thomas jahn

Thanks for the many answers to my question some time ago!

I have been thinking a lot about Fukuoka these days and I really appreciate the many recent links, like the link to the interview with Larry Korn on agroinnovations.
Listening to the interview and also watching the youtube film Fukuoka in Greece I came to think of that the difference between permaculture and natural farming really is the end of the scale where you approach the process.
Natural framing as Fukuoka practiced must be appropriate when starting with a natural situation. And in this situation, the actual management is absolutely minor and is almost reduced to seeding and harvesting. Both which will have an impact on the direction where the natural ecosystem will be drifting, slowly drifting to eventually even yield corn/rice in large amounts.
In Fukuoka's situation it may have taken already 10 years to reach a natural system and it is not surprising that it took such a long time for Fukuoka to reach the final state. It may also explain, why so few (? any?) people have succeeded repeating it.
With all the deap respect for Fukuoka, I guess that he himself has overestimated the effect of his practise on the sites in Greece. As Dieter B. in the permaculture mailing list these days appeared to remember, the large seeding events in Greece, only had marginal success.

With permaculture, we come from the other end. As Larry says in the interview, we start with a close observation of the place, which may be in what ever state different from a natural state. But the idea is then, to employ management with the goal to reach a system that is related to nature, as closely as possible. So, the final state of a long year natural farming place and a permaculture place may end up being quite similar, at least in the amount of management needed to sustain it. The decision, however, where to start (natural farming or permaculture) will have to be made on the current situation.

What Fukuoka tried in Greece may not have worked, because the conditions were to harsh. Likely in relation to water availability. Water seems to be THE prime factor, for both natural farming and permaculture. So if water is scarce, some kind of management may be needed. And that is exactly what we know from Sepp Holzer, keyline plowing, natural sequence farming and others.

Another point that I really appreciate about Fukuoka's work is that he brings back annuals in the natural farming. In this context there is one remark from Larry in the interview that I would like to comment on. He says, the cultivars Fukuoka used aren't that important. It was really more a question of his practices.
I would completely agree. But we have also to be aware of genetic variation and the process of adaptation. Natural farming or even permaculture for that sake, will probably never succeed with modern varieties. And the adaptation process was likely one major factor explaining why Fukuoka's final success took such a long time. But his population were finally adapted to his site. So whenever we use in particular annuals for our systems, we should take as local as possible and as old as possible populations (populations with different genetic individuals as opposed to varieties with genetically 'identical' individuals).

So how to end this little statement: I guess, I am most impressed and fascinated by Masanobu Fukuoka. But I realize that the world is so deeply damaged by various means, that we will have to use permaculture rather than natural farming and leave the natural places untouched to preserve the school of the art.
Not only that. We may have to find ways to accelerate permaculture in order to win the race. So permaculture is a transition process. And Fukuoka was enlighten, strong, and blessed to jump over this phase. At least mentally.

Thomas

I would think: if you wanted to establish a tree, you want to give it a good head start in its environment. So any competition should be controlled.
Mulch could be a safe praxis at the start of the the tree's establishment. Then you efficiently suppress competitors.

A tree nurser here has a nut plantage on a loan. He uses the loan clippings directly for mulch around the tress, to prevent the grasses from taking over. But then he keeps cats and has a falcon, both that catch the mice that in seasons hide under the mulch and eat the bark of his trees.
So, mulch can also be a place for rodents.

An accumulator plant like comfrey sounds like a very good idea. That would certainly bring nutrients into circulation and make them available also to the tree. But if you then used the comfrey for mulch other places, then you would probably over time remove important mineral nutrients from the spot.

Maybe one should start with a lot of comfrey and other accumulators, and then successively to thin it out replacing it by other plants from seed or planted directly.

It may sound a bit dogmatic, but some say that crop rotation is just the desperate trial to compensate for an over exploitation during the previous season. And I must say, I quite agree with this interpretation. Crop rotation in my eyes is not permaculture.

I am rather thinking of a polyculture or intercropping that can be maintained at the same spot for many years. Like the examples from Fukuoka and Bonfils.

Newer studies with rice in China have shown that the use of mixed cultivars has great potential for fighting pests. On large areas - still with conventional methods and only rice - but with mixed cultivars it was possible to grow rice without any application of fungicides.

Cereal crops are very typical crops for conventional and industrial farming. Therefore we tend to abandon cereals almost completely, as we associate all the problems with these crops. I believe that the problems relate to the varieties and the management, and that there is a much bigger potential in cereals when we really exploit the cropping systems.
Cereals must have been used before Babylon and in very different settings. Now, the old genetic material is still available. I would love to know more about the management and harvest method of cereals from our ancestors. And I expect that some radical differences to common practices would need to be employed, and of course in combination with these old and robust genetic populations.

I was wondering if cereals could seed themselves in a system that could still be harvested.

The background is as follows:

1. Different wild emmer varieties have awns of more uniform length than domesticated wheat.
The awns are known to be important for seed dispursal. A character that probaly was not selected for, under traditional breeding for 10.000 years. That would mean that new varieties may have lost their dispersal structure or at least the structure may not have preserved this function.
2. Also, new varieties are specially bred to not loose their kernels during harvest. Meaning that old varieties (or better populations) might loose there seeds easier during harvest, which for selfseeding must be an advantage.

Therefore, there may be both, a genetic background for selfseeding and a also certain form of management that could allow e.g. emmer to go for several years with only harvesting because of selfseeding.

Holzer's Urkorn, an ancestor of rye, on the other hand has perennial character. The plants either set fruit, or when damaged go into the next year. A german permaculture consultant says on a youtube film, that this can go on for up to 5 years.

My further thoughts to this: Maybe there could be populations of cereals that combine charaters of being perennial and being self seeding.

How long would it take until other species take over the ground? Or in other words, what would be the most propper plant to be associated with the cereal to be most stable over years.

Does anybody have some valuable insights or thoughts?

regards
Thomas

thanks Larry! Though disappointing.

I don't want to be too strict, when I ask for a "reproduction". Already the seedballs may be a science on its own. If there was some good (or bad) experience with growing e.g. wheat intercropped with clover, I would be happy.

I am in the process of taking up such a method for an experiment at our Faculty in agriculture and ecology. And I meet a lot of scepticism and resistance from my colleagues. Rumors go that intercropping of wheat with clover outcompetes the wheat. Now I am trying to find out what they did in detail to get an idea what was wrong.

If I had to start this with wheat and clover, I would host some pigs at the spot to clear the place. And for the first sowing, I could try to start with wheat instead of clover, although this is not according to the method you can find on the net. But as there would be plenty of nitrogen in the soil (from pig manure, there should be plenty of nutrition to give the wheat a proper head start.

In year 2 I would sow right under the clover.

Also, I could imagine that it was best to start with a population rather than a variety, to start with a broad genetic potential. Then using the seeds from the harvest to adapt the population.

just to mention two aspects

cheers
Thomas

I would be highly interested to hear if here is anybody, who has tried to grow a cereal crop the Fukuoka way.
Not to be mistaken: I believe every word from him about his yields and practices. But you gotta have the right spirit to do it.

I have been reading about perennial cereal crops. In particular the sources provided by the Land Institute in Kansas. The idea of perennials seems attractive. But breeding for perennial cereal crops somehow appear to me like starting from scratch and I wonder if we will see "competitive" varieties that will convince farmers to switch from annuals to perennials.

On the other hand, what Fukuoka and also Marc Bonfils have been doing is imitating the perennial grassland by using annuals. With all the beneficial aspects for soil building and resilience. Therefore, it would be extremely valuable to hear, if somebody succeeded.

cheers
Thomas

gillium wrote:
still, I stick to the subjective.. Weed: a plant out of place, an unwanted plant. pretty simple.

But then, weed is not a fixed lable for a certain species, but rather a term for a species in a specific setting and situation.

loonbum wrote:
So far I've thought of a few:

sustainable agriculture
low-impact agriculture
biodynamic agriculture
indiginous food production
closed-loop system


Can you think of any others? 

I usually add "natural farming" as Fukuoka did call his method. Not to say it is the same, but when closely watching nature you derive at permaculture. It is one of the design methods.

Because in permaculture every organism plays a role, weed does not really exist there.
Even in wikipedia it says:
"The term weed in its general sense is a subjective one, without any classification value, since a "weed" is not a weed when growing where it belongs or is wanted."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weed

rose macaskie wrote:
I am growing tomatoes from the seeds of a tomatoe in my kitchen now, .....

Another possibility may be to seed the tomatoes out in the garden, but cover them in the early season with a mobile greenhouse. For adaptation, instead of removing the greenhouse from one day to another, it can be opened during the day and closed during night. Something also mentioned by Sepp Holzer as the practice of his mother in the farm garden.