Types of forest: Fuel – Forage – Structural – Shelter; animal barrier – Food – Natural – Conservation
Fuel:
It is essential that least use is made of solid fuels, barks and leaves should be returned to the soil or the system will degrade. Liquid fuels from species yielding sugars for conversion to alcohol, or directly to fuel mean the cultivation of permanent trees. Solid fuels can be harvested from pine cones, fallen wood, thinning, and short term pioneer soil creation and nitrogen fixing fast growing trees. Gas fuels from coppicing systems for conversion of biomass via composting for methane production.
Food:
Food forests of multiple mixed species, mixed in type, size, height, shade tolerance and layers, with support species inter-planted for mulch, nitrogen fixation, nutrient cycling, vine support, edge extension and control. Established with well-prepared ground-mass, planted to pioneer plants and trees of different potential life spans, giving way to fruit trees in the initial years of establishment. Food forests vary greatly to climate and somewhat to landscape profiles and soils. These are exciting, highly productive systems that are one of the main imprints of a bioregions identity.
Forage:
Forage can be designed into zones 2, 3, and 4 for small and large livestock. This greatly reduces the pressure on grass pasture. Livestock will eat leaves, fruits and nuts off trees but most trees will need to be fenced off or allowed to grow large enough before livestock are put in. There are also many trees that drop seeds, fruits, pods and leaves that can be eaten off the ground. There are also bee forage and fungi forage forests that we can design.
Shelterbelt and barrier:
Well designed shelter for animals and as protection for crops means we can put 20% of the area shelter without loss of production and gain the long term yield of the shelter belt itself. Species can be selected that provide forage, shelter and act as a permanent barrier hedge. Windbreaks around the house, farm or settlement can greatly reduce energy costs.
Structural:
An enormous diversity of structural forest species exist in any one location and short and long term yield cycles. Inter-active mixed species assemblies can be design for endlessly sustainable productive forest systems. Uses can be round poles, sawn timber, industrial cellulose yield and craft uses.
Natural and conservation:
Forests have an intrinsic worth, beauty, wildlife habitat, creators of oxygen,, clean water supply, rain and moisture, soil, prevent erosion, deflect winds, and bring nutrients up from the ground.
Establishment of forest:
Select the species of use fuel, food, forage etc and design for placement, crown bearers and flower bearers on the outside of the clump, stem bearers inside.
Pioneers species can establish the essential conditions for forest by nitrogen fixation and nutrient build up on poor soils.
Pioneers can be time stacked with some dying out in 5, 7, 10 or 15 years, with a small percentage of support species growing on with the system to cycle nutrient over the long term.
It is important to establish trees in a clump fed by several drip points if necessary, as a clump of trees planted together support one another. Individual tree take up a lot more maintenance per tree, suffer water stress, wind pruned and smothered in grass.
Forest management:
Thinning – Coppice – Selection – Fire – Standards – Nutrients
Summary: Let us now be clear about how trees affect total precipitation. The case can taken is where winds blow inland from an ocean or large lake. (See page 150 of Designer’s Manual).
References:
-Barnes, Burton, Forest Ecology, John Wiley and Sons, NYC, 1980.
-Berenbaum, May, Bugs in the System, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., Inc., NYC, 1995.
-Brown, Lauren, Weeds in Winter, W.W. Norton and Company, NYC, 1976.
-Capon, Brian, Botany for Gardeners, Timber Press, Portland, Oregon, 1990.
-Chang, Jen-hu, Climate and Agriculture, Aldine Publ. Co., Chicago, 1968.
-Coates, Callum, Living Energies, Gateway Books, Bath UK, 1996.
-Foster and Duke, Medicinal Plants: Peterson Field Guide, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1991.
-Grohman, Gerbert, The Plant: Volumes I and II, Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association, Kimberton, Pa., 1989.
-Imhof, Daniel, Farming With the Wild, Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 2003.
-Mollison, Bill, Introduction to Permaculture, Tagari Publications, Tyalgum Australia, 1991.
-Mollison, Bill, Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual, Tagari Publications, Tyalgum Australia, 1988.
-Odum, Eugene, Fundamentals of Ecology, W.B. Saunders, Toronto, 1971.
-Peterson, R.T. and McKenney, Wildflowers: Peterson Field Guide, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1971.
-Peterson. L., Edible Wild Plants: Peterson Field Guide, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1973.
-Petrides, Eastern Trees: Peterson Field Guide, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1985.
-Petrides, Trees and Shrubs: Peterson Field Guide, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1987.
-Pfeiffer, Ehrenfried, Weeds and What They Tell, Rodale Press, Emmaus, Pa, 1954.
-Ponting, Clive, A Green History of the World, Penguin Books, NYC, 1991.
-Vessel, Mathew, Natural History of Vacant Lots, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1987.
-Wilson, E.O., Biodiversity, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1988.
-Young, Paul, The Botany Coloring Book, Harper Collins, NYC, 1982.
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