1 Jun, 2017 | Remembering Bill in Print
The Lost Stories are Bill Mollison’s articles published in the print magazine originally named Permaculture, then International Permaculture Journal and finally the Permaculture International Journal that was published between 1978 and 2000.
All stories and other content ©Permaculture Australia unless otherwise noted.
Story by Bill Mollison. Edition: 1979, Summer.
Bill Mollison at the 1997 Australasian Permaculture Convergence in Nimbin, Australia. Photo: ©Russ Grayson 1997.
Forestry deals, for the main part, with tree crops. Modern forestry does include species for farm windbreak and woodlot but rarely involves planning the evolution of useful understorey and shrub species. Agriculture largely ignores the full development of perennial plant species on farm and leaves the forests to the foresters. Aquaculture forms a sub-section of zoology in most universities.
Farmers and ‘new settlers’ from the cities can therefore rarely obtain useful extension advice on multiuse plant and animal species. No discipline treats the plant system (except in passing reference) on anything but a product/yield basis, consequently all ignore the potential energy gain or savings from integrated dwelling/pasture/forest/pond design.
Permaculture was intended to fill some of these gaps. It has a wide following amongst the people now taking up marginal land on the outskirts of country towns and in areas where smallholders have abandoned uneconomical small-fruit and dairy farms in Australia.
Permaculture attempts an integrated land-use design centred on the buildings on-site, but the basic principles are equally applicable to forestry.
Fields of problems
There is no point in stressing the need for a great deal more stability in soil, water, landscape and climate for any country. The ills of clearfelling, monoculture and subsecfuent salting, disease, erosion and climatic change are too well documented to need repetition.
Solutions are not quite so easy to come by. Once a landscape has been denuded of trees, allowed to develop rampant pioneer weed species and has lost topsail or accumulated salt, the reversal of these processes becomes extremely difficult. The problem is only exacerbated by commercial demands for a single product for a single use (eg. pine forests for timber).
Any benefits of stable landscape utilisation are thereby discarded, while relativety enormous energies are devoted to control: control of insect pests, ‘weed’ vegetation, fire, browsing species and quality of product.
Downstream pollution is the inevitable result. Deer, wallaby, orangutang, gorilla and tapir are as much elements of the forest as are the trees, but more often than not it is left to voluntary agencies to attempt to save these elements from 1080, fire and clearfelling. If we lose these elements, how do we replace them?
Forestry in its application concentrates on crown lands and large private company lands and is underapplied to cities and farms. Even on the broad scale provision seems to be for wood alone. Do we know the real, long term costs of forest cutting? I doubt it.
Does the forester study flood control, waste disposal, siltation, eutrophication, salting or loss of rainfall? Does he account for these factors in charging companies which manufacture inessential packing materials and daily newspapers, ie. the true cost to the country of their raw materials?
In Australia we need to go no further than the Murray valley system to see desertification at work. A light plane trip over the areas now becoming salt plain should be compuisory for every politician, forester and newspaper executive.
We can no longer pretend that our activities in headwater forests do not drastically affect downstream soils and inflict enormous economic losses. But we cannot ask farmers to reafforest for timber alone while their cattle and sheep are agisted elsewhere. What we can do is devise, from the many available species, a forage forest which is better than pasture and has an eventual timber yield. Such forests can also yield products other than forage.
As AB Lovins has aptly quipped, “The answer is technology but what was the question?”
Are we planning for waste and instability, nonsustainable soil health and ‘economic’ production, or are we planning for people, diversity, stability and a sustainable future? Few foresters can look one in the eye these days and say that their activities are, in the long term, beneficial to their country or to the soil. Most become witness to over-exploitation of forests for their timber use only.
The principles of sustainable yield
Permaculture is our attempt to set out the principles of the evolution of a sustainable yield system of multiuse species — to use not only the products of an integrated landscape but to direct other energies (wind, sun, fire) to serve man or the system.
We import into Australia some $18 million worth of nuts, dates and similar tree crop products. We lack jojoba and hunt whales, cannot provide for or advise on arid-land species and extend our deserts, and are tied in a palsied mode to other cultures and commercial interests in areas where we could well be self-sufficient.
What we are now proposing is a complex forest agriculture, as nicely balanced as species and site allow, giving a variety of crops over many years and maintaining or improving soil quality. No farmer need buy fence posts nor feed his stock on annually-grown concentrates if we could advise on the trees and shrubs which yield beans, foliage and seed for this latter purpose. Timber is a long-term by-product of such forests, as thinnings or mature trees.
The narrow, sterile, poorly planned windbreaks of farms are more likely to accelerate winds and increase ground draughts than to provide warm lambing shelter. The almost total lack of recorded data in the heating and cooling, shade and reflective properties of plants reflects our own lack of interest in anything but crop issues.
P. A. Yeomans, in his Keyline concept and his treatment of eroded soils, deserves more attention from reafforestation planners. But the teams employed by rural fires boards and forestry departments appear, to my eye, to be legalised vandals. They carve near vertical ‘access roads’ which erode gullies, fire distant plains on any excuse and release even more turpenes and CO2 into the overloaded atmosphere than any other industry or source, at least in Tasmania. On a world scale, approx. 4000 billion tons of CO2 are released annually by cutting and burning. Haiti, Brazil, Africa and Borneo are looted for their forest resources. Drought and erosion follow.
We need a new concern and spirit in the profession, a new sort of forest intended to persist, to function and to yield. Historians and archaeologists have recorded the alternatives and the plunder of native forests may be the greatest factor in ending a nation’s history. To pretend otherwise is present cowardice and invites future disaster. It is long past time that foresters put their full weight behind extension of forests, preservation of native stands and the evolution of new strategies to stabilise soil and landscape.
There is no lack of arable land in India, just a lack of forests. Can we provide the materials and expertise to reverse the grain crop famines of third world countries? I doubt it. My hope lies not with the inert academic professionals trained to serve exploiting industry, but with the thousands of ordinary people who are taking the alternative road. They could certainly do with at least part-time assistance at this time.
As students, foresters could ask for more integrated courses dealing with perennial forests grown for their forage, leaf protein and essential yields, and only in the long term for timber. Global and historical views of the results of forest cutting are essential if we are to understand the consequences of deforestation.
Permaculture combines disciplines
Permaculture is one attempt to weld together disciplines that have with a consequent loss of effectiveness separated soil, water, wildlife products, architecture and forests into separate compartments and departments. While I have many criticisms of the work itself, I doubt that the underlying theme of integration of the essential elements can be challenged, nor can the idea of integrated design be seriously criticised.
The active use of browsing mammals in seed and fire control is just one factor that could be better studied in forestry. Provision of more species for firebreaks and of water and nest sites for wildlife which aid in pest control are others. Access and water planned on Keyline principles give great stability to landscape, and the conscious use of plantation to increase rainfall, reduce groundwater evaporation and stabilize dunes is needed.
I have no doubt that active participation by foresters and their professional associations in the problem areas outlined would have a greatly beneficial effect on present and future unemployment. We live in dangerous but stimufating times that call for all our concern in the provision of the essentials of life, fuel, food and the myriad products of the forest.
No nation could ask for a better resource than that provided by extensive mixed forestry.
One of the reasons why salting is occurring in irrigation areas and in the drylands of the Murray Valley is destruction of tree cover in the catchments. Evidence backing this conclusion has come from hydrologists and soil conservation officers. It puts at risk many thousands of Murray Valley farms and the livelihoods of large numbers of Murray Valley townspeople.
What is happening had its root cause in the need for fuel by the mining industry and the clearing of land for agriculture. Trees taken off the catchments, particularly in the Loddon, Campaspe and Goulburn Valleys have allowed extra water to flow into deep aquifers or underground streams. These, in turn, are rising inexorably toward the surface at a steady rate. Some are already breaking the surface after moving through salt layers. Others are expected to take up to 40 years before being seen.
How can the problem be tackled?
A small group based at Maryborough in Victoria believes that replanting of trees in the catchments is a big part of that answer. Their farm forestry approach includes a five year planting program of trees for:
- cattle fodder
- oils
- pharmaceuticals
- timber
- shade and shelter.
Mr Terry White, one of the leaders of the small group, told Riverlander it included committed people who included officers from the Victorian Department of Agriculture, the Forestry Commission Victoria, local government, the Soil Conservation Authority of Victoria, CSIRO — plus well-known ‘perma-culture’ exponent, Mr Bill Mollison.
The group met recently in Maryborough and decided to begin to build a map of the entire area affected by salting caused by lack of trees. The drainage system would be overlayed with geological strata to pinpoint the key areas for urgent action.
Another part of the group’s activity will be directed towards education of people about the problems of salinity in the Murray Valley. It will also offer help to governments and others in framing suitable policies.
The group is looking to attract members too. Anyone wishing to join or offer financial help should telephone Mr Terry White on (054) 612 940.
Editor’s notes
The following terms were used interchangeably at the time this edition of Permaculture was published.
New settlers: a term that described the influx or mainly young people into rural areas, including farmland and intentional communities, during the 1970-1980s. New settlers was one of a number of popular terms describing the social movement around seeking alternative ways of living lightly on the Earth that included participants in the cities as well as rural areas, however it referred specifically to those moving into rural areas.
Alternative terms were:
- the ‘back to the land movement’, a description used to encapsulate the social movement from city to rural area
- ‘alternatives’, a term describing the participants that was also used for those interested in new systems such as renewable energy, organic food, the economics of EF Schumacher and the design work and ideas of Buckminster Fuller, whether in city or country.
Other terms in use at the time and sometimes applied to new settlers:
- ‘counterculture’, a term used to describe the alternative social culture in city and country as well as the lifestyle movement of the late-sixties-seventies known as ‘hippies’
- ‘hippies’, a popular catch-all term applied to those seeking alternative ways of living, including the use of psychedelics and marajuana that developed its own styles of presentation, music and art.
20 May, 2017 | Remembering Bill in Print
The Lost Stories are Bill Mollison’s articles published in the print magazine originally named Permaculture, then International Permaculture Journal and finally the Permaculture International Journal that was published between 1978 and 2000.
All stories and other content ©Permaculture Australia unless otherwise noted.
Story by Bill Mollison, August 1978. Edition: 1979, Summer.
Grain and legume growing in the permaculture system – the principles of simultaneous rotation …Bill Mollison, August 1978
Until I read Fukuoka, there was no satisfactory basis, to my mind, for including grain and legume crops in a permaculture system, but the system outlined in The One-Straw Revolution (Rodale, 1975) seems to have solved the small holders’ (and broad-scale) problems of no-dig grain cultivation.
Both P. A. Yeomans and David King of Nimbin recommend the work of G. F. Van der Muelen, a tropical agronomist who has published The ecological methods for permanent land use in the tropics, available from Ranonn Kelstraat 119, the Hague, The Netherlands. Van der Muelen uses, for example, the lab-lab bean (Dolichos lab-lab) under babassu palm as a perennial system; a friend of P. A. Yeomans uses lab-lab with barley to great effect.
In brief, the system (an example of which is given below, combines the usual rotation of legume/grain/root crop/pasture/fallow/legume into a single grain/legume mixed crop. There is every reason to do the same for tree crop system, including leguminous trees (wattle, black locust, tree lucerne) in any orchard, nut crop, or timber crop situation. Any smallholder can, without tractor or machinery, produce a heavy crop of grains and legumes if ‘simultaneous rotation’ is practised. The method is very well suited to sewage or sullage disposal from holding lagoons, when no poultry manure would be needed.
We are anxious to hear more from members on this technique, and hope that many people try the system on a backyard basis, with chick peas, lentils, beans, or lupins as alternative legumes. Labour in this system is minimal.
In this treatment, I have combined data from three books (Ref. 1-3). Using Fukuoka’s methodology, and data from the latter two references (Ref 2, 3) to evolve a no-dig and permanent grain-crop system that fits into the permaculture system.
Grain crops are an important food source and are available within a season. Most areas suit grains, and legumes are the essential plants to fix nitrogen for the grain crop. A grain/legume diet gives a complete protein supplement (see Diet for a small planet, Frances Moore Lappe; FOE/Ballantyne).
The principles of continuous mulch (with clover) plus double-cropping using winter- and spring-sown grains is what makes it possible to use small areas (to 1/8 acre or less) to support a family of five in grain. If paddy rice is to be grown, the area must first be graded or levelled and a low bund (water wall) built around the plot, so that 2″ or so of water can lie on ground in December (see Ref. 2 for technique of sealing bund walls with plastic).
After levelling, or preparation in summer, the area is limed or dolomite spread over it, watered in, and made ready for autumn planting. To start the continuous crop system off, a complete (seed free) mulch cover is applied, consisting of straw, seagrass, shredded paper, sawdust etc. at about 2000 Ibs. per 1/4 acre. If no mulch is available, seed can be covered as usual by raking in. I will deal with more than one plot here to show how different plants can be treated.
In April, seed is broadcast below the mulch follows:
- Plot 1 Seed: rice, white clover, rye.
- Plot 2 Seed: rice, white clover, barley.
- Plot 3 Seed: Seed: rice, white clover, millet.
- Plot 4: rice, white clover, winter wheat.
- Plot 5: Seed: rice, white clover, winter oats.
Rice lies until Spring. The other crops germinate soon after sowing. The year then proceeds as follows (we will now assume that the rotation has been proceeding for one year).
April
A thin layer of chicken manure, is broadcast over the area. Use clover at 1Ib p/acre (inoculated if the first clover crop), rye and other grains at 6-14lbs p.a., and rice at 5-10Ibs per acre.
The seeds are hidden from birds by the mulch — the seed can be scattered first then straw-covered.
In the second year, rye and clover are sown into the ripe rice crop at this time.
The rye and other grains are sown midmonth.
May
First week: last year’s rice is reaped, the crop dried on racks for 2-3 weeks, then threshed. All rice straw and husks are returned to the field. Rice is re-sown within a month after harvest, just before the straw is returned.
Rice for seed is used unhusked.
June — September
Migrate to a sunny climate or admire the winter crop. Light grazing of the winter crops by sheep or geese assists the stooling of plants and will add manure.
Check and sow any ‘thin’ areas as soon as possible.
If about 40 ducks per acre are allowed to range after the rice is growing, pests are reduced and the area is then sufficiently manured. Fields or paddies are kept well drained.
October
Check that rice is growing and re-sow thin patches if necessary.
November
Rye, barley etc. is harvested in the middle of this month and stacked to dry for 7-10 days. The rice is trodden but recovers. When other grains are threshed, return all straw and husks to the fields, moving each straw type on to a different plot thus:
- Plot 1: oats
- Plot 2: rye
- Plot 3: barley
- Plot 4: millet
- Plot 5: wheat.
December
Only rice remains. Summer weeds sprout and may be weakened by flooding for 7-10 days until the clover is yellow but not dead. Rice grows on until the May harvest.
January — March
Field is kept at 50 — 80% saturation under rice and seeds of other grains prepared for sowing in April.
The cycle then continues as before, using the crop straw for mulch.
Each person must evolve their own techniques and species mixtures but once a cycle is perfected there is no further cultivation and straw mulch is the only weed control.
It helps if the area of bunds around the crop is planted to coprosma, comfrey, lemongrass, tree lucerne pampas or some such weed-controlling shelter plant. Sawdust mulch under these borders to prevent weed reinvasion from the bunds or surrounding land.
Where no paddy is possible dryland rice or other grain species can be used and spray irrigation replaces summer flooding. In monsoon areas rain should suffice. For amateurs, seed should be sown at the higher rates until skill in broadcasting is achieved.
Where rice will not grow, in very cool areas, other grains can replace rice, and short term cycles invented. (Spring wheat or corn sown in Septenber-November, for example, with oats, barley or wheat as winter crop). Other legumes can also be tried out.
Logsdon (Ref 2) gives sources for seed and small machinery, or home processing for threshing, husking, and grinding. In humid climates, grain should be dried to 14% moisture before storage in pest proof barrels or drums. In clean-tilled ground, the amount of seed needed is 4-5 times as much as in this straw-mulch method. Fukuoka’s book gives much more data on no-tillage gardening for vegetables and fruit and for the tree crops he used five wattle trees (silver wattle, for example) to the acre instead of clover.
Fukuoka has maintained this no-dig cycle for 25 years and his soil is improving with no fertilizer other than chicken manure, no sprays, and no herbicides.
Where sparrows are a problem the grains are mixed with mud, pressed through wire mesh and rolled into small balls, or dampened and shaken in a tray of clay dust to form mud-coated pellets.
We also formed pellets by extruding mud and grain through a domestic mincer onto a vibrating table of dust.
Notes on Grain and Pulse Species
A. Grain Crops
Rice — Oryza sativa
Although a shortday cereal suited to latitudes 40° N. and S would be a possible or even a probable success in cool climates, self-pollinated.
The U.N. notes that rice responds to nitrogen (Fukuokas’ chicken manure).
The Japanese control disease in seeds by soaking in 40% formalin diluted 50 times with water. Around the paddy field, shrubs or tall plant cover should be planted to reduce weed invasion or the margins mowed. Wild grasses act as reservoirs for disease. Again, Fukuoka scythes wild grasses and ignores sprays and insecticides.
Seed at about 13% moisture is stored in a cool place. “Good yields may reach 3,000-4,000 kg/ha, about 3,500 Ib/acre » (Ref 3). 88 bushels = 5200 pounds, (sometimes 116 bushels) + 8,000 Ibs straw per acre (Ref 1).
Rye — Secale cereale
A long-day plant suited to cool areas, usually wintergrown but some spring types. Ripens in about 37-71 days. Pollinated by wind.
Autumn-planted (April-June) at 55-60kg in irrigated ground. Some nitrogen is needed on poor soils. Requires good moisture (one irrigation) at flowering.
Ergot removed in 20% solution of common salt; seed rinsed, drained; germination unaffected.
Crop must be threshed within a few days of ripening, plants cut at ‘wax-ripe’ stage, otherwise spikes dry out and seed starts to shatter when husked. Stored below 14% moisture. Good yields reach 2,800 kg/ha, about 2,400 Ibs acre, (Ref 3); 5,200 Ibs/acre, 88 bushels (Ref 1).
Wheat — Triticum aestivum, T. durum
Long-day plant for cool areas, grown in Alaska (some varieties). There are winter and spring wheats. Needs a sunny period of 6-8 weeks for ripening. Well drained and heavy soils best. Self-pollinated.
Species will not cross-pollinate over hedge barriers. Sown at 40-80 kg/ha.
Responds to nitrogen. In dry areas, flood irrigation useful, but this should cease when grain is filled. Cut when seed doughy but fingernail will still dent seed. Dried in field, threshed, stored below 21% to 14% moisture. Good yields kg/hectare = 1000lbs/acre.
Barley — Hordeum vulgare
Long-day plant for cool areas, subtropical to arctic.
Spring types mature in 60-70 days, winter types 160 days. Self-pollinated.
Sow at 70-120 kg/ha under irrigation in Autumn, or at 12 Ibs in mulch (Ref 1). Control ergot as for rye. Has fewer pests than wheat.
Grain must be hard before threshing, straw dry. Store at 14% moisture in cool dry place. Good yields 3000-5000kg-la (Ref 3); 5,200 lbs/acre, 22 bushels (Ref 1).
Buckwheat — Fagopyrum spp. F. esculentium, F. Tartaricum, F. emarginatum
Suits wide range of climates. F. esculentum best for cool moist climate. Wide range of soils, even in fertile and poorly-tilled soil, acid soil.
Pollinated by insects, needs (and is liked by) bees at two hives per hectare (1 per acre). Sow only after all frost danger is past (frost-tender) at 25-40kg/ha; not more, or less seed is produced. Lime may help. Few diseases.
Normally harvested at 10 weeks, when seed at base fully ripe. Threshes easily.
Seed dried on a floor. Good yields 3800-4000lbs/ha (Ref 3).
Oats — Avena sativa, A. byzantina
Long-day crop of winter and spring varieties, best in cool climate. A. sativa best in cool areas, winter crop.
Neutral soils of many types (dry loam best), self pollinated. Lodges (falls) with high nitrogen, so needs less of this than other grains.
Sown at 50-200 kg/ha in September to October for February —March harvest, or in autumn for winter varieties. Water needed at flowering. Harvest when straw still a little green, grain at hard dough stage.
Store below 14% moisture. Good yield < at3000kg/ha (Ref 3).
Quinoa — Chenopodium quinoa: or Canihua, C. pallidicauda
Grown America at high altitudes (Peru, Argentina) C. Quinoa ripens in 135-145 days, Canihua in 165-172 days. Tolerant of soils and salts.
Spring-sown (September — October) at 10-15 kg/ha. Birds are a problem.
Plants pulled when seed resists finger pressure, piled in stacks to dry. Good varieties (1000 varieties available). Yield 2000-3000 kg/ha (Ref 3).
Teff — Eragrostis teff
Neutral day length. White-seeded types suited to summer-dry season, brown-seeded to summer-wet seasons. Drought-resistant but needs shelter when flowering. Suits wide range of well-drained soils and will grow well on sandy soils. Self-pollinated.
Sow in Spring, October — December) for Autumn harvest (April — June) at 10-12 kg/ha. Thinning necessary. Harvest when green panicles turn grey. Yields 2000kg/ha.
Grain Sorghum — red millet, white millet, broom corn
Treat as for maize, below, planting soaked seed 10 days later than maize at 8Ibs/acre. All grow quickly and need little water. A good crop to use where other grains have missed in earlier plantings. Cross- or self-pollinated.
Harvest when seeds are ripe, hang heads in barn. These can be fed directly to poultry, like sunflower heads. Seed stores well. Birds are a problem with millet crops, poultry appreciate seeds.
Maize or Sweet Corn, popcorn — Zea mays
A short-day plant yet suited to 40°S or N and subtropics. Withstands slight frost only. Varieties seed from 50-130 days.
Prefers well-drained neutral soils. Cross-pollinated by wind, so needs tall windbreaks to keep varieties pure. Often followed by wheat or barley, rotated with soya beans.
Sow November — January. ‘’When oak leaves are as big as squirrels ears, or soil temp is 60°F” (Ref 2) at 15-30 kg/ha, thin if necessary, to 12001400 plants/ha.
Needs less nitrogen, more phosphate and potash than other grains. Irrigation at dry periods increases seed yield. Sweet corn harvested at ‘milky’ stage and frozen or seed cobs allowed to dry on plant. Can be stocked in fields, husked and fed on cob to poultry, pigs, or seed stripped off cobs and stored.
Yields 1200-1500kg/ha. It is also possible to graze off lower leaves with lambs and then turn pigs into the field to harvest cobs. Cattle and poultry will scavenge remains, if any, and then few stalks are left to mulch, and straw must be ‘borrowed’ from elsewhere. A good interplant is climbing beans (twine on corn stalks).
B. Pulses and Legumes
Broad-Beans — Vicia fabia
Long-day, cool climate plant. Frost-hardy. Lime heavy loams, drain well. Bees help seed set but self-pollinated.
Sow in April-June at 200kg/ha (35-40 plants per m2). Some manure is important for phosphorus, rock phosphate. Cut before stack to dry. Yields 1500kg/ha (Ref 3). As well as seed, tops can be picked as a green vegetable and young top-pods eaten green as they form.
Vetch — Vicia spp, esp. V ervilia
Long-day, cool climate pulse that does okay on dunes, wet soils. V. pannonica best for heavy soils, V. ervilia for cold resistance.
Produce more seed on less fertile soils.
Self-pollinated but helped by bees. Often followed by maize, wheat, or can be mixed with barley, oats, rye, wheat.
Sow February — April or as a winter crop at 40-50kg/ha or 20kg/ha with 40 kg of grain oats, 80 kg rye. Best sown with oats, as seeds mature together. Not usually irrigated.
Cut when lower pods ripe, ervillea later.
Oats and barley seed readily. Separate from vetch. Store dry. Yield to 1000kg/ha on heavy land. (V. ervilia) (Ref 3).
Lentils — Lens culinaris
A long-day plant for Mediterranean climates or as a winter crop in the tropics. Very hardy to frost. Self-pollinated. Often sown with barley, in rows two metres wide, alternating. Does not need much nitrogen and has few pests.
Sown at 30-80kg/ha, (Ref 3). Ripens in 90 to 150 days. Harvest when lower pods brown, bundles pulled and dried over several days.
Flailed, or threshed if with grains. Average yield 600-1000kg/ha (Ref 3). Sow in June-August or November — August in Mediterranean climate.
Chickpea — Cicer arietinum
A dayneutral plant requiring cool weather for best growth. Can stand low temperatures.
Matures 90-100 days. Needs well-drained soils. Self-pollinating. Usually follows wheat, rice, oats. Sow in Sepember — November as spring crop at about 40-60kg/ha. Often irrigated in dry periods. Harvest when seed well developed but green, leaves reddish-brown. Pull or sickle, stack 1-2 weeks in field. Flail, yields 900kg/ha under irrigation (Ref 3).
Field Pea — Pisum sativum
Long-day plant of cool moist climates. More damaged by high temperatures than by frost. Self-potlinated. Often precedes wheat.
Sown August — November at 100-150kg/ha. Potash is useful in wet climates. Water at blossoming and again just before pods form or at half-full (if no rain).
Harvest by pulling or cutting when peas split without moisture released, stack 10-15 days, dry to 15% moisture. Yield about 1000kg/ha(Ref 3).
Lupins — Lupinus spp
Long-day or green crop preferring cool climates, grown as summer or winter annuals. Maturing seed (if needed) in 100-150 days. Prefer neutral light soils. Bees are main pollinators. Often grown after peanuts, before grains, or even useful to pioneer land (if inoculated).
Sow September, November or March — May at 40-80kg/ha. If used as a pioneer, add phosphates. Rabbits are a nuisance. Plants cut (if for seed) when pods 3/4 brown, bunched, and threshed over wire frame. Average seed yield 800-1000kg/ha.
A new lupinis-free variety of the perennial Russell Lupin is being developed in the U.K. as a human and stock food, a sort-of perennial pea.
Tree Lucerne — Chaemocytisus proliferus
A small tree to 3 metres. A hardy perennial legume. Early-flowering (late June at Latitude 40° S) through to late summer. Abundant seed for poultry forage, also a cattle or sheep forage crop. Wide range of soils including clay, clay-loam. Pollinated by insects, mainly bees.
Sow early summer, pods for seed as for lupins (above). Stands pruned for bundles of seed pod. Useful hedge plant for wind protection or with coprosma as poultry fodder. Used also in double-fenced strips as summer cattle and sheep fodder.
C. Oil Plants
A cycle that could be tried on sandy soils is peanut/potato, inter-cropped with lupins as green manure. Russell Perennial Lupin would help, the area mulched with seaweed or straw over hills and sheltered by windbreak lupin.
Peanuts
Hand-shelled from raw seed, peanuts are planted and can be inoculated if no clover was present. Plant after last killing frost (October-December) at 33kg/ha in rows 90cm, spacing seed at 39cm on ridges (100,000 plants per acre give maximum yield). Weeds must be controlled by mulch or peanuts are difficult to harvest.
Chicken manure as thin scatter helps crop. If rain is poor, irrigate every 10 days after flowering. Plants lifted when leaves yellow and some pods are brown on inside surface. (About 120-140 days).
Need ploughing out on heavier soils. Can be pulled in sandy soils, dried and stripped (oil and seed crop).
References
- Fukuoka, Masanobu, The One-Straw Revolution, Rodale Press. 1978 — $10.95.
- Logsdon, Gene, Small-scale growing.
- Agricultural and Horticultural Seedi F.A.O. Rome, 1961. $10.00.
Conversion of measures in the article
- 1 acre = 0.4 hectares
- 1 inch (1″) = 2.54 centimetres
- 1 lb (pound) = .45 kilograms
- 1 bushel = 35.24 litres
Book review
A brief book review appeared with the article.
Cobbett, William, Cottage Economy, Cedric Chivers, Portway, Berth, 1975. (Reprint of 1822 edition. $7.95. My copy from Compendium Bookstore, Sydney.)
Some truths and some techniques are eternal. An enjoyable book, didactive and refreshing. Contains sensible advice and data on a great variety of common livestock and plants, a great deal on brewing and on making bread and innumerable asides on marriage, labour, parasitic parsons and the like.
A sort of early John Seymour, suited to the conventional peasant (even feudal) society, but still of good use to we liberated growers.
B.M.
Editor’s note on John Seymour (see above review).
Wikipedia describes him this way: John Seymour (12 June 1914 – 14 September 2004) was a prolific early author in the self-sufficiency movement. He had multiple roles as a writer, broadcaster, environmentalist, agrarian, smallholder and activist; a rebel against: consumerism, industrialisation, genetically modified organisms, cities, motor cars; an advocate for: self-reliance, personal responsibility, self-sufficiency, conviviality (food, drink, dancing and singing), gardening, caring for the Earth and for the soil.
