I loved reading your essay on soil health and will make sure my farmer brother and his son both see it. Back in the 1950s my father was among the first Iowa farmers to experiment with contour planting and plowing--planting and plowing in curves around hills rather than in straight rows that allowed soil erosion. At the time nobody thought about conservation, but soil conversation became a big thing through country groups called "extension" offices--extending, I believe now, ideas from universities to farmers and farms. Farming has moved on, of course, satellites, chemicals, and so on. My father never finished high school, which not unusual in rural areas then (he was born in 1910), but we were proud to know that he was on the front lines, so to speak, of new farming methods.
Thanks for bringing that up, Allen. Contour farming and Yeoman's Keyline system are key methods to using natural land slope to irrigate crops, build the water table, and stop erosion. Wonderful to hear your family has been interested in these approaches.
I really appreciate how you understand the importance of the critters and Flora in agricultural soils. And how tilling the soil destroys there home and environment. But we as farmers have known this since the eighties when we used fracturing the soil instead of cultivating. Fracturing the soil does not kill the flora and fauna and does not destroy there environment.
Fracturing uses a narrow tyne to a depth of 30 to 60cm at a spacing of 30cm. Deep ripping is another name for the same process. This process loosens and leaves the soil in the same place. So not killing the life in the soil or turning there environment upside down. The loose soil allows more microbes to be active in the soil. If livestock are put on this soil if the process is done in pasture the microbes can then increase the organic content of the soil. It helps to do this on a good legume pasture. Happy to explain anything you are not sure of. It was amazing to actually show through testing that I had increased the organic mater in our gutless Australian soil
I understand the keyline system isn't always appropriate, but thought I'd pass it along. It can be used most effectively in arid climates like Australia, but apparently, it can be trouble where there's a lot of precipitation.
Part of my summer trip involved travelling through the Balkans where it's common to see houses and apartment buildings with vegetable gardens, fruit-bearing trees and chicken coops, even in big cities like Belgrade, Serbia. That old world sense of deep-rooted connection to the soil gets expressed in this way, and in how, for example, you walk through downtown Zagreb and find a rickety little fruit kiosk run by an old farmer who sells you a nectarine that turns out to be one of the freshest, juiciest, tastiest ones you've ever eaten!
But there seems to be a growing desire to develop such an intimate bond with our own soil here in the new world, a desire that transcends political boundaries, despite how divided we are as a society. The other day I was in a dog park and struck up a conversation with this purple-haired, arm sleeve-tattooed young woman who nonetheless said she wished she could afford to move to the country, buy a piece of land and grow her own food. I could see how strongly she held that wish. It's moments like this that make me think the permaculture movement has a future because I saw that I shared a fervent wish with somebody I probably shared nothing else in common.
Thanks for pointing that out, Harry. Permaculture has the potential to heal the political divide as well. There are a lot of resonances: soil health, ecological health, personal health, and social health are at stake.
Short preface - every process (sandpile, road system, human city) faces scale issues. Usually we see this in terms of 'space' ("Oh my, where DO i put all this stuff?") and things like landslides, congestion, and ecosystem exhaustion. ("Move West, young man, and find that sweet, sweet, topsoil!")
But scale can be in terms of time, too - and as our lovely Screen Kultcha drags us ever-closer to a 5 second dopamine-soaked attention span (median American barely reads a book a year, but "I luv me some good TikTube and FaceGram!"), the solutions to our challenges require longer-term thinking. Like Permaculture, for one.
Upshot: I can't see these *great* solutions being successfully and broadly implemented until we break through the 5 second, high time preference, short horizon "singularity" we are "accelerating" towards...
(I agree w/ Pirsig -- a partial collapse, racheting down a level...or two...(cf. "Lila") followed by a long dormant period, and rebuilding. "Paging Dr. Hari Seldon, Trantor courtesy phone...paging Dr. Seldon...")
Let's see -- Zen and The Art...talked about "What is Good" and classic vs romantic approaches to that and the 'traps' that await one along that road of discovery. This was brilliantly wrapped in a unique and shocking personal journey. A personal/philosophical palimpsest.
In Lila (which I *really* need to re-read...) he travels again, this time in a boat down a river, pondering the practical application of his philosophy, and this is where he introduces (among much else) the idea of a culture's getting stuck/fixed in a certain behavior or mode - breaking out requires what he called Dynamic Quality before finding new patterns that work (Static Quality).
There is much else in Zen and Lila, and this is only one of the ideas i found compelling.
to bring it all the way back home to Analogy Ranch -- we're going to need to break out of our current patterns first, perhaps 'ratchet' down or back to another level, before we can manifest new and better ways of being. While there is no "total collapse", neither is there unalloyed and ceaseless evolution, ever upward, to perfection..there is a dynamic interplay between the static and dynamic aspects of "good".
I loved reading your essay on soil health and will make sure my farmer brother and his son both see it. Back in the 1950s my father was among the first Iowa farmers to experiment with contour planting and plowing--planting and plowing in curves around hills rather than in straight rows that allowed soil erosion. At the time nobody thought about conservation, but soil conversation became a big thing through country groups called "extension" offices--extending, I believe now, ideas from universities to farmers and farms. Farming has moved on, of course, satellites, chemicals, and so on. My father never finished high school, which not unusual in rural areas then (he was born in 1910), but we were proud to know that he was on the front lines, so to speak, of new farming methods.
Thanks for bringing that up, Allen. Contour farming and Yeoman's Keyline system are key methods to using natural land slope to irrigate crops, build the water table, and stop erosion. Wonderful to hear your family has been interested in these approaches.
I really appreciate how you understand the importance of the critters and Flora in agricultural soils. And how tilling the soil destroys there home and environment. But we as farmers have known this since the eighties when we used fracturing the soil instead of cultivating. Fracturing the soil does not kill the flora and fauna and does not destroy there environment.
Thank you, Allan. Can you tell us more about fracturing? What does it entail?
Fracturing uses a narrow tyne to a depth of 30 to 60cm at a spacing of 30cm. Deep ripping is another name for the same process. This process loosens and leaves the soil in the same place. So not killing the life in the soil or turning there environment upside down. The loose soil allows more microbes to be active in the soil. If livestock are put on this soil if the process is done in pasture the microbes can then increase the organic content of the soil. It helps to do this on a good legume pasture. Happy to explain anything you are not sure of. It was amazing to actually show through testing that I had increased the organic mater in our gutless Australian soil
Marvellous. And is this done with a sort of plough pulled by a tractor?
Yes thats correct
I see that Yeoman's Keyline system uses a ripper. https://yeomansplow.com.au/8-yeomans-keyline-systems-explained/.
I understand the keyline system isn't always appropriate, but thought I'd pass it along. It can be used most effectively in arid climates like Australia, but apparently, it can be trouble where there's a lot of precipitation.
Part of my summer trip involved travelling through the Balkans where it's common to see houses and apartment buildings with vegetable gardens, fruit-bearing trees and chicken coops, even in big cities like Belgrade, Serbia. That old world sense of deep-rooted connection to the soil gets expressed in this way, and in how, for example, you walk through downtown Zagreb and find a rickety little fruit kiosk run by an old farmer who sells you a nectarine that turns out to be one of the freshest, juiciest, tastiest ones you've ever eaten!
But there seems to be a growing desire to develop such an intimate bond with our own soil here in the new world, a desire that transcends political boundaries, despite how divided we are as a society. The other day I was in a dog park and struck up a conversation with this purple-haired, arm sleeve-tattooed young woman who nonetheless said she wished she could afford to move to the country, buy a piece of land and grow her own food. I could see how strongly she held that wish. It's moments like this that make me think the permaculture movement has a future because I saw that I shared a fervent wish with somebody I probably shared nothing else in common.
Thanks for pointing that out, Harry. Permaculture has the potential to heal the political divide as well. There are a lot of resonances: soil health, ecological health, personal health, and social health are at stake.
I think I see a ("the"?) problem here.
Short preface - every process (sandpile, road system, human city) faces scale issues. Usually we see this in terms of 'space' ("Oh my, where DO i put all this stuff?") and things like landslides, congestion, and ecosystem exhaustion. ("Move West, young man, and find that sweet, sweet, topsoil!")
But scale can be in terms of time, too - and as our lovely Screen Kultcha drags us ever-closer to a 5 second dopamine-soaked attention span (median American barely reads a book a year, but "I luv me some good TikTube and FaceGram!"), the solutions to our challenges require longer-term thinking. Like Permaculture, for one.
Upshot: I can't see these *great* solutions being successfully and broadly implemented until we break through the 5 second, high time preference, short horizon "singularity" we are "accelerating" towards...
(I agree w/ Pirsig -- a partial collapse, racheting down a level...or two...(cf. "Lila") followed by a long dormant period, and rebuilding. "Paging Dr. Hari Seldon, Trantor courtesy phone...paging Dr. Seldon...")
Thanks RDM. An attention span could certainly help. There's something wrong with how we're living, and that huge subject needs to be addressed.
I haven't read Pirsig. If you're feeling up to it, can you unpack that last bit?
Thanks Asa. Unpack Pirsig? Whew. I mean....
Let's see -- Zen and The Art...talked about "What is Good" and classic vs romantic approaches to that and the 'traps' that await one along that road of discovery. This was brilliantly wrapped in a unique and shocking personal journey. A personal/philosophical palimpsest.
In Lila (which I *really* need to re-read...) he travels again, this time in a boat down a river, pondering the practical application of his philosophy, and this is where he introduces (among much else) the idea of a culture's getting stuck/fixed in a certain behavior or mode - breaking out requires what he called Dynamic Quality before finding new patterns that work (Static Quality).
There is much else in Zen and Lila, and this is only one of the ideas i found compelling.
to bring it all the way back home to Analogy Ranch -- we're going to need to break out of our current patterns first, perhaps 'ratchet' down or back to another level, before we can manifest new and better ways of being. While there is no "total collapse", neither is there unalloyed and ceaseless evolution, ever upward, to perfection..there is a dynamic interplay between the static and dynamic aspects of "good".