one point, I actually said, "I want to see how wet that water is".....I meant "soil".  lolz



I believe I could make a reamer-tool to knife-in a mini-swale within each lenz.
The problem is, I don't know if the trench could displace enough soil to the surface to create a high enough of a berm to hold back all that water.
I guess the wider the mini-trench, the more dirt I'd create.
Something like this.



Its scary to think about if the area got blasted with an 1" of rain in an hour, or say a 100 year flood.
Eventually, the system would get wiped out or eroded; by then, hopefully the tree is fully established and the ground-form is still kinda half-a** working.

Mikhail,

I like the looks of the lenz you built.  They almost have to work!  
I guess I missed it somehow, what is the diameter of the dirt works you've built?  
Posts from people who live in drier country than me intrigue me.
Please keep posting updates.

Bryan

Bryan Elliott wrote:Mikhail,

I like the looks of the lenz you built.  They almost have to work!  
I guess I missed it somehow, what is the diameter of the dirt works you've built?  
Posts from people who live in drier country than me intrigue me.
Please keep posting updates.

Bryan

The cone is 22' ft (6.7 m) in diameter.
A pilot hole in the center is drilled 2' in diameter, only to really provide a socket for the drill tool to sit in.
So the center gets a disturbed area 2' dia (600mm) x maybe 18" (450mm) deep.
I added some compost/bio char to that inner hole when the saplings were planted.

I did what Groasis recommends for dry desert soils ....
- dig out hole
- presoak hole once (10-15 gals or so); let soak in over night
- backfill hole (with soils 'amendments' if you think you need)
- presoak backfill once more
- plant tree, install WaterBoxx

-------------------------------------------------------------

The simple cone shape was the easiest quickest thing to manufacture in my shop, but I'm thinking for long term, that design might be suboptimal.
Only the center of cone will get heavily charged with water.   (mesquites and a lot of our desert tree can/will grow directly in flooded areas).
But I'm afraid the tree's root system won't be encouraged to spread out....
Also, the upper slope of the cone (say from radius of 5' to to the rim at 11' radius) will stay very very dry, as water will now ALWAYS immediate run off from this area.

I need to made another cutting tool for a duplex cone design.
I want to get some water to the center, so the new sapling is guaranteed water to survive and get established ....
....but then a tree ring/berm/trench/something at around 5' radius for water to soak in a distance from the tree.
This makes the tooling a lot more complicated, and slows down installation/construction of each unit.
Sure, I could hand dig something later on....but that's not the point.

I'm trying to come up with a simple and super fast method to put these shapes onto the ground for mass production ....
...if it can't be done quickly, its not worth dragging the machine out there cost wise.

Just my opinion, but I like what you are doing now charging the center cone.  I think it would work better in my area.  Where I live the most important part of establishing the small trees is the first few years.  You know your soil types and rainfall patterns and I don't so I will sure trust your judgement on YOUR design!  Good idea!

I love this as an earthworks option for deserts.  Obviously you've successfully moved a small amount of water over the larger area to the center point where the plants are located. I wonder what would happen if you simply flattened the central circumferance to the diameter needed for a group of guild plants and then walked away.  Whatever plant you choose for the ground cover would keep the ground shaded as it grew and that would allow the pool of water to soak into the soil more slowly vs. burning off in the heat.  Primarily during the cooler time of year.  I'm just a beginner in permaculture but this is something I haven't see in any other permaculture literature or videos.

Latest update.

On Jan 25, 2021 we got about 0.25"-0.35"of rain.
First video, I got here right after the bulk oh the storm...



Second video is four days later on the 29th....showing how quickly the surface dries out.  It must soak in to some degree, and it's been cold, humid, and length of day is short...but evaporation is a problem ...wind and exposed ground. I was worried about excessive ponding in the center of the cones....drowning stuff.  It soaks in fairly well there.



Waterboxxes show signs of clogging, again.   I wonder if
a super hard/intensive rain storm would loosen that material and wash it through....your definitely NOT collecting any dew or even rain sprinkles if these tubes pack up with dirt and then harden.
The boxxes do protect the saplings from the cold though with their thermal mass.

Another storm was rolling in that night, may have got another 0.2"....radar showed it being a wall of intensity.   I'm sure we had sheetflow and ponding again.   I wish my trees were bigger.

With ground having I trace amount of moisture now, I'm going to excavate about 10 more next to this pilot set next week.   Spring is coming!

I could not be anymore obsessed with the idea of greening up the desert.

I used to watch another youtube channel about a guy collecting rain water in the desert for his trees.

Once I get home I'm gonna read this thread and annoy you by asking 5billion questions

Hi, silly question, can you make the cones steeper with your machine? They will have higher berms, which can help creating a microclimate.

Your climate is a little extreme, so maybe you need extreme measures to preserve the little water you might have caught: Shade, wind protection, mulch.
I'm trying to do a similar thing in a more lenient climate, except that I'm digging deep triangular holes by hand, with high berms, but I have bushes and trees around, so it's not bare grounds as yours.
If I had to work with yours (and had the resources), I'd probably add something at the berms for increased wind protection (a circular small wooden fence for every tree, a fabric hold with sticks, bricks, rocks, maybe create some walled patios for a bigger area), I'd try a few different mulches (flat stones, wood chips, dead bushes), I'd try to protect the wet ground from the midday sun, something that I could use like an umbrella, maybe an arched roof, allowing the morning and evening sun to reach the plant. And I'd add an ammendment to the soil so it retains more water (perlite or stable organic matter). See what works and what doesn't.

Also, in my climate it is usual to irrigate the tress when they are less than two years old, to help them get started. If you don't have water to irrigate them all, just pick 4-5 trees you know you can water and make them survive the first two years. Water them deep, so they develop deep roots. After a couple of years, take on another 4-5 trees. The more established trees you achieve, the easier it will be for the following ones (more shadow, more humidity around. more organic resources)

Abraham Palma wrote:Hi, silly question, can you make the cones steeper with your machine? They will have higher berms, which can help creating a microclimate.

Actually, thinking about it ...you bring up some good points.

I would NOT make the slope steeper from the edge to the center .... I think you would wind up with too much erosion of the soil, cuts and such.
The water would speed up.

I COULD just run the whole thing deeper though.  That would make a higher berm at the perimeter.
It would take a lot more time for the machine.
The native dry ground gets a lot harder as you proceed downward too.

At my specific site, wind isn't too terrible.   Its a factor, but not that big of one.

Your climate is a little extreme, so maybe you need extreme measures to preserve the little water you might have caught: Shade, wind protection, mulch.
I'm trying to do a similar thing in a more lenient climate, except that I'm digging deep triangular holes by hand, with high berms, but I have bushes and trees around, so it's not bare grounds as yours.
If I had to work with yours (and had the resources), I'd probably add something at the berms for increased wind protection (a circular small wooden fence for every tree, a fabric hold with sticks, bricks, rocks, maybe create some walled patios for a bigger area), I'd try a few different mulches (flat stones, wood chips, dead bushes), I'd try to protect the wet ground from the midday sun, something that I could use like an umbrella, maybe an arched roof, allowing the morning and evening sun to reach the plant. And I'd add an ammendment to the soil so it retains more water (perlite or stable organic matter). See what works and what doesn't.

Also, in my climate it is usual to irrigate the tress when they are less than two years old, to help them get started. If you don't have water to irrigate them all, just pick 4-5 trees you know you can water and make them survive the first two years. Water them deep, so they develop deep roots. After a couple of years, take on another 4-5 trees. The more established trees you achieve, the easier it will be for the following ones (more shadow, more humidity around. more organic resources)

yeah, after the seedlings/saplings are established I'll mulch the inner circle.  
probably straw or something similar with some heavier branches/stem ontop to secure it (wind, "floating", etc).
Right now, the Groasis Waterboxx provides a "mulching effect" I suppose; I'll pull those boxxes off of the mesquites this spring.
I bought some native desert reveg.seed in bulk .... I'll seed-in a circle of that around the perimeter of the tree.

Love the topic and your documentation of it.

What about some annual and/or perennial sunflower around the water lenz cones, with the grasses? The sunflowers should be able to tap root into the soil, sun and wind reduction once they get up, grow in place some great mulch, withstand a few days of having their feet wet, add fungal habitat, etc.

Have you seen this channel'? He has lots of inovative ways of collections rain water

Mikhail Mulbasicov wrote: yeah, after the seedlings/saplings are established I'll mulch the inner circle.  
probably straw or something similar with some heavier branches/stem ontop to secure it (wind, "floating", etc).
Right now, the Groasis Waterboxx provides a "mulching effect" I suppose; I'll pull those boxxes off of the mesquites this spring.
I bought some native desert reveg.seed in bulk .... I'll seed-in a circle of that around the perimeter of the tree.

If it helps, thought I'd share some of my own experiences with mulching. :-)

I'm also in the Sonoran desert, outside of Tucson, maybe 2,000 feet higher than you, maybe 1 or 2 inches more of rain annually.
What I've found so far with mulch is this.

Organic mulch will break down significantly slower than you might expect, and not be as useful for adding nutrients, unless you irrigate a fair amount - the humidity level is high, temp is high, and the rain level is low, which means it just doesn't break down nicely, unfortunately. If I remember right, when I was doing research, much of the 'greening the desert' sites that have been used so far, where thick mulch is used, have higher humidity levels and/or lower temperatures, even if they have similar or less rain (or many had extra water they had available for the initial start). So as you mentioned wanting to conserve water, thought this might be helpful. Especially as this is my experience a little higher than you, so my temps are a few degrees cooler on average, daily.

Another mulch issue: thickness. Again, my experience here has been thick mulch is good IF you are planning to irrigate a lot. If you are not...it can actually make things worse for the plant. :-/ The rainfall is scarce enough that I have found that a thick mulch can actually absorb the low to moderate rainfall, and then it evaporates back into the air due to the low humidity, and the water never even reaches the ground for the plant to use.  You can get some small annuals growing in the mulch that can take advantage of that, sometimes, but any perennials may suffer. A slow build up of mulch from the plants themselves seem to break down a bit better, over time, but yeah...thick mulch can be a potential issue at first.

Stone mulch works much better to keep the moisture in the ground without absorbing any, but obviously doesn't add nutrients, and a build up of debris based mulch on top of it will start to cause problems like any other thick mulch will. Also, for new plants, rock mulch makes it harder on them as it tends to raise the ambient temperature and fries the plants (I have killed SO many plants, ouch).

But...that leads me to some of the positive mulch concepts that have worked for me.  

For new plants, a thinner layer of organic mulch has done pretty well - didn't absorb too much water, and was thin enough that it broke down a bit faster.
And while rock mulch was too much for the plants, strategically places stones did well.  A stone or two near any plants, underneath where the stones are somewhat shaded and so not going to absorb as much heat from the sun and fry the plants, have been very helpful. The ground stays wet underneath them, they don't fry the plant, and when it's a few stones, but not a sold mulch of rocks, then some debris builds up between the stones naturally and you get a little organic nutrient adding mulch and a little water preserving stone mulch, and it does pretty well.  When my perennials grow larger, I may add more stones to the shaded areas, and keep things going like that.

I got the stone idea from an acquaintance who was working on a project in NM, trying to recreate some gardens they'd seen in ancient Anasazi ruins. They speculated that if gardens were planted, and then after sprouting had stones placed in between all the sprouts to keep water loss to a minimum, it would cut down on hugely on water needs. It worked great there, but it was done in a canyon, where there was a lot of shade, and here in the sonoran desert, it doesn't work as well without more protection from the sun.

But if you've got shade cloth, or shade under some of the trees?  Some well places stones really can be a great help. :-)

Oh!  and I'd highly recommend lupines, if you can find some seeds. Nitrogen fixing, attract pollinators, don't need watering, and add a bit of debris once they die, as well. Not to mention they are honestly lovely to look at. :-)

Have you checked out Desert Survivors nursery in Tucson yet?  If not, that is a fantastic place to get some less commonly sold native plants, and their website lists what uses they have - pollinator attractors, edible parts, etc....  They also mention where the plants are found, so you can match up altitude and water needs.

I look forward to seeing how thing are going for you!

shauna carr wrote:

Mikhail Mulbasicov wrote: yeah, after the seedlings/saplings are established I'll mulch the inner circle.  
probably straw or something similar with some heavier branches/stem ontop to secure it (wind, "floating", etc).
Right now, the Groasis Waterboxx provides a "mulching effect" I suppose; I'll pull those boxxes off of the mesquites this spring.
I bought some native desert reveg.seed in bulk .... I'll seed-in a circle of that around the perimeter of the tree.

( mulch  post ... see above ^ )

Shauna, thanks for that....and that's a good post for desert mulching.

All of those thoughts have been bouncing around in my head as well.

As you say, thick mulch could insulate too much, and simply absorb the rain, hold onto it, and not let it get down into the clay/soil underneath.
I think though... with the way these particular water lenses are constructed, and given that I would only plan to mulch say the inner 5' or so ...
the sheet flow for the outer ring of the cone would penetrate, and sort of flow sideways underneath the mulch.

Also another concern is wind.   The property is quite barren.   Unless the mulch is reasonably heavy and coarse .... its going to blow away.
Things like leaves, and finely ground wood chips aren't going to stay put....I guess you could top those things with branches.
Maybe once some desert grasses, forbes, bushes grow-up through the mulch they would kind of hold things in place.

The Stone Mulch idea is excellent.  Everything you say is true.
If one had ground that was a 50%-75% surface of rocks/stones, the rocks don't (immediately, or substantially) absorb water, and rain sheets off of them to the neighboring soil surface.
...making any kind of ponding or sheeting more significant in between the rocks/stones.  So more water on less surface to drive the water down.
Capillary action will pull the moisture every which way into the soil underneath the matrix of rocks; its almost ALWAYS moist under a rock.

This area has no native rocks or stones available though.  Importing would be tough (for hundreds of tree sites).

This area has no native rocks or stones available though.  Importing would be tough (for hundreds of tree sites).

Can you acquaire unglaced broken pottery? That's the same that is traditionally used for terracotta flower pots. The effect would be similar to stones, and in addition they would hold some water in case they got buried. Expanded clay is used as a soil amendment.
Also, pots cut in half make a good habitat for some plants/animals that don't endure that much sun.

...no... no broken pottery here.  Resources are limited, without importing material in.

=========

UPDATE: 4-12-2021

The wind kicks up halfway during the video ...go ahead and stop 1/2 way thru,  as its impossible to hear.

Cliff notes are as follows:

- Excavated about 12 more WaterLens .... waiting to plant those.
Superdry.   I'm having a hard time sprouting seedlings at my house.
Tried all winter.  Managed to kill a bunch putting them outside too soon.

- One small Moringa survived, I thought it was completely dead...was a stick 3 months ago.
2nd one is dead

- Weeds and desert grass sprouting up around the WaterBoxx.
The waterlenz collects seeds, and organic debris blowing around as well.
Any additional plant life is beneficial for sure.  
I plan to sew desert reveg mix right next to the mesquites/

- Gopher basket protection also keeps rabbits (and gophers) from eating plant at the surface, as well
as providing subterranean protection.

- Mesquites Growing well.

- Groasis WaterBoxx Tubes continue to plug and are a huge disappointment in the system.
Anywhere dry and barren, you are going to have dust and dirt particle blow around.
Weeds grow in the tubes like hydroponics.
It would take a huge amount of water all at once to soften the clay, dissolve it, and push it thru to the bottom.
You definately aren't collecting any water from small rain events or dew.

And I thought I was being too optimistic in our garden...
I truly applaud your efforts.

ANIMAL PROBLEMS:

... I cannot overstate how animals are probably enemy #1 when trying to reestablish trees in the desert.
Any kind of mass afforestation project that doesn't address this issue is foolish IMO.
Gophers, mice, rabbits, will eat anything with moisture in it .... and eat it to total destruction.
The Groasis Waterboxx really doesn't address this.
I suppose the company does sell a tree tube....but that does not prevent the animal from entering the box and doing damage from there.
I found gophers INSIDE the dog-bone openings; they had tunnelled under the Waterboxx eat the entire saplings.
It's cool and shady in there.
After that, they had chewed eaten the wick/string away and even chewed the boss where the wick protrudes out of the bottom
in an attempt to get at more water.   That boxx (obviously went drywell before the others).

You can see here how voracious the critters are, as the new growth that protruded from the protective basket was chewed down flush to the basket's edge.
And it wasn't like they were just eating the green leaves, buds, or green shoots ... they were eating wood/twiggy material basically.


https://www.instagram.com/p/CO6wWVZgOlj/


TUBE PROBLEMS:

yeah, you can see how much debris collects in the top tray of the box.
Then seeds will sprout and grown hydroponiclly in the tube funny enough.
Precipitation or dew will not re-enter in the box through here.

If I was someone really in love with type of tech ...
A- I would go with a single hole design; the addition of a tube might fair better at protecting the sapling.
B- I would go with a disposable design (paper).



Groasis has a square paper box .... you could use a tube.

Neither of those address tunneling animals ... or termites.

I really think the original WaterBoxx design is/was a total scam.  
It was first marketed as a means of reforesting desert, or "desertifcated" , land.
They have HAD to have seen all of the tube problems, and/or animals just eating seedlings down to dust.


==================

I have decided to abandon the Groasis WaterBoxes concept.
By the time one buys the Boxx, tree tube, and goes thru all the trouble with wide gopher protection ... well its a lot of trouble and cost and "input".


NEW PLAN IS ...

1 - massive amount of mulch,
2- better job presoaking the dug out hole (before planting).
3 - thin tall tree tube.
4 - small diameter (same dia as tube) wire protective underground basket.
5- perhaps growing/planting a taller or more mature sapling/tree.

The WaterLenz should apply ridiculous amount of water under the mulch.
The mulch and tree tube just offsets the cost of the WaterBoxx..... and it better long term surely for the soil and tree.
A guy could "buy" a lot of mulch for what (20) Boxxes cost.  
It's basically free where I'm located, I just have to get it to the site an 1-1/2 hours away from basecamp.
But say if you were doing 10,000 tree plantings. 10K worth of Boxxes could easily buy a crap-ton of mulch delivered on site.

I have another row of about 10 WaterLenzes sites ready to accept saplings.
I think there are around 10 or 11 of the Waterboxx sites in now.
Monsoon season is about 1-1/2 months away.  
I should just hit it about right to where the trees should get off of the presoak for a short spell and then (hopefully) summer rains will hit.
...after that couple of months of periodic rain, hopefully they will have a foothold and make it to/thru  winter and catch some rain then.

Well done with this impressive and intrepid project. I worked in the Sonoran and Mojave for 8months doing restoration projects. For us job 1 was keep ATVs off the ground we were restoring, which were illegal routes into Wilderness Areas that were destroying burrows of tortoises and other wildlife. For this we had to disrupt the linearity of the road, but even though I knew almost nothing of permaculture at the time 17yrs ago, I saw how the “franken-bushes”  and other structures we made to do so presented opportunities for water, soil and seed catchment by slowing and bifurcation wind and water flows. The franken-bushes also provide shade for the seeds the caught on the wind or in flow events. They also provided raptor perches to mitigate herbivory.

One thing I might consider adding to your innovative design would be a trench filled with woody debris or other organic matter at what you estimate to be the drip line/extent of root growth, or just a bit further out. This would store the water for roots to absorb over a longer period without nearly as much evaporation. The carbonic acids from the organic matter would help soil life break down minerals from the subsoil, and if your soil is clay then it will not drain too quickly for absorption. Just my 2cents, great work and good luck.

great work. im doing reforestation in wittmann, west of phoenix. i have a lady that i get tree starts from near thunderbird and 32nd st. for like 2-3$. mesquites, palo verdes and others. i got some ok tree tubes from forestry suppliers website. i've been using stucco wire and 3 stakes to protect from rabbits. my desert lot got back burned summer of 2020, so the rodents were at a distance for abit. i haven't had to deal with gophers thankfully  

--UPDATE--

not much to say.
It has become really hot, 115F -117F.
The 5 or 6 newest plantings are doing great, I put them only a short while ago.

I can see the water level in the waterboxxes down about an 1 inch.

I plan on using A LOT  more mulch, that's about a 1/3 of a pickup truck full in what you see here.
.... about (5) 5 gal. buckets per tree site.   Doesn't seem to go very far.
Animals have been digging in it.

jer ander wrote:great work. im doing reforestation in wittmann, west of phoenix. i have a lady that i get tree starts from near thunderbird and 32nd st. for like 2-3$. mesquites, palo verdes and others. i got some ok tree tubes from forestry suppliers website. i've been using stucco wire and 3 stakes to protect from rabbits. my desert lot got back burned summer of 2020, so the rodents were at a distance for abit. i haven't had to deal with gophers thankfully  

How many acres are you restoring?

Close to 4 in west phx and 5 in holbrook, az. Im going to start a thread to post pics

7-11-2021  

LOG UPDATE.

All of the recent monsoon activity has missed our land.
I've learned the the radar models are off many times.
4 to 5 miles north of us, ponded water all over the desert floor.
Our place is dry. The dog kicks up dust clouds as she runs around.

It must've rained a trace amount, as the newly constructed water-lenz's berms, which were previously fluff-dust, have barely crusted over now.
The one moringa decided to take off and it growing faster now for some reason.

About 2 weeks prior I planted about 10 more mesquite trees in water-lenzes, withOUT the Groasis devices.
- I simply hogged out the 2' dia pilot hole, about 2' deep.
- filled that void nearly full with water.
- backfilled with dirt, a narrow 6" dia gopher basket, with a 6" PVC sleeve.
- flooded the backfill with water.
- next morning removed the PVC sleeve, which left the gopher basket in place.
- planted velvet mesquite seedlings.
- irrigated again; covered them with a 6"  wire cage x 18" high.
- used some coarse landscape debris from town for mulch.

They've been in for two weeks now with no supplementary water, and full sun exposure (were in filtered sun while seedlings) .... and they appear to be fine so far.   Hopefully we can catch a storm or two.

I laid out two more rows of (one staggered row?) of water-lenz locations of about 9-10 sites, and then two more individual ones in odd ball locations.
After these are installed, I can do one more staggered row in the fenced area.   I think that will make around 40 tree locations on the north parcel.
There are some existing trees and bushes I am working around those,
The other 2/3 ( parcels 2 & 3) are more barren ... maybe could get 50 tree sites on that south parcel.
The center parcel I might want to keep the middle open for a house site; might just plant as many as possible around the perimeter fencing.

28' center-to-center works best.  Leave some areas between berms where I may plant other bushes ... maybe pickly pear.
Those zone will collect water due to their shape ....

==========================

update to the update 7-14-2021
...it rained !!!

looks good. lets hope more rain comes soon. the mesquites might start growing fast after the watering.

Mikhail Mulbasicov wrote:

I believe I could make a reamer-tool to knife-in a mini-swale within each lenz.
The problem is, I don't know if the trench could displace enough soil to the surface to create a high enough of a berm to hold back all that water.
I guess the wider the mini-trench, the more dirt I'd create.
Something like this.



Its scary to think about if the area got blasted with an 1" of rain in an hour, or say a 100 year flood.
Eventually, the system would get wiped out or eroded; by then, hopefully the tree is fully established and the ground-form is still kinda half-a** working.

I have a thought, based on my experience in the high desert, and from what I have read.  I like your lens dish around your trees.  That is a great idea.  While the trees are getting started, and while the root spread is still minimal I think your idea is spot on.  As the trees grow, and as the roots spread, maybe in a few years it would be time to think of a swale or ditch or something to retain the water near the edge of the trees canopy.  My understanding is that the roots usually spread a distance equal to the trees canopy.  So, in three or four or maybe 5 years when the tree is really established you might consider making a berm, or ditch, or swale several feet out from the trunk so the water that runs down from the outer reaches of the lens will collect near the outer reaches of the roots and slowly soak in to the ground where it is needed.

Do you have, or are you planning, any drip irrigation to your trees?  I have to use drip irrigation where I am in the high desert of Southern Utah or all my new start trees will die.  And, even with regular watering with drip irrigation I have to give a good soaking with the hose once a week in the hot summer months to keep them healthy.

Regarding mulching with wood chips, the idea is that the wood chips shade the soil and limit the heat build up in, and also limit the evaporation from, the soil.  A few inches, or maybe up to 6 inches where you are, of mulch will help hold the moisture and will help keep the soil cool which will also help slow evaporation.  This year was my first year with deep wood chips and every where I have deep wood chips all the plants and trees are doing much better and the soil is staying moist as long as I water every 2 or 3 days, as opposed to having to water every day last year with terrible results.

One last suggestion, you might consider a ground cover plant that can handle the heat and needs minimal water to plant around each lens/tree as they will help to keep the ground cool and moist by providing shade and the little bit of moisture they give off will help cool the air around your trees and help them survive the heat better.

Good luck.

jer ander wrote: looks good. lets hope more rain comes soon. the mesquites might start growing fast after the watering.

Actually, they've all grown quite a bit .... well the WaterBoxx plantings.
Oddly, 2nd planting (3-4 months ago?) have already caught up, and maybe surpassed the 1st set (from ~1 year ago) !
I sourced these from different areas, so I don't know what's going on.

The non-Waterboxx planting seem to be putting out new growth on the top; I don't think any are in transplant-shock.

Its funny, we have have volunteer mesquites in the front of our office at work, that we water quite a bit.
We've been doing that for about 2-1/2" years.   Those volunteers did seem to grow much at first, which I though was odd...
...being that they get supplemental water.   I think the trees can only grow so fast, a little more water helps, sure, but
at some point its about diminishing-returns....or the quality of soil, and exposure, etc are the bottle necks.

Michael Fundaro wrote:

I have a thought, based on my experience in the high desert, and from what I have read.  I like your lens dish around your trees.  That is a great idea.  While the trees are getting started, and while the root spread is still minimal I think your idea is spot on.  As the trees grow, and as the roots spread, maybe in a few years it would be time to think of a swale or ditch or something to retain the water near the edge of the trees canopy.  My understanding is that the roots usually spread a distance equal to the trees canopy.  So, in three or four or maybe 5 years when the tree is really established you might consider making a berm, or ditch, or swale several feet out from the trunk so the water that runs down from the outer reaches of the lens will collect near the outer reaches of the roots and slowly soak in to the ground where it is needed.

Yeah, this set up is not ideal "on paper".
People will say the roots won't spread because of all of the water ponds right at the trunk.
...and or your are going to drown the tree if a good storm hits.

I don't think a lot of this applies, or how MUCH of it applies, to mesquites and/or those nasty Mexican paloverdes in this environment.
I've dug up mesquites next to washes, and/or that have invaded septic tanks.
....sure I majority of root are going to pull from the watered areas, but funny enough, they send out some roots in other directions as well....
...one at the edge of the wash sent roots up the gradient away from the wash.
Sure, this is not ideal.   But the seedlings won't die, which, is 90% of the battle IMO.

This site is almost perfectly flat, but yet there are a few nearby mesquites that are 10'-'15 tall with a canopy of 20' in diameter.
It makes no sense what so ever ... how they survive or grow at all.
The ground is dry all the way down.  There is no water table to speak off.
If I can just get them started to about 3' to 5' tall, I think they'll take off.

Do you have, or are you planning, any drip irrigation to your trees?  

no, this is a method for the trees to stand on their own.... after the initial "input".
I was thinking of doing a orgainc farm-y thing here.
Once the neighbor's well did not turn out so well, I abandoned the idea.
Their well output was/is laughably low, and they had to go to great depth to get what little water there was.
They had to put in a huge recovery tank .... to be honest, I don't think they have enough water to run their future house
they want to build.

Regarding mulching with wood chips, the idea is that the wood chips shade the soil and limit the heat build up in, and also limit the evaporation from, the soil.  A few inches, or maybe up to 6 inches where you are, of mulch will help hold the moisture and will help keep the soil cool which will also help slow evaporation.  This year was my first year with deep wood chips and every where I have deep wood chips all the plants and trees are doing much better and the soil is staying moist as long as I water every 2 or 3 days, as opposed to having to water every day last year with terrible results.

One last suggestion, you might consider a ground cover plant that can handle the heat and needs minimal water to plant around each lens/tree as they will help to keep the ground cool and moist by providing shade and the little bit of moisture they give off will help cool the air around your trees and help them survive the heat better.

yes, I got a desert-grass-bush reveg mix.  I scarified a small circle around each tree .... about a 3'-4' diameter circle.... and sowed/raked them in after that last rain storm.  I did this right after the last rain storm while the ground was still moist/muddy.  

So yes, the idea is to build a small guild at each tree-site; get some more roots to penetrate the ground; and maybe the vegetation will act as living mulch ...and at least, create some barrier to keep the existing mulch from blowing away.   Die back, leak litter will get trapped, entangled in it, etc.

I planted a mix of:
- Brittle Brush (seems out of place for this area)
- Bursage Sage (same^)
- Desert Saltbrush (this is established onsite aleady)
- Quail Bush (don't see any of these around)
- Desert Senna (same^)
- Creosote (oddly, none of these around either, but I don't see why )
- JoJoba (this is more of a foothill thing, but we'll see)
- Sideoats grama grass
- Purple Three Awm
- Sand Dropseed

Good luck.

thanks

===================

Other notes:

I was out after two days post storm....maube not even 40 hours.
The ground everywhere is completely dry again.  Its been cloudy too, and only 90-100 degrees approx.
Powder .... A crust, but powder underneath all that.
Even where I had raked it seed, where mud/moisture penetrated about 3" .... is rock hard now.
At least the seed is cemented-in now, not blowing around, or being eaten off the loose surface by ants, quail, and the F@#$#ng ground squirrels.

I dug around those seed locations with a wood stake and my pocket knife, almost completely dry.
If you move father in right next to tree planting are still most, under the mulch (mulch working, but the water did pond in the very center of these things).

Funny, I got rain right as I was wrapping things up with the seeding ... I (precautionarily) used 4WD to leave....was sliding a bit.
Rained hard enough for all that, but all of that moisture is gone now.

Instagram is so much easier than YT:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CRZA2DKFSls/

1- I pulled the mulch into the tree planting.
2- scarified the ground a bit, 3'-4' diameter circle, planted
2- (not shown, backfilled, and pulled mulch back out a bit)
3- Groasis tube clog;
4- Raining again right when I got in the truck  !

End of July update.

Got hammered with rain.
On and off for a few day for two waves.
I had to walk in ....



The video illustrates the problem.....its so flat here, all of the water just ponds in sheets....it does not move.
Keep in mind, this is an odd storm event (series of events).  
The water is going to soak in maybe 6" to 9" .... but then get sucked right back out with evaporation and capillary action.
The lenzes concentrate water in a smaller area, and drives in it....really relying on mulch to keep it in the soil.

I thought my stuff was going to drown...not so.
The water ponding but soaks in pretty quick.
Its a clay soil, but a light silty clay when moist .... turns a rich dark chocolate brown color ... not the red or yellow or light tan hue.

Anyways, I hauled a 1/2-pickup-truck-bed load of mulch and spread that over the 10 tree in the 2nd row (the one's with no Waterboxxes).
I also lightly mulched the no-mans land triangles ....
....as I see he native grass/bush seeds I sowed are germinating.

Really screwed up.
I should've fence the entire property and dug as many water lenzes as possible.
I could have sunk hundreds of thousands of gallons in the ground....damn.

The local rain gauges say around 2.5" to 3" ... and that's probably correct.
And I bet 90% of that were "run-off-capable" events, as the ground was pre-saturated, and it was cloudy for seemed like a week while all this was going on.
A 22 ft. diameter circle with 2 inches of rain = 63 cu.ft. .... that's 471 gallons .... that is KrAzIe!!!.
I think I can fit about 100 lenses on the property ...maybe 130.  61,000 gallons

=====================

In thinking about this, the Groasis Waterboxx is really ineffective ... or cost inefficent.

They run about $30-$35 here in the US right now.
Most of the installation videos, they outline the following procedure:
- dig the hole
- presoak with 10-20 gallons
- some videos, they show a backfilling and 2nd presoaking
- some videos, that show using amendments to the soil.
- plant tree & install Waterboxx
- water inside the boxx a bit; and fill boxx with water

Wood chips / mulch is dirt cheap.
I say, the cost of the box is easily off-set by using a large amount of mulch.
The mulch is a longer term solution ... and a plus as far as soil health, etc.
If you have the means to bring that much water in, and etc .... you can get the mulch in there.
So maybe do a more thorough presoaking, and a 9"-12" high x 60" diameter ring of mulch.

I absolutely love the water lens you've put in.  I'd love to have access to that equipment on my place.  In dry areas it concentrates the rain right where you need it.  It appears that the outer areas also keep the run off from entering the circles.
I don't see it ever drowning your trees.  I've transplanted some trees in low spots on my place.  I'll haul water to them at least the first year and sometimes cover them completely up.   The water will go into the soil in a few hours.  Even though there can be a couple months between my help (if we get any rain at all), I feel that by filling the immediate profile the roots will chase the water down and to the sides as the ground dries out.  
It is a great method you're using and I really appreciate the updates.  Congratulations on the rains!

Like a swale, wouldn't your water lens benefit from a good mulch, too?

Jeff Welder wrote:Like a swale, wouldn't your water lens benefit from a good mulch, too?

Yes.

I've been importing and spreading mulch in the centers.

I sowed some desert grasses and bush seed at about a 3 to 4 foot radius from the mesquite trees (treelings?).
...so I'm trying to feather out the edge of the mulch circle right around that distance to allow those seeds to sprout up.
Once those are established, I may bring in more mulch afterwards.

More random information to dig into later ....

https://eos.org/research-spotlights/how-mesquite-trees-gain-a-competitive-edge-in-arid-arizona

and ...

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2007WR006149

Mesquite roots redistributed large amounts of water throughout the year, even during periods of canopy dormancy. Dormant season precipitation (November–March) was often taken up by shallow lateral roots and transferred downward in the soil profile by deeper lateral and tap roots. Such a transfer was also apparent when the trees were active and moisture from summer rainfall was plant available in the upper soil layers. As the upper soil layers dried, sap flow moving toward the canopy in the lateral roots diminished and water use from deeper soils increased via the taproots. The relationship between root sap flow and above-canopy fluxes suggested that deeper “stored” water from HR allowed the trees to transpire more in the spring that followed a winter with significant downward redistribution. Patterns of lateral and tap root sap flow also implied that redistribution may extend the growing season of the trees after summer rains have ended and surface soils are dry, thus allowing the trees to photosynthesize through periods of seasonal drought. The large hydrologic magnitude and the ecological effects of HR we studied, along with mounting evidence of this process occurring in many other ecosystems, indicates that HR should be accounted for in many ecohydrologic modeling efforts.

8-10-2021

Another rain event.  About 0.5 inches according to the radar modelling.  
The preceding day I think it rained too....says 0.90 inches over the last 72 hr period.
I got out there while it was still going on ....

https://www.instagram.com/p/CSaH_pohwAx/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Some weeds are sprouting, and perhaps some of the revegetation mix I sowed.
....ya know, some of that could have floated around within the waterlenz circle ... and some may have blown around.
I did not get all of it sown INTO the ground perse.

Some the pre-existing plants are starting to green up.
A kind of random thought that popped up into my head was it will give me a chance to inventory was is in fact dead, mostly dead, and what is alive.
If a small woody plant (clump of sticks) doesn't green up after all this, it is surely dead.
Discounting these may allow me to squeeze in more Lenz sites, as I'm trying to work around the established bushes and trees.

Beginning of October, rained again.
Removed some of the upper-protective baskets, and pulled-up the waterboxxes.

Tubes clogged, all of them.  Funny enough, I think what happens, since the waterboxx is semi-buried, and the WaterLenz dish is depressed, it a big storm the entire Waterboxx will go underwater as times.   The Boxx is hardly watertight.   What I did, is thread a small bamboo stick thru the buried (lower) protective basket's mesh, to keep the Boxx from floating up; it stay down.   That's how these Boxxes recharge, as they still had some water in them.   But light rains or dew (lolz at dew) definitely don't make it thru the clogged tubes.

I have had no time to dig/create more Lenz depressions.  Work has been crazy.

The "system" is working well in that a lot of weeds and other growth is accumulating in the center of the depressions.
I did sow some sonoran desert reveg-mix seed in there, but I'm really disappointed is how much germinated .... almost zero.
A lot of purslane weeds, and etc.   Maybe winter will have a different crop of material.
The depressions collect water, seeds, and general (dead) plant debris that is just blowing around ....

Video (sorry for the ramblings):



==============

Waterboxxes are kinda of the pain in the butt to clean after you pull them.
One would be a fool to stack them together muddy, or with slime in them (they would not separate later).

Thank you for sharing so much detail about your experience, especially the failure of the waterboxxes.
I live in a much wetter region than you do but I've killed loads of planted trees by not being able to irrigate them enough.  My current plan is to plant tree seeds in fenced enclosures and let them come up (or not) on their own with no irrigation at all.  Tree seeds are cheap compared to saplings, so I am planting them very densely and at the same time seeding with legumes and wildflowers.  Have you considered planting tree seeds in these lenses?  I think it could be quite successful.  Once you get some tough support trees going, you could try more high value trees. I suggest Moringa as a support tree if it stays warm enough to not kill them in the winter.  They are perennial here (zone 8b) but die back to the ground each winter.  Super easy to grow from seed but need to be planted during warm weather.