Enzo Gorlomi

Hi, thank you very much for the reply. They are not the only nitrogen fixers that I want to use, also they attract me more for the high protein, low perishable fruits. I'd like to use, just for fun, different design combination, some high carbs tree like chestnut, moringa and breadnut, some high fat tree like macadamia, almond and hazelnut, but it seems to me that growing high protein beans on trees has limited options compared to the others, so I'm searching for some tree/shrub that can live for a lot of years, that give me high protein edible and non perishable seeds, and that can fix nitrogen as a bonus. It is just a little design obsession that I have in the last few weeks 😛 we have carbs trees options, fat trees options, but where are protein trees options?

Yes I can try with grafting and give an update, but I'm not a very practical person, so it could take me a lot of time to make these experiments and I'm asking just in case some people more informed or more practical than me could already have the answer.

Anyway, thanks for the explanation on grafting and lifespan, I'm asking because I see here some people grafting solanaceae like omatoes and eggplants on more resistant rootstock in order to increase their lifespan, so I have assumed that selecting a high lifespan rootstock could dictate the lifespan of the grafted plant.

Hi, I'm planning to give a shot with some perennial nitrogen fixing tree/shrub legumes. I found three options: chachafruto, pigeonpea and Siberian peashrub. The first is practically impossible to have for me, while pigeonpea would be nice, it is short lived. Since Siberian peashrub has a long lifespan, it would be perfect, but I'm really scared about its potential invasiveness (I live in a natural protected area and I don't want to ruin it), so I'm searching for the possibility of grafting a non invasive relative on its rootstock. Could pigeopea do the work? And sorry for the silly question, but what about other legumes? Could also be possible to graft a winged bean or a fava bean on a legume tree/shrub like Siberian peashrub? I found another topic with this question but it is not conclusive.

PS: I live in the South of Italy, on the coast, and here the equivalent USDA hardiness zone should be 10, but I see that here people are able to grow even trees of really different climate, so I would even try experimenting with strange mixes in my orchard.

Thanks

Is there any organism, not tropical, that is not a carrier of disease and able to process any type of food waste as BSF do? Maybe some kind of cockroach?

I am in hardiness zone 10, very close to the sea, in southern Italy, temperatures rarely drop below 4 degrees in winter.

I would like to find an effective system to dispose of all types of food waste, including spoiled meat and dairy products. Hermetia Illucens looks perfect and I find what she manages to do really impressive, but I could only use it in the summer and it is a big limit.

I would also be willing to use blatticomposting, although I have a certain phobia towards cockroaches. If I could find an animal that can do what BSF does, but more resistant to the cold, it would be fantastic to use it as a stool producer to feed red worms and simultaneously recycle waste.

Hi! Thanks a lot for the answer. I have attached the image to better understand. it is a makeshift arrangement, nothing definitive, I needed it just to experiment and gain confidence against this magnificent animal. just today I saw the first adults! I think that keeping them outdoors the temperatures were not optimal and the development was a bit slow. I think, however, for my climate I cannot enjoy the BSF during the winter (I would also like to compost indoors with their help but unfortunately I can't really!). Although here - southern Italy - I read that they are in hardiness zone 10 and outdoor temperatures rarely drop below 4 degrees, in the winter months I imagine that the activity of the larvae becomes too slow and I would have problems with reproduction.

I'm looking for some BSF-like animal that can go well even for the winter to pre-treat any type of organic waste in a way and then give the resulting feces to earthworms.

I bought soldier fly larvae in mid-April (about 500), I put half of them in the standard compost bin without caring, the other half in a tray to check their reproduction. The larvae fed and, once they turned black, they collected themselves, so I moved them inside a cage / mosquito net and covered by a bucket waiting for them to become adults. I have never seen a single adult! some pupae are visibly dead, others perhaps still alive, but it surprises me not to have ever seen one become an adult, nor have I found dead adults! since they arrived, the outside temperatures have almost always been above 20 degrees, in the few days of bad weather they have dropped by a few degrees. The only adult I saw by chance was hovering around the uncontrolled compost bin that I hardly ever control, but the larvae whose reproduction I wanted to control did not seem to develop. In YouTube videos everything seems so simple, what can it depend on?

The aim would be to self-produce worm casting for use in pot cultivation (I am a beginner and I am trying to learn) and use black soldier fly to create food for worms. I know it's not a necessary step, but using the feces of hermetia illucens seems to me much more efficient, I didn't know it was so difficult.

guys, I'd like to thank everyone for their support and useful information! I will use them both I worried too much about the roots because I had forgotten to consider the positive effects that you pointed out to me.

I learned about the root power of willow and the use of willow water a little less than a year ago and I was amazed, so much so that I immediately went to plant branches in the ground. I was just asking if the rooting power could also be transmitted to nearby plants and you had anticipated me . I am not an expert in agriculture and before a year ago I had never read anything, even if a passion of mine was transmitted to me by my mother, who in turn inherited it from my grandfather.

PS: not only birds (there are many here), but my dog ​​also loves mulberries

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:

Enzo Gorlomi wrote:
Considering that I will coppice/pollard them, I am more worried about roots and nutrients availability to main crops. In this sense, the question was about mulberry roots.

I think the roots are only spread as wide as the tree is tall. When coppiced, the roots will die back, to about how tall it has been coppiced to, adding a huglekulture effect to the area.

If you are doing a no-till garden, and nothing you have to dig out, like potatoes, I'm thinking the roots would be of no consequence. I have two mulberries, and the only factor I've had to adjust for is the shade. The trees are 5 and 7 years old. 20 to 30 feet tall, and scheduled for their first coppice this winter.

Oh, wait. The front tree is actually 3 in one planting. It was bird planted. I did coppice one of these two years back.

That's a great info. While I like the concept of no-till and soil preservation, tubers and radishes like Jerusalem artichokes and yam, will be the next most important crop after nut trees, because I think that they are more sheltered from the incessant activity of the hens and are stored well into the soil to be harvested as needed. My intention is to give priority to well storing, high energy crops in the final design (chestnut, almond, hazelnut, with perennial tubers and nitrogen fixers, then shrubs, berries and all others stuff to add diversity and use the available space), so I'm concerned about the negative impact could have the secondary crops on the most important ones.

S Bengi wrote:Why not plant both, side by side. Maybe even months apart. Then if the mullberry and does well kill the willow.

Yeah, that's a nice idea

Sebastian Köln wrote:Their canopy is certainly quite dense, depending on the variety even very dense.
So only shade tolerant plants will work. I can't speak about nutrients, but there are no nitrogen indicator plants growing around the mulberries here.

Considering that I will coppice/pollard them, I am more worried about roots and nutrients availability to main crops. In this sense, the question was about mulberry roots.

Tyler Ludens wrote:

Sebastian Köln wrote:Mulberry is great … if you manage to easily pick the ripe fruits.
Those here are more than 10m high with pretty much nothing in reach.

Mulberry can be maintained as a large shrub, producing lots of biomass when pruned.  In my new garden I have one Willow and one Mulberry.  So far the Mulberry is growing much faster in spite of having been drastically pruned twice by deer.  So if I had to choose between the species, I would plant Mulberry instead of Willow.  Mulberry is also more suited to my climate.

Thanks for the reply. How about compatibility with other crops? I would like to specify that the primary purpose of these trees is to help me build terraces, supporting and providing organic material to fill the elevations. the main trees that I'm interested in growing are almonds, hazelnuts, chestnuts and some trees to fix nitrogen (as well as other plants such as Jerusalem artichoke, yam, chayote, sweet potato, pigeon-pea, runner-bean, fruit trees, berries etc. ). Considering that mulberries are practically impossible to kill, could they damage and / or make it difficult to grow other plants?

Thanks