food forest cactus / desert

any ideas of cactus / desert plants i can get for my food forest.

mini cattle, sheep, goats, quail, cuy, chicken and ducks. it's what i have now. for animals. but id like to switch over my planting for more of a desert for a lot i bought near desert. it's only 10 acres. has some water but not tons.

Brad Lancaster has a website on desert/dryland trees and plants.
http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/

Also, according to the USDA you are in zone 9. Here is a list of plants that should do well in your area. http://sacramento.about.com/od/communitiesneighborhoods/a/Usda-Plant-Zone-For-Sacramento.htm

Jd Gonzalez wrote:Brad Lancaster has a website on desert/dryland trees and plants.
http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/

Also, according to the USDA you are in zone 9. Here is a list of plants that should do well in your area. http://sacramento.about.com/od/communitiesneighborhoods/a/Usda-Plant-Zone-For-Sacramento.htm

thanks for your reply i bought a small lot near the desert. recently. altho i dont plan on staying there all year long. i plan on letting a friend stay there most of the year. which is why i was asking. about desert planting.

I think the Plants For a Future Database may also be useful. I think the most helpful results for your area will be found using the following filters USDA zone 9, dry soil, and tolerates drought.

Here in the Chihuahuan desert, we use prickly pear, pomegranates, figs, mulberry, almonds, apricots, peach, and plums. I'll be trying some pistachio next year, as well. We also have mesquite, honey locust, honey suckle, and numerous shrubs (lemonade berry, firethorn, etc). You need to set up some swales and start improving the soil to hold more water and reduce evaporation. Evaporation is the killer.

Prickly pear and agave work really well, and if you get the domesticated prickly pear (Nopales), they don't have much in terms of spines and are easy to propagate. Get a few going, and in 2 years, take dozens of cuttings.

I found a list of cacti native to California, maybe it would be a good start on that front. http://www.cactusjungle.com/california_native_cactus_and_succulents.html

Abe Connally wrote:Here in the Chihuahuan desert, we use prickly pear, pomegranates, figs, mulberry, almonds, apricots, peach, and plums. I'll be trying some pistachio next year, as well. We also have mesquite, honey locust, honey suckle, and numerous shrubs (lemonade berry, firethorn, etc). You need to set up some swales and start improving the soil to hold more water and reduce evaporation. Evaporation is the killer.

Prickly pear and agave work really well, and if you get the domesticated prickly pear (Nopales), they don't have much in terms of spines and are easy to propagate. Get a few going, and in 2 years, take dozens of cuttings.

thanks alot. i really wish someone would write a program. so i could figure out water requirement and burden across a small plot of land. so i could workout a tree and cactus layout across each year quickly. would also take into effect land shape. and it's impact using a picture of some sorts. also using data from past years rainfall habits. it would save on a crap load of time. and could also open up experiments since i wont be able to watch it all the time but still want to randomly try stuff out. by proxy


thanks for your help! i really didn't know mulberry would workout. i thought it took to much water. since i like to fruit good news.

The problem is that it is not an easy program to write. It's not a cookie cutter problem/solution. The rainfall at your spot with your soil type is different from a spot down the road that has more evaporation, different soil, different elevation and layout.

The number one thing is to reduce evaporation as much as possible. That's the killer in the desert, not really the rainfall. Also, check out Brad Lancaster's work on routing the water to mulch basins and swales for the trees. You can increase the amount of water a tree gets with some simple earthworks.

here are a couple of links. instead of the roof line use you property lines to give you an idea of water harvesting potential.

http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/rainwater-harvesting-inforesources/rainwater-harvesting-online-calculator/

http://www.braewater.com/calculator