How to Turn Tropical Pasture back to Forest

Well,
I'm looking at some land options in the tropics. I'm looking at high rainforest areas and there seem to be lots of properties with cattle pasture. The grasses in the pasture being robust, thick and aggressive tropical species.

I want to clear ten hectares for food forest. What is the best method for a sufficient initial disturbance to keep the grasses from re-growing?

I want my trees to be successfull, and I don't want to battle grasses for ten years. Is there anything effective besides herbicide treatment?

Plant nitrogen fixing trees ever meter or even closer. Pigeon Pea is a good one you can probably even broadcast it.
Plant your regular fruit tree trees. By the time your pigeon pea dies off in 18month. Your grass problems will have been mostly fixed.
Sweet Potatoes is another plant that will do well after the 1st 18months.  

I very much like S Bengi's ideas, but I really must say this: "Never, ever, ever use Herbicides" especially when you want to create a disturbance type situation, you would be working against your end goal.

If you have the tools you could turn the grass under but as S B brought up, for trees you really only need to plant trees, if you want to plant Nitrogen fixing plants into the grass that is there, by all means broadcast the seeds.
If the soil is compacted at all, throwing out lots of rape seeds will take care of that issue or you can add rape and daikon radish seeds along with N fixers and loosen and nourish the soil without having to do anything to the grasses.
Planting trees is a minor disturbance on the front end, it also gives you the chance to do some spot amending if you feel the need for that.

If you have pasture you really don't need to "clear" any land, it is already cleared all you need to do is plant the items you want growing there.

Redhawk

Aloha, good suggestions from everyone. One thing to consider, though is that these grasses may not be temperate-level aggressive, but tropical-level aggressive, meaning can eat you or your house and car, or at least smother your trees in a few days. It is really a different situation if you do not have experience with the crazy tropical grasses, planting trees or even just working with the land can be near impossible with certain species. Perhaps Windy can provide the species so we can get a better idea of what they are dealing with, and location information, too. The really aggressive tropical grasses can form monocultures that can resist grazing, tillage, even moving through them to an unbelievable degree. They are not like temperate grasslands that, if left alone, will become forests relatively quickly, but can maintain themselves as grassland for (in human terms)nearly forever. This was talked about a bit in the early Permaculture texts, probably because in parts of Australia the early designers were dealing with some of the really difficult grasses. This is one reason why temperate-style ranching has been so devastating for tropical forests, because when forest is cleared for pasture, if it is later abandoned, it does not quickly and easily revert back to woodland, but requires active intervention to get out of the grass cycle. Extremely overgrazed areas are actually easier to deal with in some ways, because the aggressive grasses are usually gone by then. There is a difference between knee or waist high tropical grass and the 15ʻ+ tall grass monoculture with 1-2" thick stems, saw-bladed leaves and itchy hairs that we very often deal with in Hawaiʻi. I am only bringing this up to say that it may not be as simple as planting trees and watching them grow, because I deal with the opposite all the time. The grasses we deal with almost always need to be cleared mechanically first, whether with hand tools up to large equipment. Not that I would recommend them, but herbicides are generally not effective unless sprayed from the air, or along the edges over a long period of time, just because no one can walk through them to spray.

One thing I have learned is that if you do any kind of clearing, you must have a plan to occupy all of the cleared space with desirable plants immediately, and maintain your cleared area somehow until they get established, or you will lose your cleared ground and your plants very quickly.

Many of the grasses are rhizomatous, and can propagate themselves from small pieces of stem, so it is not just above ground but below that you need to consider. A big tractor with a flail mower is a great tool to cut lanes in the grass, many people opt for a bull dozer here too, and it is not a bad idea with some grasses. If you can clear wide lanes that you can mow or maintain somehow, you can start a nucleus of desirable vegetation that can cope with the grass, but I would not say that it is something you can plant and walk away from. Any kind of tillage is usually impossible with the grasses I deal with regularly, because they sprout from the stems and are usually too big, tough and woody for anything I know to deal with. After the grass is mulched (2-3 passes with a flail mower) and broken down, some tillage is possible, but that has its own problems in the tropics, usually resulting in lost fertility. By the time the grass breaks down enough to till in, the rest has usually grown back too tall to deal with anyway. I find it works to figure out your guild or companions that will go with each tree and plant everything at once. Perrenial peanut is a good low cover for right around a tree, and pigeon pea and crotalaria species further out. Comfrey grows in the tropics, and it and vetiver can work for a barrier to rhizomes if planted thickly. Plant everything extra thick and cut any extra down later for mulch if it is in the way of your desired tree. If you can fill a 10ʻ circle around your tree with good plants and keep the aggressive grasses out, your trees have a fighting shot at surviving. We also use the kukui tree Aleurites moluccana to take up space when needed. If that is available where you are, it grows fast, provides useful products and lots of mulch, breaks down fast and is easy to cut down and replace with more desirable trees, although it is also desirable in its own right.

Cattle can deal with some of the worst grasses, and goats can eat the stems, but with really tall, thick grass, intensive grazing is difficult. Equipment can make lanes in the grass for access and fencing, to make it easier, but this would not be a quick way to establish a forest. Most people seem to opt for extensive grazing over a very long time, after which the fertility is largely gone anyway and the land will be overgrazed, plus in that kind of management cattle and goats would surely find any trees and eat them too.

I have attached a couple pictures of what I deal with that may give some idea of what grass in the tropics can look like, they are not the most illustrative, but are what I have available right now.

You have your work cut out for you if you opt for a parcel of that size, even a few acres of the really aggressive grasses can be hard work to establish trees in!

I think this lengthy reply may help some that do not have as much experience with tropical landscapes understand how it is different from temperate, and how much more challenging it can be. The title of the post is worth a book or two in and of itself, as well as a lifetime of work for many of us. I think it is worth a lot of discussion, not just for the original poster, but for the entire world at large, based on the impact it could have on the worlds ecosystem.

Joe Kern wrote:Aloha, good suggestions from everyone. One thing to consider, though is that these grasses may not be temperate-level aggressive, but tropical-level aggressive, meaning can eat you or your house and car, or at least smother your trees in a few days. It is really a different situation if you do not have experience with the crazy tropical grasses, planting trees or even just working with the land can be near impossible with certain species. Perhaps Windy can provide the species so we can get a better idea of what they are dealing with, and location information, too. The really aggressive tropical grasses can form monocultures that can resist grazing, tillage, even moving through them to an unbelievable degree. They are not like temperate grasslands that, if left alone, will become forests relatively quickly, but can maintain themselves as grassland for (in human terms)nearly forever. This was talked about a bit in the early Permaculture texts, probably because in parts of Australia the early designers were dealing with some of the really difficult grasses. This is one reason why temperate-style ranching has been so devastating for tropical forests, because when forest is cleared for pasture, if it is later abandoned, it does not quickly and easily revert back to woodland, but requires active intervention to get out of the grass cycle. Extremely overgrazed areas are actually easier to deal with in some ways, because the aggressive grasses are usually gone by then. There is a difference between knee or waist high tropical grass and the 15ʻ+ tall grass monoculture with 1-2" thick stems, saw-bladed leaves and itchy hairs that we very often deal with in Hawaiʻi. I am only bringing this up to say that it may not be as simple as planting trees and watching them grow, because I deal with the opposite all the time. The grasses we deal with almost always need to be cleared mechanically first, whether with hand tools up to large equipment. Not that I would recommend them, but herbicides are generally not effective unless sprayed from the air, or along the edges over a long period of time, just because no one can walk through them to spray.

One thing I have learned is that if you do any kind of clearing, you must have a plan to occupy all of the cleared space with desirable plants immediately, and maintain your cleared area somehow until they get established, or you will lose your cleared ground and your plants very quickly.

Many of the grasses are rhizomatous, and can propagate themselves from small pieces of stem, so it is not just above ground but below that you need to consider. A big tractor with a flail mower is a great tool to cut lanes in the grass, many people opt for a bull dozer here too, and it is not a bad idea with some grasses. If you can clear wide lanes that you can mow or maintain somehow, you can start a nucleus of desirable vegetation that can cope with the grass, but I would not say that it is something you can plant and walk away from. Any kind of tillage is usually impossible with the grasses I deal with regularly, because they sprout from the stems and are usually too big, tough and woody for anything I know to deal with. After the grass is mulched (2-3 passes with a flail mower) and broken down, some tillage is possible, but that has its own problems in the tropics, usually resulting in lost fertility. By the time the grass breaks down enough to till in, the rest has usually grown back too tall to deal with anyway. I find it works to figure out your guild or companions that will go with each tree and plant everything at once. Perrenial peanut is a good low cover for right around a tree, and pigeon pea and crotalaria species further out. Comfrey grows in the tropics, and it and vetiver can work for a barrier to rhizomes if planted thickly. Plant everything extra thick and cut any extra down later for mulch if it is in the way of your desired tree. If you can fill a 10ʻ circle around your tree with good plants and keep the aggressive grasses out, your trees have a fighting shot at surviving. We also use the kukui tree Aleurites moluccana to take up space when needed. If that is available where you are, it grows fast, provides useful products and lots of mulch, breaks down fast and is easy to cut down and replace with more desirable trees, although it is also desirable in its own right.

Cattle can deal with some of the worst grasses, and goats can eat the stems, but with really tall, thick grass, intensive grazing is difficult. Equipment can make lanes in the grass for access and fencing, to make it easier, but this would not be a quick way to establish a forest. Most people seem to opt for extensive grazing over a very long time, after which the fertility is largely gone anyway and the land will be overgrazed, plus in that kind of management cattle and goats would surely find any trees and eat them too.

I have attached a couple pictures of what I deal with that may give some idea of what grass in the tropics can look like, they are not the most illustrative, but are what I have available right now.

You have your work cut out for you if you opt for a parcel of that size, even a few acres of the really aggressive grasses can be hard work to establish trees in!

I think this lengthy reply may help some that do not have as much experience with tropical landscapes understand how it is different from temperate, and how much more challenging it can be. The title of the post is worth a book or two in and of itself, as well as a lifetime of work for many of us. I think it is worth a lot of discussion, not just for the original poster, but for the entire world at large, based on the impact it could have on the worlds ecosystem.

Thank you, Joe. You really hit the nail on the head in terms of what I was thinking for an approach. I don't have an exact property in mind. I'm looking anywhere from the high jungle areas of central-northern Peru in areas that are about 1000m elevation (suitable for mountain species as well as species from the lower jungles).

Actually properties I've seen with cattle in the region have never had grass that tall. I suppose because they're actively maintained. I suppose it's possible to have grasses as tall and robust as yours. I'm not familiar with grass species and their identification.

The focus of my question is what initial mechanical disturbance to use to get ahead of the grasses and give the trees a fighting chance? I haven't found any good resources to learn about this, so lately I've been considering instead looking for land with bushy secondary/third/fourth forest regrowth.

My approach in that situation would be a D6 dozer with root rake blade, an excavator with thumb attachment, and large tree chipper. The process here is pretty self-explanatory, but I'd leave a few large and/or dead trees on each hectare for bird habitat and to help repair the nutrient cycle.

When the land is cleared we'd pass through with a tractor with auger attachment and dig small holes roughly every 2m with about 2.5m between rows (I still need to work out the exact math on this when I know the exact area of land and the exact number of specimen trees (the contract states there will be somewhere in the ballpark of 10,000 - 11,000 saplings).

Before the tractor is preparing planting holes, 12 metric tons of compost and 12 metric tons of cow manure will be spread around the area. The tractor will first make a pass with a subsoiler implement, and then another pass with the auger to drill planting holes. At some point during this process, we will simultaneously broadcast a mixture of Cajanus cajan (Pigeon Pea), Ricinus communis, Moringa oleifera, Leucaena leucocephala, and some sort of summer annual bush bean.

This seed mixture will be applied at a higher density than what is conventional. For example, Pigeon Pea seed alone will be applied at a rate of 10kg/Ha.

As you can see, this venture has kept me awake at night.

I still have more to learn, and that's why I want to know how to establish trees into an area that's been tropical pasture for at least the past couple years.

Using the above method I outlined to clear regrowth forest, the machine and labor costs will total from $16,540 - $22,740 depending on if I rent everything and buy my own fuel and hire the operators myself or if I just use a contractor to take care of the job.

That's a significant cost, but I'm confident the results would be excellent with minimal subsequent interference from undesirable plants including grasses.

I know costs would be less to convert pasture, but I'm not sure what the approach for this is. As you've pointed out, it's paramount to prepare the site in such a way as to avoid the re-encroachment of the grasses.

I think you are wise to point out out that the approach isn't the same as in more temperate areas.

Oh, I forgot to mention, my plan was also to sow perennial peanut seed densely in the area immediately surrounding a planted sapling. So, it was funny that you mentioned that too. I guess that must be a proven strategy.

I can share my plant list too if you're curious. There are 6 main species (including 1000 of Schizolobium amazonicum and 2000 of Inga sp. for long term support) totalling 7000 individuals, and about another 50 species of native and exotic fruiting trees totalling another 4,000 individuals.

S Bengi wrote:Plant nitrogen fixing trees ever meter or even closer. Pigeon Pea is a good one you can probably even broadcast it.

Pigeon pea has the added advantage that it produces an edible pulse. It is a very popular food in Caribbean countries.

Brachiaria brizantha is the species in question. This is the most common cattle pasture grass.

I’m not sure if I should use a bulldozer with a root rake blade to scrape out the grass (I can see the topsoil and even subsoil being lifted away, trapped in the roots of the grass), mow&till (this has the drawback of burying the miniscule amount of topsoil that is present), or spraying with herbicide (environmentally questionable and probably other unwanted side effects.)

It’s going to be a big area (10-18 hectares), so the “lasagna method” or other such backyard methods won’t be practical.

Personally, I’m leaning towards the mow&till approach, making various passes with the tractor. I have a perennial/annual cover crop seed mix planned totalling over 1.5 tonnes of seed including 850kg of cowpea seed and 600kg of pigeon pea seed.

I figure the topsoil that gets buried is only 3mm - 2cm thick anyway, and we can probably regenerate more than that in a few short years.