#1   Report Post  
Old 01-11-2004, 11:33 AM
Chookie
 
Posts: n/a
Default Permie Practices Take Over WA

We did a bit of travelling in the Wertern Australian wheat belt a few weeks
ago (did a circuit from York to Corrigin to Wickepin to Narrogin, then across
to Mandurah and Perth) and were interested to see permie things taking root,
so to speak, on broadacre farms.

There is a new (and plainly recent) fad for swales, belts of natives, and I
even saw something that looked suspiciously like alley cropping -- single rows
of trees with wheat belts one harvester wide planted between them. It's very
odd to come upon all this hippie stuff in Ironbar Tuckey country!

The reason, we discovered, was salination. The wheat belt was originally
forest, and clearing and planting to wheat has raised the water table to such
an extent that low-lying patches are visibly swampy and infertile (they are
evil-looking brown areas, like something out of the Lord of the Rings). The
remedial work, familiar to anyone who's read any permie stuff, is working, and
is working quickly, too. The problem isn't gone yet, but there has been a
noticeable improvement, and the locals are hopeful that they can produce grain
sustainably over the long term.

Thought you'd all like to know. WA is viewed by most Easterners as populated
almost entirely by racists and conmen who believe anything that moves should
be hunted down and anything that doesn't should be chopped down or dug up.
Plainly, it is not!

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Life is like a cigarette -- smoke it to the butt." -- Harvie Krumpet
Reply
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules

Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
new permie! Who_me? Permaculture 0 30-11-2011 10:21 AM
Best management practices Nina Bonsai 1 22-02-2006 11:03 PM
Unethical business practices..... Wilson Ponds 59 22-07-2003 04:12 PM
questionable business practices..... Wilson Ponds 8 21-07-2003 07:42 PM
E. pseudoepidendrum--your culture practices? Robert Orchids 3 19-05-2003 06:56 PM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 11:35 AM.

Powered by vBulletin® Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 GardenBanter.co.uk.
The comments are property of their posters.
 

About Us

"It's about Gardening"

 

Copyright © 2017