richard@chook.adelaide.edu.au (Richard Siggs) (11/09/90)
In a recent post to sci.environment, I asked if there were other people interested in the broad area of 'Natural Agriculture'. I think that topic covers a vast area, but, if it 'rings a bell' to you, then I guess you can call yourself interested, I have no definition for 'Natural Agriculture' & perhaps it doesn't need one.. Anyway, here's a reply I received: From: barry@dgbt.doc.ca (Barry McLarnon DGBT/DIP) Subject: Re: Natural Agriculture.> > OK, I'm one! I'm on the coordinating committee of an organization > called Canadian Organic Growers, which consists of a sizeable number > of farmers and home gardeners who are practitioners and promotors of > {organic, natural, sustainable,...?} agricultural techniques. I would > be very interested in communicating with like-minded individuals via > the net - perhaps we could set up a mailing list? > My reply, which might as well go here was: Excellent! I think a mailing list is a great idea? How would you like to implement it? How many people do you know of? I haven't received much interest in Aust. as yet, but I'm doing some publicising (and a bit of 'stirring') to see who's interested here. One project I have in mind at the moment, is to help some of the farmers in South Australia, who are having their machinery re-possessed by Banks, due to the continual failure over the last few years to produce any reasonable 'cash-crop'. One solution I'm looking at is getting these people interested in tree growing & other natural, low-intensity argiculture. There have been some amazing developments in a university in Queensland (are you familiar with Australia's states? Queensland is the North- Eastern state of Aust.) to do with a tree derived from a fast & straight growing tree in China, but, through cloning & some genetic selection, they've managed to produce a tree that can replace the traditional softwoods & some paper pulp timbers, the best thing, is that it grows to full maturity in 5 years!! Amazing! I'm going to investigate that further, but are there people who you know who may have some comment on this kind of thing. ie: not just the tree, but the idea of getting farmers to switch from highly intensive, yearly or twice yearly 'cash-crop' farming, to other methods? Well, there you have it, anyone got ideas/comments? ============================================================== Richard Siggs Computer Science Dept., Adelaide University, South Australia. Net: richard@cs.adelaide.edu.au Q. Does Permaculture work? A. Do trees grow?
A.S.Chamove@massey.ac.nz (A.S. Chamove) (11/13/90)
A 300 acre block nearby has recent come onto the market rather inexpensively. THe reason is that it is steep and that it is covered with mature gorse. I believe that it is possible to get rid of gorse by planting taller trees and shading out the gorse. I know this can be done with the ubiquitous pine, but I am not keen to plant exclusively pine. What I would like is to plant other varieties and also to plant them at a spacing which would allow grazing under the trees. So my questions are: 1--What tree species can I plant to kill the gorse? 2--What do I have to do to the gorse first to allow the tree seedlings to get established? 3--What spacings should I use? I realize that I might (?) have to plant at close spacing at first to shade out the gorse and then thin later. Perhaps I could use some pines to get this initial shading, and then thin most of them out in a few years. Other suggestions that have been offered are as follows: Spray the gorse and burn it (but that would also kill the natives that I would like to preserve). Rip out the gorse with root rippers (but that would tear up the hillside and leave a lot of open soil which would germinate a lot of gorse seeds). Kill the gorse with goats (that would kill the natives and I dont have that many goats). arnold New Zealand -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RAWSON@SWAT.SWARTHMORE.EDU (11/16/90)
I have no expertise in this area, but watched a program on our Public Television last night --one in a series called "Living Isles". It was about the fact that Britain was once covered with forests which were cut and burned and now there are vast heather and gorse covered areas. I just wonder whether you might find ideas in England about re-establishing trees in such environments. My reason for being on this mailing list is that I share in the ownership of about 800 acres in Vermont which has been managed as a tree farm for about 40 years. When I first spent summers there, there were many hayfields. When we stopped cutting hay the white pines slowly took over the fields. The rest of the forest is mixed hardwood and evergreen. Anne Rawson