The forest is really about finding what your best starter plants are at the moment. It feels terrible to lose so many plants, but it will be informative. My first forest in a similar climate was terrible the first year. I lost 75%! But learned a lot and by the second year it was my favorite part of the property. The self seeding from the new plants started it was brilliant. ❤ Timing for the dry land forest is just very different than a more mild climate. My mulch of choice is low growing clover and low growing purslane, which I saw today in your video. I just plant threw it. They come back when the conditions are right but still mulches the ground when dead from heat and lack of water. Keep up the great work you are doing. Great channel. I look forward to your videos.
"purslane" - thanks for the information. I also do count on the self seeding. These things are different than when planting veggies for immediate consumption.
I wouldn't worry about the water 'disappearing', it benefits your land for sure. Perhaps it's 100m further where oak trees have more reliable subsoil moisture available, but clearly having bushes around the pond will help reduce evaporation and improve the moisture holding capacity of the soil. Keep making those 1% improvements and you will see the snowball start rolling.
I am very positively surprised by the Miyawaki forest. It has been very hot where you are for a while and I wouldn't expect much growth because of that. Further, considering there was a mulch shortage when the trees were planted, it is even more surprising how much growth there is and seeing that the vast majority still survived. Looking at the other comments: Have you considered using mulch ;) . The amount of tedious work it would take now to add it doesn't seem reasonable in my view.
I am grateful to be able to have two experiments side by side and we all can learn by watching it evolve. There is nothing certain in life but death. So ... every step forward is a good thing and the odds just teach you how to mitigate which is nearly always needed.
Interesting....I am across the border in Portugal and have more or less the same growing conditions except we have a lot of rock as well. Found it's a very slow process in trying to make soil but it is getting better. Found trying a sort of hugelculture mounds is keeping the soil damp in the 46° heat we've had for a few weeks.
We did try Hügelkultur a while back but it was a huge failure. Too hot, dried out quickly. As it's supposed to it had a wooden core. But back then I didn't know that much ... So ... Might have made some mistake.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito I haven't seen much serious scientific study of the benefits of Hügelkultur, so it seems to me to be based almost entirely on anecdotal 'evidence' - even the historicity seems dubious. However, working from the good evidence that we do have regarding the soil biome, and contrary to the intuitions of many, Hügelkultur would only produce a very unhelpful reserve of anaerobic bacteria, since it is essentially just an underground bog, entirely non-beneficial to plants that thrive in an aerobic biome. So, no great loss that it didn't work. A general build up of organic matter in the rhizosphere depths of the soil is the evidence-based way to go. Well-structured soil beats an underground bog for water-absorption/retention every day of the week, every season of the year.
I'm just glad there's still a lot of trees thriving, although battling for their life quite literally, that's more or less what happens in the wild anyways. The strongest thrives and will offer offspring that suit it's surroundings better. We all want to see success rates as close to 100% as possible, as per youtube comments, but I fear they aren't ready to face the reality of such a different and unique ecosystem and climate such as yours. I've been here before and explained how where I live, northeastern Brazil, there is a hot semi-arid area that works quite a bit like there. Miyawaki forest still is an option in there as there's still soil to work with, there's still a spam in time each year that trees thrive and conditions are cold enough for them to grow. Here things are way tougher. Rains come and wash everything away, next day its sunny as hell and 35° again. There's no soil where water can sip in most of the time, it's basically rock. Conditions are so bad that even if we normally get more rain than you do (when rainy season doesn't fail), it's like we get only half of what you get because of evaporation and water just basically leaving as soon as it hits the soil. All that is just to say, only those who are there, trying and failing, sweating their necks and getting headaches over mistakes will know the real deal. There's no method that can be applied 100% to all cases. I therefore applaud you for actually trying since the beginning of this channel. We've seen progress!!! A lot of it. I do believe this forest will be getting a boost by september, october and november.There's still a lot to go through. Let's be hopefull! This will grow into a lush forest! :)
Right. Whatever survives the summer will thrive once the rain comes back. These are all native species. And then they have between October until June to grow strong.
@caioxalves: First, thank you for engaging. And, yes, "only those who are there, trying and failing, sweating their necks and getting headaches over mistakes will know the real deal". However, I find the rest of your remarks to be deeply shocking, if not actually surprising for a TH-cam comment regarding permaculture/regenerative work. There is much enthusiasm, much re-mumbling of mantras, but a very poor grasp of the underlying scientific principles, and very little sign of coming to terms with the integration of Nature & human intervention. The core subject for science, and therefore our intervention, is - Natural Processes, ie. Our intervention, by working with natural processes. Talk of "what happens in the wild anyways" is irrelevant, only a distraction, if it is simply a repetition of the 'survival of the fittest' mantra, eg. "..trees thriving, although battling for their life.." A 'let it all hang out, and see what happens' approach is not only inconsistent with permaculture/regenerative work, it is actually opposed to it, since it speaks to withdrawal from Nature, rather than engagement with natural processes. Contrary to the oh so Trumpian mythos of 'Survival of the Fittest', Nature is actually mostly co-operative - and if you haven't noticed this (let alone grasped it), then you simply haven't noticed Nature at all. When you say that "Rains come and wash everything away" and "we get only half of what you get because of evaporation and water just basically leaving as soon as it hits the soil", I have to wonder why you are engaging with this video. If your attitude is that 'sh*t happens, what can you do?', well, then you are not an interventionist at all. Have you even heard of 'slowing water'? Swales? Temporary/transient ponds? Have you understood that the good health of your plants & trees, their productivity (and therefore also your own good health, if you are to live on/from them) is ENTIRELY dependent on the good health of the fungi in your soil, of the bacteria, of the nematodes & micro-arthropods - the whole soil food web? The 'Great Leap Forward' of our current generation of science is our shifting of research towards the 'soil biome', the life in the soil - the web of life within it, and extending from it. Grow your soil, and let your soil grow your plants. If you have "water just basically leaving as soon as it hits the soil", then you don't actually have soil, you just have baked dirt - or just baked "rock". Why are you expecting anything to grow in this, anything that would aid the natural process of soil succession? I recently watched a scientific presentation on how, using locality-adapted permaculture/regenerative principles, in just a few years, a self-sustaining area of agriculture/agroforestry had been established in the coastal deserts of the Western Persian Gulf. Detailed observation of the prevailing cycles in the specific area and its surrounds, then - hydration management, soil amendment, ground cover, trees. After just three years of active intervention, the now drastically cooler area was not only drawing significant amounts of dew from the night air, it was actually stimulating light rainfall. Borderline terraforming. You say, with resignation, that "Rains come and wash everything away, next day its sunny as hell and 35° again", but that coastal desert area was dealing with flash-floods down narrow wadis that drained an entire watershed, carrying huge amounts of rocks and mud. Temperatures significantly higher than 35°, and far lower annual rainfall. NOTE: 1) The area is now so fertile & productive that the grazing animals and produce of the cropping plants & trees are food/materials enough to support the village which now owns & works the area. 2) The total cost of this project was such that, had they had access to financing, it would have been economically viable for the village to take out a loan as investment. Whether you in particular are blundering into something, without having first developed an understanding of both the principles and the particulars, and whether you even meant half of what you wrote, is not my concern - nor can it be my concern whether there is a single soul on social media who knows how to read a long post. It does though trouble me that an approach of wilful ignorance is so widespread amongst 'Regenerative Permaculture Small Farm Homesteaders' and the like. Acting as though "sweating.. necks and.. headaches" shows that, well, at least you're trying.. A Pseudo-Idealist's neck-sweat is no meaningful alternative to the hard work of learning the scientific principles, the actual natural processes, and then learning to work in the particular. Concrete thinking, as opposed to abstract thinking, is precisely: The combination of the principle and the particular, held together in a single conception, as grounds for action. (Like the coarse aggregate & fine sand, held together as one in concrete) The eminently admirable quality of the work shown in this channel's videos is not that he is industrious, persistent & adaptable, but precisely that he is THOUGHTFULLY so. The abstract learning is apparent in all of the doing, the concrete learning is shown in the adapting. Wonderfully, encouragingly so. Assess your land & surrounding areas - Base opportunities & constraints.. Soil - Professional soil-testing. Types, current nutrient levels & organic content, structure at variety of depths, hydration. Rainfall - Current & historic averages, periodicity, actual volumes over defined areas. Water Management - Identify optimal contours; swales, berms, ponds. Slow, or divert & slow. Build your soil.. Compost - Learn how to source & make a quality product, and produce it at a scale relevant to your need. Tilling/Ploughing - Is a one-time breaking up needed to kick-start the water, aeration & other cycles? Introduce mature compost? Assess/measure - Continue professional testing. (Buy & learn to use a microscope, identify developing biome, also in your compost). Feed your soil.. Understand soil succession - Plant accordingly. Don't plant the end-state plants into immature soils. Roots in the ground - Let a variety & multiplicity of plants activate & nurture the biota by feeding them through their roots. Ground cover - Cover plants or thick mulch (compost-in-place). Never, ever, have bare soil. Anyone who can honestly say that they have a practical grasp of these BASICS can then tell their Permaculture Tales of neck-sweat & headaches as a meaningful part of their thoughtful intervention in, and working with, natural processes. Anything less is just hot-air & p*ssing into the wind, as useless as just watching your topsoil be washed away.
@@MinTubaTuba "Trumpian"!? That bizarre term might indicate an unhealthy obsession. -In July 1866 Alfred Russel Wallace wrote to Darwin about readers thinking that the phrase "natural selection" personified nature as "selecting" and said this misconception could be avoided "by adopting Spencer's term" Survival of the fittest. Darwin promptly replied that Wallace's letter was "as clear as daylight. I fully agree with all that you say on the advantages of H. Spencer's excellent expression of 'the survival of the fittest'. - If you disagree with a method and or terminology, perhaps say so directly. To attempt to shame someone via - taint by association- seems like something out of a novel by Dickens. Doing so not only demeans your position but your character.
Very refreshing to hear from someone who feels able to question what are effectively dogmas among the more light-minded members of the growing Permaculture/Regenerative crowd. I find your thoughtful work to be a constant inspiration during my own labours. However.. 1) Since you so rightly raise the issue of successional plants, you should likewise be considering the issue of successional soils. With these in mind, it is clear that the planting of any type of forest in an early-succession soil, in which only weeds germinate, was a poor plan - and a poor test. Grow your soil, and let the soil grow your plants. 2) You may well find, once the Miyawaki-forest is more established, that your trees will draw considerable quantities of dew from the night-air - even during the hot Summer. Drawn out by the cooling transpiration of the closely-planted trees, this falling dew may even be enough to sustain those trees through the Summer months. TLDR (& a bit preachy..?): You need much more organic material in all your soils. Yes, you have said that you have limited access to the ('green' & 'brown') materials for composting, but.. BROWN: Woodchip from broadleaf trees is best, which is surely available (perhaps for free) from arborists in your area; even if it requires collection. If you are not too far from (sub)urban areas, leaves are likely to be seasonally available from gardeners/landscapers, whether professional or amateur - you could organize a yearly leaf-collection tour of your area. If you hire a sufficiently powerful chipper, you could turn that fallen oak into some lovely woodchip. Further, there must be many native, drought tolerant, broadleaf, early-succession/pioneer trees which would respond well to coppicing. Even your Oaks (new, from your many 'little Oaks', or grown from acorns) might do well. If you planted a substantial grove, coppicing each tree to remove one third of stems each year (ie. Not the 7-year full coppicing of all stems, for woodworking/firewood), you would have a multi-decade source of A++ woodchip. The young, green stems contain the highest proportions of essential nutrients, in addition to being a carbon-source. GREEN: Sowing (and irrigating) a moderately large area with certain nutrient-rich, early-succession plants, eg. Nettles, Docks & Comfrey (or native equivalents), would supply a ready source of green-material. On my own, by hand, I produce several tons of high-quality compost each year - this year including a 2+ ton 'hot-compost' pile (Ash wood-chip, leaf-mould + grass-clippings, nettles), turned every three days with a manure-fork, for three weeks. (This method was chosen in order to have it close to where it would be used, in a common-area, which is surrounded by neighbours who would not tolerate a full-year pile). Yes, I am in a more temperate climate, but am also chronically ill, and able to work, at best, for only two afternoons per week. Turning the 'hot-compost' pile could be done in an afternoon, but was then also all I could manage for those three weeks. Otherwise, I build multiple 1-ton piles during the Summer, letting them mature until the following (late) Spring. I can recommend the Johnson-Su method, but have also had great success using a simple 1-ton builders' bag, with many holes cut for aeration - though this was with chunky woodchip, for lower overall density, with better aeration. In your situation, the method would surely need to be adjusted for the local heat and moisture conditions, but need not be any less successful. Chunky, less-mature, woodchip-compost can beneficially be used as a compost-in-place mulch. Being on the surface, final decomposition will take its Nitrogen from the air, not your plants. If you set up such a resource-production, you could then eg. Allocate space for 'windrows' of compost, which you could turn mechanically. In such a way you could (entirely) manageably produce multiple tons of high-quality compost each year. The hundred-house site on which I live was originally uneven and unproductive ground. Bull-dozed level, used for light-industry and a prisoner-of-war camp, bull-dozed again to prepare for the current housing area, there is essentially NO top-soil. Original pebbles, sand & clay (setting together like concrete when dry) had received a universal 'amendment' of concrete-chunks, re-bar, wire-fencing, vehicle-parts and general plastic rubbish. On arriving, three years ago, and having cleared large areas of weeds & brambles, I carefully sowed a variety of good-quality seeds (native grasses & wildflowers) suitable to the various aspects and shade conditions. Nothing germinated. Nothing at all. Succession - Germination (I learned) is largely determined by the biology of the soil. Composting was the way to go.. From an entirely inorganic glacier-dump, with modern inclusions, I now have rich, dark soil, so well structured that I can push my hand into it, growing a wide variety of healthy plants, with few weeds.. Grow your soil, and let the soil grow your plants. (Coppicing + Weed-harvesting) Work = Quantities of Good Compost.. :) May your pile be moist, and the fragrance always Geosmic.. PS - Your ants could work wonders by aerating, and even lightly fertilizing, the soil on your property. If you built homes for them (eg. Brick-built, or simply a large plastic container, filled with suitably loose, sandy material), substantial enough to avoid being washed away during heavy rain, you could quickly have large areas under 'automated cultivation'..
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito :) I can only hope that it may point to a useful direction of travel. There is so much learning to be done, it can feel overwhelming, which is why maintaining a tight grip on the basics is vital. It does seem though that the quality and persistence of your attention to your land (the detailed particulars of structure, hydration, etc., as the constraints on the application of methods, etc.) is unmatched by any of the other small-farmer/homesteaders that I have found on TH-cam; knowledge that cannot be gained from any course or reading. Again, your thoughtful determination, persistence and adaptability, each being also an expression of a particular sort of personal courage, is a constant source of encouragement to me, and, surely, many others.
Nice hat and nice video. I wish you a bucket full of woodchip for each tree,,, it would be much different if that was available. Any how, there is a biological solution! I saw lots if pigweed growing in your cabin / wanna be food forest area. If pigweed can get a hold in your forest it will spread and cover the soil. Lets hooe so. Its my belief that the ground birds are missing in the dehesa for overall health. Turkeys used to be there in their 1000's. The eruropean crane used to be migratory through your area,,,, imagine flocks of 10 000 cranes and (lots of flocks a frew days apart) coming through filling their stomach with acorns and bugs, pooping and then miving on. So I think your onto something with miayaki and chickens.!!
Wood chips are used to fire furnaces in Andalucia. The same goes for the stone in the olives. All gets dried and sold as fuel. And yes, there are some plants that seem to be able to cover the soil. Every day a bit more as it appears. We do have a LOT more birds around the farmyard than we ever had. Something is going on.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito Mr Granja Caimito :- have you thought of trying the Bill Mollison " bird tree growth accelerator" technique??? It works and all it requires is a piece of string, 2 knots and 5 minutes. Connect a heavy string or thin rope between a tree branch and another tree branch 20 meters or so away,,, say 6 feet above ground surface over the top of your miayaki forest,,, then wait. Its a bird perching device, and the forest under the bird perch device accerates in growth,,, hey presto!
Thank you for reminding viewers WHY People in Spain take Siesta in the afternoon & WHY it's important: too many people dismiss Siesta as laziness. It's been less than 6-months since the Miyawaki Forest Planting, one benchmark for progress is the one-year mark, and then the annual check-up with monthly updates in between. Then check the MFP after 3-yrs compared to 1st-yr & again at the 5th-yr. And all of these to be compared to the "BEFORE" the MF Planting. 12:17 the Miyawaki saplings look happy & your moisture sensors say the soil have enough moisture, you must be doing something right. 13:53 the natural sprouting of acorns shows that your actions of 1)removing/excluding grazing animals 2)planting more plants & 3)installing irrigation are three critical steps that show results. 16:23 each plant in the "dense" Miyawaki planting gives some (needed) shade to its neighbors for most of the day (instead of too much), which is one of the reasons the method works, as opposed to saplings planted too far apart that get NO shade. 17:11 Happy that the electric chainsaw works! 21:12 NERVE-WRACKING to see you "trampling" in the MFP. 32:32 The Dog-Enclosure Pond LIVES!!! 33:45 The EMPIRICIST Strikes Back.
Here in arid Greece, some spread attapulgite soil improver around their olive trees and in their veggie gardens with great results in water retention and speed of plant growth. Thankfully, here it's easy to source.
In my climate zone 9B of Northeast Florida, United States, I have better success and growth of my young climax type trees when they are initially planted in some partial daily shade. The afternoons are intense and the full sun can make a young planted tree struggle.
Same in Catalonia. The summer heatwaves plus merciless sun create environment where even more mature trees (compared to ones than planted in the Miyawaki future forest) can dry out in a day or two. So not just mulch but a partial shade increases the chances of a young tree survival.
For the mulch / biomass I can recommend red Napier grass. It is quite drought resistant and easy to reproduce from cuttings. The downside is that it is not frost resistant, so one may need to cover the ground with a lot of mulch in the winter.
Amazing to see this forest surviving in such extreme summer temperatures. Will be interesting to see which ones push ahead in the cooler winter months - but do the trees actually shed their leaves or only some of them during those months i.e. the deciduous ones. Not sure what happens in your region?
Some of the shrubs we have in the wild part where the animals never went. Others I have never seen but then I'm not from here so that doesn't count much. I think in a few weeks when the temperature changes and the rain comes back we will see an uptick of activity. Until then we continue to irrigate moderately. Of course it is dry but the soil is still loose and soft. I cannot paste it here but I do see that the sensors report an uptick in soil moisture every night. That means there is some condensation happening.
Yes, they are probably existing on the minimum to survive until weather conditions moderate. Young trees especially vulnerable so Darwinian theory seems to apply.
Guten Tag!Ich verstehe nicht, warum sie nicht das lange,verdorrte Gras verwenden,und den von der Sonne ungeschützten Boden damit mulchen!So kommt nie Leben in den Boden!Oder stark verzögert!Ihr Projekt finde ich sehr interessant!Aber Wasser auf toten Boden zu schütten bringt nur ganz wenig! die hohen Temperaturen im Boden beseitigen sie nur mit Mulch!Aber wenn sie es ignorieren ,werden sie weiterhin weniger Erfolge haben!Ich drück ihnen die Daumen,dass ihnen jemand dabei hilft!beinahe alleine ist das eine große Herausforderung!Mit freundlichen Grüßen aus Wien
Wir akzeptieren gern Freiwillige, die das bei 35 Grad im Schatten - und ganz sicher viel mehr in der Sonne - machen wollen :-) Alle Theorie ist meist richtig - die praktische Umsetzung scheitert halt meist an den realen Gegebenheiten. Es fehlen meist Material und Menschen, die die Arbeit machen (wollen) und auch mit allem Geld der Welt gehen viele Dinge halt dennoch nicht. Keine Sorge. Alles in Ordnung.
I forget the name but there's a cultivation technique where pond liner / heavy LDPE foils are buried to form subsurface tubs. These prevent loss of locally infiltrated surface water to crops and trees. The description of the sandy soil draining away the pond contents reminded me of that. I imagine having trees around will mean an early destruction of such foils when applied to a larger area.
It seems that the only way to fix soil is by having living roots, bacteria and water in it. All other methods seem to just create a temporary success. So the formula seems to be: plant and irrigate to "grow shade" quickly. Then help nature further but maintain the shade
Apart from no ground cover maybe also too much strong sunlight in combination with high air temperature, at least for some tree species. Having some screen on the south side does help with water thirsty young willows for example. Few species of willows not in a shade during the hottest hours tend to have burned leaves. At least when you cannot water them over the top.
A data point about the mulch. When it's 40 degrees celsius ambient - ambient, not soil - temperature in the shade you will be successful with regular mulch. You would have to install a water barrier which in turn will not allow rain / irrigation water to come in neither. You should see how water here goes straight from liquid to vapor as soon as the sun comes up. Looks like smoke from a fire.
The oaks have their roots below 3,5m - 4m and there is water. That's why they continue to exist. No irrigation needed for them. When these oaks started some 300 - 400 years ago the area was different but I don't know how it was and would very much love to know. It also appears that they were planted but that's all speculation.
What are the indigenous trees for the area. The oak trees already grow in the area. Have you thought of the Umbrella thorn. They survive in dry arid areas. Paper Bark tree very good in dry arid poor soil conditions. There are many that you can try.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito These indeed do look greener on what I understand is less watering? My gut feeling is that in this climate either one starts from seeds sown in a really wet period with plants growing like a fire in low temperatures and developing deep roots or we need bulbs/ rooted rhizomes /non-minuscule root mass so the plant can survive less than optimal watering.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito by any chance did you check if i.e. vetiver or sun hemp can grow roots punching through that 15cm top soil to the sand-clay-rocks below? If not, hard to understand how anything can survive in the summer using just the thin baked soil layer.
@@darked89 Only plants with a tap root seem to be able to break through that layer. However, the water is at 3,5 - 4m and so this won't be quick. There is a reason why this area of Spain and others are officially under threat of desertification.
Current air temperature: 40,33 degrees celsius. Soil temperature in the Miyawaki forest at 10 cm depth: 34 degrees celsius. In other areas it is even higher: the highest value being measured is 37,06C
Even if only 10% survive to maturity you still will have a large amount of trees. So just keep on irrigating during the summer (Maybe a bit More if possible…) and I think it Will work out just fine
Well, if you work your backside as a volunteer and get the news that just 10% of your time and effort was not wasted that would be rather demotivating.
@@darked89 nah noone expects 100% to succeed in what is practically a desert... and the whole point of 5/m2 is that they can help each other and those that don't make it doesn't matter since the rest will take over, 10% is quite good in such an area
@@darked89 That’s the wrong way to see it I think. Without the 100% effort you wouldn’t have even 10% survival rate and no forest. Not saying that there will be a 90% loss, but in the end the goal was to have a forest and if you get that with 50% or 10 % survival rate, the effort was successful
@@LiLBitsDK90% failure is fine if you i.e. drop seed balls costing few cents and forget about them. Young trees in Spain tend to cost quite a bit more. Without even counting water, irrigation system cost, ground preparation, and yes, volunteer work you throw 90% in the bin. Not great not in just my book.
At 14,40,,, you point to a weed and say thats a bad plant, they are everywhere, cant do much about them. Well ok bro, but instead of walking past it with the camera and doing nothing,, you could stub the weed with your boot, fold it down to cover the soil, and then you did something about that one. In marginal semi arid areas like yours,,, those 1% actions can sometimes be the difference between a wanted plant surviving or not surviving. Just saying,
Yes. I could do that. And what would it help? Nothing. Because right next to it on the neighbor's land and the other neighbor and along the road, etc. there is millions more. They say: pick your battles wisely. I try to do that. That "bad" plant is only bad from the perspective of a rancher who doesn't want their livestock to eat it. If you keep bees you will be happy because it has a lot of flowers. So "bad" is a question of context - isn't it?
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito i was thinking more in terms of stubbing the plant out and laying it on the ground to provide soil shade,,, its good for that. Bird flocks :- a flock of geese came over our place this morning,, i hope you get some with camera handy. The miyawaki update was a cool video
My feeling: A lot of things you did were premature. Sorry I have to break it to you in this fashion. For Miyawaki I strongly believe you have failed to work on infrastructure. Even for those who showed up to help you. You quickly threw important elements of the Miyawaki to work overboard (Mulch!!) You quickly pull out ideas from your pocket and follow those ideas without thinking twice. Too diverse, too haphazardly, not enough water for everything. You practically abandoned Miyawaki concept even before the last trees were in the ground. In fact you didn’t even put the last Miyawaki trees into the ground. They were standing around in crates and dried out and again you were making up excuses. Do these plants and trees even still exist, or are they fire wood by now? Do you realize that This organisation spent a lot of money to bring the project to you, or at least do you appreciate it? All things considered, I cannot say that I would have been any better than you. As I am criticising you, I feel indeed as if I am criticising myself. In my opinion you fail at following through. Why don’t you call the Miyawaki people and ask them for an honest evaluation of the site setup\preparations, when they arrived and for an evaluation of the current situation. Ask yourself if the people who showed up to help, have left with a good feeling, or if they were mostly frustrated. Why am I saying all of this? All it took for me, was one glance at the dying cypresses and the way they were put into the ground. You have so much crap laying around but nobody bothered to tie a stick to them. Each cypress was pointing in another direction. That is disappointing. That’s not a thorough activity, but rather actionism to appear like something meaningful has happened. On another note: You do know that cypresses are full of sap and etheric oils? There’s your fire hazard you wanted to avoid. Everything on the technical side you are showing to us is unfinished and makeshift and needs a second or a third visit to be completed or done right. Please think about doing things in a way that you can consider them done and don’t require a revisit. It will make you happier because it gives you the rewarding feeling of accomplishment. Again, these are suggestions for how to approach the little things. Nobody does everything right, l understand, but work towards little progresses bit by bit. Also, don’t even think about buying a small excavator, imagining to do save money instead of renting a big one. If you calculate the cubic metres you will quickly understand what I mean. It’s simple calculation. Your rotor tiller (Einachstraktor) should be in use day after day and not sit around and rot, or else it was a wrong investment mow the hay and weeds pile it up somehow, or throw it in a pit and water it so it starts rotting. Moist, humid carbon rich compost is what you aim for. Not four inches, not ten inches, but two three foot deep (or more). Burn some of the wood and add charcoal and ashes. Buy a wood chipper or a shredder. The smaller this stuff is, the quicker it decomposes. even plain cardboard is great, but you have to get it into the ground or on a compost heap and it needs to be moist and hence it needs to be covered. try composting your organic matter by using foil to cover it. then bring it into the ground. Every pile of horse poop is valuable, but you *must* gather it and put lots of it in one place. It is such a waste to leave it laying where the horse dropped it. It will dry out, become dust and be blown away. Take a bucket with you and pick that sh.t up and keep adding stuff to your compost. Again, keep it covered so the humidity can condense and seep back into the compost. Start in a smaller scale, but big as far as the nutrients in that small place and then get bigger and bigger as time progresses. On another note I would like to ask if you have ever heard of Topinambur. That is a crop that almost needs nothing, but the Dehesa may be too dry. You know better than me. Remember, the things you show to us with a happy face are (nine times out of ten) something you didn’t even plant. That is nature working for you. Your four horses, isn’t that what you were criticising about the ranchers? At the same time you point at the horse manure and claim that that’s bio mass. It isn’t, if you just leave it where it is, then you are no better than the cattle ranchers. Again, sorry if I’m too rude.
It's ok that you write whatever you feel like writing. No problem. You are an outside observer watching a TH-cam channel with very limited scope and detail. If this were a scripted show, professionally produced and well prepared you would only see a crafted message which obviously would be all rosy and positive. It isn't and so you see random bits and pieces and still have no idea about anything else beyond the video clips. You might listen carefully what I say and you can figure out more details - if you really want to. I still read your comment and certainly will process your thoughts. But you will understand that I cannot answer and explain every single point. It's not your skin that's in the game neither. I guess you want to see success and how wonderful all those methods that you see in other videos or read about supposedly work. And now you are frustrated because you don't see that promised success. I was believing the same and learned about reality the hard way. I suggest you try it yourself and then you will very quickly learn how little you would accomplish in a 24 hours day. Yes, you can quit your job and work full-time on your project. And then ... From what will you live and feed your family? There is a LOT more to consider and unless one has external funding that allows to spend other people's money the big ideas become smaller and smaller quickly.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimitoIt is your „Totschlagargument“ to say. „This may work in Germany, but not in Spain.“ or „Try for yourself and you will see…“ or „It is way too hot, you don’t understand.“ and in return I use your Argument. „I post no videos, so you know even less about me than I know about you through your videos.“ But that stuff aside, did you see that another person posted similar suggestions about composting/mulching? The only difference being him/her being way more sensitive in their approach to you. My frustration is irrelevant. I believe first of all you should take care of the most important person, yourself, so you can take care of your family. I hope that’s what you are doing. Looking at you in your videos, I get the feeling you tend to forget to look after your own wellbeing at times. I will eagerly wait for your next video.
I think a lot of viewers of your channel appreciate the rift between the theory of perm and how difficult it actually is in practice, especially in a difficult environment like yours. However, an impression shared by many is that there is no clear design/thought out approach to what you are doing (feels too often all over the place). But again, it' super tough and especially if you dont have much experience it can be a daunting task
I do not value "big upfront design" or any way of following a plan. It never works. It's a delusion. So that messy approach is actually "inspect and adapt" and that's also why I call everything an experiment. Sure, it was necessary to scale back due to lack of resources and many other reasons but that does not invalidate the overall approach itself. There is actually someone who does the same on a much, much bigger scale and is heavily criticized for it: SpaceX. Others fly a rocket for the first time and nothing explodes while they lose a lot of vehicles. It's called a test and they want data as they always explain again and again. If you do something for the first time, you need to learn and cannot be afraid of failing. Or leave it to those who have done it before but then THEY did it and not you.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito of course feedback is essential but feedback is meant to be recursive with regard to design based on site observation, purpose, etc. In any case, you are the one doing it so massive respect to you (instead of YT commentators) and I hope it's clear that everyone wants you to succeed and tries to provide constructive criticism.
The forest is really about finding what your best starter plants are at the moment. It feels terrible to lose so many plants, but it will be informative. My first forest in a similar climate was terrible the first year. I lost 75%! But learned a lot and by the second year it was my favorite part of the property. The self seeding from the new plants started it was brilliant. ❤ Timing for the dry land forest is just very different than a more mild climate. My mulch of choice is low growing clover and low growing purslane, which I saw today in your video. I just plant threw it. They come back when the conditions are right but still mulches the ground when dead from heat and lack of water. Keep up the great work you are doing. Great channel. I look forward to your videos.
"purslane" - thanks for the information.
I also do count on the self seeding. These things are different than when planting veggies for immediate consumption.
It will be good to see it all next Summer after its first winter. Progress should be phenomenal.
That's what I am curious about and hopeful for.
I wouldn't worry about the water 'disappearing', it benefits your land for sure. Perhaps it's 100m further where oak trees have more reliable subsoil moisture available, but clearly having bushes around the pond will help reduce evaporation and improve the moisture holding capacity of the soil. Keep making those 1% improvements and you will see the snowball start rolling.
So I think as well
I am very positively surprised by the Miyawaki forest. It has been very hot where you are for a while and I wouldn't expect much growth because of that. Further, considering there was a mulch shortage when the trees were planted, it is even more surprising how much growth there is and seeing that the vast majority still survived.
Looking at the other comments: Have you considered using mulch ;) . The amount of tedious work it would take now to add it doesn't seem reasonable in my view.
I am grateful to be able to have two experiments side by side and we all can learn by watching it evolve.
There is nothing certain in life but death. So ... every step forward is a good thing and the odds just teach you how to mitigate which is nearly always needed.
Interesting....I am across the border in Portugal and have more or less the same growing conditions except we have a lot of rock as well. Found it's a very slow process in trying to make soil but it is getting better. Found trying a sort of hugelculture mounds is keeping the soil damp in the 46° heat we've had for a few weeks.
We did try Hügelkultur a while back but it was a huge failure. Too hot, dried out quickly. As it's supposed to it had a wooden core. But back then I didn't know that much ... So ... Might have made some mistake.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito I haven't seen much serious scientific study of the benefits of Hügelkultur, so it seems to me to be based almost entirely on anecdotal 'evidence' - even the historicity seems dubious.
However, working from the good evidence that we do have regarding the soil biome, and contrary to the intuitions of many, Hügelkultur would only produce a very unhelpful reserve of anaerobic bacteria, since it is essentially just an underground bog, entirely non-beneficial to plants that thrive in an aerobic biome. So, no great loss that it didn't work. A general build up of organic matter in the rhizosphere depths of the soil is the evidence-based way to go.
Well-structured soil beats an underground bog for water-absorption/retention every day of the week, every season of the year.
I'm just glad there's still a lot of trees thriving, although battling for their life quite literally, that's more or less what happens in the wild anyways. The strongest thrives and will offer offspring that suit it's surroundings better.
We all want to see success rates as close to 100% as possible, as per youtube comments, but I fear they aren't ready to face the reality of such a different and unique ecosystem and climate such as yours. I've been here before and explained how where I live, northeastern Brazil, there is a hot semi-arid area that works quite a bit like there.
Miyawaki forest still is an option in there as there's still soil to work with, there's still a spam in time each year that trees thrive and conditions are cold enough for them to grow. Here things are way tougher. Rains come and wash everything away, next day its sunny as hell and 35° again. There's no soil where water can sip in most of the time, it's basically rock. Conditions are so bad that even if we normally get more rain than you do (when rainy season doesn't fail), it's like we get only half of what you get because of evaporation and water just basically leaving as soon as it hits the soil.
All that is just to say, only those who are there, trying and failing, sweating their necks and getting headaches over mistakes will know the real deal. There's no method that can be applied 100% to all cases. I therefore applaud you for actually trying since the beginning of this channel. We've seen progress!!! A lot of it.
I do believe this forest will be getting a boost by september, october and november.There's still a lot to go through. Let's be hopefull! This will grow into a lush forest! :)
Right. Whatever survives the summer will thrive once the rain comes back. These are all native species. And then they have between October until June to grow strong.
@caioxalves: First, thank you for engaging. And, yes, "only those who are there, trying and failing, sweating their necks and getting headaches over mistakes will know the real deal".
However, I find the rest of your remarks to be deeply shocking, if not actually surprising for a TH-cam comment regarding permaculture/regenerative work.
There is much enthusiasm, much re-mumbling of mantras, but a very poor grasp of the underlying scientific principles, and very little sign of coming to terms with the integration of Nature & human intervention.
The core subject for science, and therefore our intervention, is - Natural Processes,
ie. Our intervention, by working with natural processes.
Talk of "what happens in the wild anyways" is irrelevant, only a distraction, if it is simply a repetition of the 'survival of the fittest' mantra, eg. "..trees thriving, although battling for their life.."
A 'let it all hang out, and see what happens' approach is not only inconsistent with permaculture/regenerative work, it is actually opposed to it, since it speaks to withdrawal from Nature, rather than engagement with natural processes.
Contrary to the oh so Trumpian mythos of 'Survival of the Fittest', Nature is actually mostly co-operative - and if you haven't noticed this (let alone grasped it), then you simply haven't noticed Nature at all.
When you say that "Rains come and wash everything away" and "we get only half of what you get because of evaporation and water just basically leaving as soon as it hits the soil", I have to wonder why you are engaging with this video. If your attitude is that 'sh*t happens, what can you do?', well, then you are not an interventionist at all.
Have you even heard of 'slowing water'?
Swales?
Temporary/transient ponds?
Have you understood that the good health of your plants & trees, their productivity (and therefore also your own good health, if you are to live on/from them) is ENTIRELY dependent on the good health of the fungi in your soil, of the bacteria, of the nematodes & micro-arthropods - the whole soil food web?
The 'Great Leap Forward' of our current generation of science is our shifting of research towards the 'soil biome', the life in the soil - the web of life within it, and extending from it.
Grow your soil, and let your soil grow your plants.
If you have "water just basically leaving as soon as it hits the soil", then you don't actually have soil, you just have baked dirt - or just baked "rock". Why are you expecting anything to grow in this, anything that would aid the natural process of soil succession?
I recently watched a scientific presentation on how, using locality-adapted permaculture/regenerative principles, in just a few years, a self-sustaining area of agriculture/agroforestry had been established in the coastal deserts of the Western Persian Gulf. Detailed observation of the prevailing cycles in the specific area and its surrounds, then - hydration management, soil amendment, ground cover, trees.
After just three years of active intervention, the now drastically cooler area was not only drawing significant amounts of dew from the night air, it was actually stimulating light rainfall. Borderline terraforming.
You say, with resignation, that "Rains come and wash everything away, next day its sunny as hell and 35° again", but that coastal desert area was dealing with flash-floods down narrow wadis that drained an entire watershed, carrying huge amounts of rocks and mud. Temperatures significantly higher than 35°, and far lower annual rainfall.
NOTE:
1) The area is now so fertile & productive that the grazing animals and produce of the cropping plants & trees are food/materials enough to support the village which now owns & works the area.
2) The total cost of this project was such that, had they had access to financing, it would have been economically viable for the village to take out a loan as investment.
Whether you in particular are blundering into something, without having first developed an understanding of both the principles and the particulars, and whether you even meant half of what you wrote, is not my concern - nor can it be my concern whether there is a single soul on social media who knows how to read a long post. It does though trouble me that an approach of wilful ignorance is so widespread amongst 'Regenerative Permaculture Small Farm Homesteaders' and the like.
Acting as though "sweating.. necks and.. headaches" shows that, well, at least you're trying..
A Pseudo-Idealist's neck-sweat is no meaningful alternative to the hard work of learning the scientific principles, the actual natural processes, and then learning to work in the particular.
Concrete thinking, as opposed to abstract thinking, is precisely:
The combination of the principle and the particular, held together in a single conception, as grounds for action.
(Like the coarse aggregate & fine sand, held together as one in concrete)
The eminently admirable quality of the work shown in this channel's videos is not that he is industrious, persistent & adaptable, but precisely that he is THOUGHTFULLY so. The abstract learning is apparent in all of the doing, the concrete learning is shown in the adapting. Wonderfully, encouragingly so.
Assess your land & surrounding areas - Base opportunities & constraints..
Soil - Professional soil-testing. Types, current nutrient levels & organic content, structure at variety of depths, hydration.
Rainfall - Current & historic averages, periodicity, actual volumes over defined areas.
Water Management - Identify optimal contours; swales, berms, ponds. Slow, or divert & slow.
Build your soil..
Compost - Learn how to source & make a quality product, and produce it at a scale relevant to your need.
Tilling/Ploughing - Is a one-time breaking up needed to kick-start the water, aeration & other cycles? Introduce mature compost?
Assess/measure - Continue professional testing. (Buy & learn to use a microscope, identify developing biome, also in your compost).
Feed your soil..
Understand soil succession - Plant accordingly. Don't plant the end-state plants into immature soils.
Roots in the ground - Let a variety & multiplicity of plants activate & nurture the biota by feeding them through their roots.
Ground cover - Cover plants or thick mulch (compost-in-place). Never, ever, have bare soil.
Anyone who can honestly say that they have a practical grasp of these BASICS can then tell their Permaculture Tales of neck-sweat & headaches as a meaningful part of their thoughtful intervention in, and working with, natural processes.
Anything less is just hot-air & p*ssing into the wind, as useless as just watching your topsoil be washed away.
@@MinTubaTuba "Trumpian"!? That bizarre term might indicate an unhealthy obsession.
-In July 1866 Alfred Russel Wallace wrote to Darwin about readers thinking that the phrase "natural selection" personified nature as "selecting" and said this misconception could be avoided "by adopting Spencer's term" Survival of the fittest. Darwin promptly replied that Wallace's letter was "as clear as daylight. I fully agree with all that you say on the advantages of H. Spencer's excellent expression of 'the survival of the fittest'. -
If you disagree with a method and or terminology, perhaps say so directly.
To attempt to shame someone via - taint by association- seems like something out of a novel by Dickens.
Doing so not only demeans your position but your character.
Very refreshing to hear from someone who feels able to question what are effectively dogmas among the more light-minded members of the growing Permaculture/Regenerative crowd. I find your thoughtful work to be a constant inspiration during my own labours.
However..
1) Since you so rightly raise the issue of successional plants, you should likewise be considering the issue of successional soils.
With these in mind, it is clear that the planting of any type of forest in an early-succession soil, in which only weeds germinate, was a poor plan - and a poor test.
Grow your soil, and let the soil grow your plants.
2) You may well find, once the Miyawaki-forest is more established, that your trees will draw considerable quantities of dew from the night-air - even during the hot Summer.
Drawn out by the cooling transpiration of the closely-planted trees, this falling dew may even be enough to sustain those trees through the Summer months.
TLDR (& a bit preachy..?):
You need much more organic material in all your soils.
Yes, you have said that you have limited access to the ('green' & 'brown') materials for composting, but..
BROWN:
Woodchip from broadleaf trees is best, which is surely available (perhaps for free) from arborists in your area; even if it requires collection.
If you are not too far from (sub)urban areas, leaves are likely to be seasonally available from gardeners/landscapers, whether professional or amateur - you could organize a yearly leaf-collection tour of your area.
If you hire a sufficiently powerful chipper, you could turn that fallen oak into some lovely woodchip.
Further, there must be many native, drought tolerant, broadleaf, early-succession/pioneer trees which would respond well to coppicing.
Even your Oaks (new, from your many 'little Oaks', or grown from acorns) might do well.
If you planted a substantial grove, coppicing each tree to remove one third of stems each year (ie. Not the 7-year full coppicing of all stems, for woodworking/firewood), you would have a multi-decade source of A++ woodchip. The young, green stems contain the highest proportions of essential nutrients, in addition to being a carbon-source.
GREEN:
Sowing (and irrigating) a moderately large area with certain nutrient-rich, early-succession plants, eg. Nettles, Docks & Comfrey (or native equivalents), would supply a ready source of green-material.
On my own, by hand, I produce several tons of high-quality compost each year - this year including a 2+ ton 'hot-compost' pile (Ash wood-chip, leaf-mould + grass-clippings, nettles), turned every three days with a manure-fork, for three weeks. (This method was chosen in order to have it close to where it would be used, in a common-area, which is surrounded by neighbours who would not tolerate a full-year pile).
Yes, I am in a more temperate climate, but am also chronically ill, and able to work, at best, for only two afternoons per week. Turning the 'hot-compost' pile could be done in an afternoon, but was then also all I could manage for those three weeks.
Otherwise, I build multiple 1-ton piles during the Summer, letting them mature until the following (late) Spring.
I can recommend the Johnson-Su method, but have also had great success using a simple 1-ton builders' bag, with many holes cut for aeration - though this was with chunky woodchip, for lower overall density, with better aeration.
In your situation, the method would surely need to be adjusted for the local heat and moisture conditions, but need not be any less successful.
Chunky, less-mature, woodchip-compost can beneficially be used as a compost-in-place mulch. Being on the surface, final decomposition will take its Nitrogen from the air, not your plants.
If you set up such a resource-production, you could then eg. Allocate space for 'windrows' of compost, which you could turn mechanically.
In such a way you could (entirely) manageably produce multiple tons of high-quality compost each year.
The hundred-house site on which I live was originally uneven and unproductive ground. Bull-dozed level, used for light-industry and a prisoner-of-war camp, bull-dozed again to prepare for the current housing area, there is essentially NO top-soil.
Original pebbles, sand & clay (setting together like concrete when dry) had received a universal 'amendment' of concrete-chunks, re-bar, wire-fencing, vehicle-parts and general plastic rubbish.
On arriving, three years ago, and having cleared large areas of weeds & brambles, I carefully sowed a variety of good-quality seeds (native grasses & wildflowers) suitable to the various aspects and shade conditions. Nothing germinated. Nothing at all.
Succession - Germination (I learned) is largely determined by the biology of the soil.
Composting was the way to go..
From an entirely inorganic glacier-dump, with modern inclusions, I now have rich, dark soil, so well structured that I can push my hand into it, growing a wide variety of healthy plants, with few weeds..
Grow your soil, and let the soil grow your plants.
(Coppicing + Weed-harvesting) Work = Quantities of Good Compost..
:) May your pile be moist, and the fragrance always Geosmic..
PS - Your ants could work wonders by aerating, and even lightly fertilizing, the soil on your property.
If you built homes for them (eg. Brick-built, or simply a large plastic container, filled with suitably loose, sandy material), substantial enough to avoid being washed away during heavy rain, you could quickly have large areas under 'automated cultivation'..
Thanks for the long comment. There is material to study.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito :) I can only hope that it may point to a useful direction of travel. There is so much learning to be done, it can feel overwhelming, which is why maintaining a tight grip on the basics is vital.
It does seem though that the quality and persistence of your attention to your land (the detailed particulars of structure, hydration, etc., as the constraints on the application of methods, etc.) is unmatched by any of the other small-farmer/homesteaders that I have found on TH-cam; knowledge that cannot be gained from any course or reading.
Again, your thoughtful determination, persistence and adaptability, each being also an expression of a particular sort of personal courage, is a constant source of encouragement to me, and, surely, many others.
Nice hat and nice video. I wish you a bucket full of woodchip for each tree,,, it would be much different if that was available. Any how, there is a biological solution! I saw lots if pigweed growing in your cabin / wanna be food forest area. If pigweed can get a hold in your forest it will spread and cover the soil. Lets hooe so.
Its my belief that the ground birds are missing in the dehesa for overall health. Turkeys used to be there in their 1000's. The eruropean crane used to be migratory through your area,,,, imagine flocks of 10 000 cranes and (lots of flocks a frew days apart) coming through filling their stomach with acorns and bugs, pooping and then miving on. So I think your onto something with miayaki and chickens.!!
Wood chips are used to fire furnaces in Andalucia. The same goes for the stone in the olives. All gets dried and sold as fuel.
And yes, there are some plants that seem to be able to cover the soil. Every day a bit more as it appears.
We do have a LOT more birds around the farmyard than we ever had. Something is going on.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito Mr Granja Caimito :- have you thought of trying the Bill Mollison " bird tree growth accelerator" technique??? It works and all it requires is a piece of string, 2 knots and 5 minutes.
Connect a heavy string or thin rope between a tree branch and another tree branch 20 meters or so away,,, say 6 feet above ground surface over the top of your miayaki forest,,, then wait. Its a bird perching device, and the forest under the bird perch device accerates in growth,,, hey presto!
Be sure to use 3 sticks (say 7 feet long) in a teepee formation mid distance to prop up the bird perching device, works a treat 🐦⬛🦅
That's a nice idea. I think, similar to the farmyard, once life returns the birds will be first to know and gather and forage and poop too.
It will be a forest ❤
Thank you for reminding viewers WHY People in Spain take Siesta in the afternoon & WHY it's important: too many people dismiss Siesta as laziness.
It's been less than 6-months since the Miyawaki Forest Planting, one benchmark for progress is the one-year mark, and then the annual check-up with monthly updates in between. Then check the MFP after 3-yrs compared to 1st-yr & again at the 5th-yr. And all of these to be compared to the "BEFORE" the MF Planting.
12:17 the Miyawaki saplings look happy & your moisture sensors say the soil have enough moisture, you must be doing something right.
13:53 the natural sprouting of acorns shows that your actions of 1)removing/excluding grazing animals 2)planting more plants & 3)installing irrigation are three critical steps that show results.
16:23 each plant in the "dense" Miyawaki planting gives some (needed) shade to its neighbors for most of the day (instead of too much), which is one of the reasons the method works, as opposed to saplings planted too far apart that get NO shade.
17:11 Happy that the electric chainsaw works!
21:12 NERVE-WRACKING to see you "trampling" in the MFP.
32:32 The Dog-Enclosure Pond LIVES!!!
33:45 The EMPIRICIST Strikes Back.
Siesta per se is definitely NOT being lazy.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito TRUE. Yet the typical Norte Americano Anglo attitude...🙄
Here in arid Greece, some spread attapulgite soil improver around their olive trees and in their veggie gardens with great results in water retention and speed of plant growth. Thankfully, here it's easy to source.
Hi, first time in you channel, very intersting!
have you ever thought to build some swale system around your forest?
oh yes, found the video XD love you
The area is 100% flat. No slope, no swale
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito yes i saw other video...i just trying now to study how to harvest water, is something that really excite me
@@presDev dig as many ponds as you can is one good way
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito
definitively, until I have land I will dream about that of others XD
In my climate zone 9B of Northeast Florida, United States, I have better success and growth of my young climax type trees when they are initially planted in some partial daily shade. The afternoons are intense and the full sun can make a young planted tree struggle.
Same in Catalonia. The summer heatwaves plus merciless sun create environment where even more mature trees (compared to ones than planted in the Miyawaki future forest) can dry out in a day or two.
So not just mulch but a partial shade increases the chances of a young tree survival.
That's very, very right. It goes very quick and that's why plants are a LOT more difficult to keep than animals. Animals decide and do something.
For the mulch / biomass I can recommend red Napier grass. It is quite drought resistant and easy to reproduce from cuttings.
The downside is that it is not frost resistant, so one may need to cover the ground with a lot of mulch in the winter.
There are many types of Acacia trees you can also plant most of which are drought tolerant you could try
Amazing to see this forest surviving in such extreme summer temperatures. Will be interesting to see which ones push ahead in the cooler winter months - but do the trees actually shed their leaves or only some of them during those months i.e. the deciduous ones. Not sure what happens in your region?
Some of the shrubs we have in the wild part where the animals never went. Others I have never seen but then I'm not from here so that doesn't count much.
I think in a few weeks when the temperature changes and the rain comes back we will see an uptick of activity. Until then we continue to irrigate moderately. Of course it is dry but the soil is still loose and soft.
I cannot paste it here but I do see that the sensors report an uptick in soil moisture every night. That means there is some condensation happening.
Yes, they are probably existing on the minimum to survive until weather conditions moderate. Young trees especially vulnerable so Darwinian theory seems to apply.
It does
Guten Tag!Ich verstehe nicht, warum sie nicht das lange,verdorrte Gras verwenden,und den von der Sonne ungeschützten Boden damit mulchen!So kommt nie Leben in den Boden!Oder stark verzögert!Ihr Projekt finde ich sehr interessant!Aber Wasser auf toten Boden zu schütten bringt nur ganz wenig! die hohen Temperaturen im Boden beseitigen sie nur mit Mulch!Aber wenn sie es ignorieren ,werden sie weiterhin weniger Erfolge haben!Ich drück ihnen die Daumen,dass ihnen jemand dabei hilft!beinahe alleine ist das eine große Herausforderung!Mit freundlichen Grüßen aus Wien
Wir akzeptieren gern Freiwillige, die das bei 35 Grad im Schatten - und ganz sicher viel mehr in der Sonne - machen wollen :-)
Alle Theorie ist meist richtig - die praktische Umsetzung scheitert halt meist an den realen Gegebenheiten. Es fehlen meist Material und Menschen, die die Arbeit machen (wollen) und auch mit allem Geld der Welt gehen viele Dinge halt dennoch nicht.
Keine Sorge. Alles in Ordnung.
I forget the name but there's a cultivation technique where pond liner / heavy LDPE foils are buried to form subsurface tubs. These prevent loss of locally infiltrated surface water to crops and trees. The description of the sandy soil draining away the pond contents reminded me of that. I imagine having trees around will mean an early destruction of such foils when applied to a larger area.
It seems that the only way to fix soil is by having living roots, bacteria and water in it. All other methods seem to just create a temporary success. So the formula seems to be: plant and irrigate to "grow shade" quickly. Then help nature further but maintain the shade
Too much bare ground and no mulch to protect the ground from getting too hot and dry out fast.
Apart from no ground cover maybe also too much strong sunlight in combination with high air temperature, at least for some tree species.
Having some screen on the south side does help with water thirsty young willows for example. Few species of willows not in a shade during the hottest hours tend to have burned leaves. At least when you cannot water them over the top.
A data point about the mulch. When it's 40 degrees celsius ambient - ambient, not soil - temperature in the shade you will be successful with regular mulch. You would have to install a water barrier which in turn will not allow rain / irrigation water to come in neither.
You should see how water here goes straight from liquid to vapor as soon as the sun comes up. Looks like smoke from a fire.
Does the irrigation have an effect on the old oak?
The oaks have their roots below 3,5m - 4m and there is water. That's why they continue to exist. No irrigation needed for them.
When these oaks started some 300 - 400 years ago the area was different but I don't know how it was and would very much love to know. It also appears that they were planted but that's all speculation.
What are the indigenous trees for the area. The oak trees already grow in the area. Have you thought of the Umbrella thorn. They survive in dry arid areas. Paper Bark tree very good in dry arid poor soil conditions. There are many that you can try.
ALL of the species planted are natives. That was one of the conditions for the project.
Me thinks that with all this watering you could have a decent field of vetiver, Napier grass, sun hemp or sorgum. Hindsight is 20:20...
Check out the previous video where you can see Sunn Hemp & friends in comparison.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito These indeed do look greener on what I understand is less watering?
My gut feeling is that in this climate either one starts from seeds sown in a really wet period with plants growing like a fire in low temperatures and developing deep roots or we need bulbs/ rooted rhizomes /non-minuscule root mass so the plant can survive less than optimal watering.
Deep roots require loose soil. After 10-15 cm we have dried out sand and minerals. When the oaks grew that was different and 300-400 years ago.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito by any chance did you check if i.e. vetiver or sun hemp can grow roots punching through that 15cm top soil to the sand-clay-rocks below? If not, hard to understand how anything can survive in the summer using just the thin baked soil layer.
@@darked89 Only plants with a tap root seem to be able to break through that layer. However, the water is at 3,5 - 4m and so this won't be quick. There is a reason why this area of Spain and others are officially under threat of desertification.
How hot is that. I'm a builder in S.A. and in summer we work in 27degrees plus more often than not. That would working in the full sun.
Current air temperature: 40,33 degrees celsius. Soil temperature in the Miyawaki forest at 10 cm depth: 34 degrees celsius.
In other areas it is even higher: the highest value being measured is 37,06C
Even if only 10% survive to maturity you still will have a large amount of trees. So just keep on irrigating during the summer (Maybe a bit More if possible…) and I think it Will work out just fine
Well, if you work your backside as a volunteer and get the news that just 10% of your time and effort was not wasted that would be rather demotivating.
@@darked89 nah noone expects 100% to succeed in what is practically a desert... and the whole point of 5/m2 is that they can help each other and those that don't make it doesn't matter since the rest will take over, 10% is quite good in such an area
@@darked89 That’s the wrong way to see it I think. Without the 100% effort you wouldn’t have even 10% survival rate and no forest. Not saying that there will be a 90% loss, but in the end the goal was to have a forest and if you get that with 50% or 10 % survival rate, the effort was successful
@@LiLBitsDK90% failure is fine if you i.e. drop seed balls costing few cents and forget about them. Young trees in Spain tend to cost quite a bit more. Without even counting water, irrigation system cost, ground preparation, and yes, volunteer work you throw 90% in the bin.
Not great not in just my book.
@@darked89 well then plant trees in a wetter area where it isn't really needed anyways then you will have near 100% success
At 14,40,,, you point to a weed and say thats a bad plant, they are everywhere, cant do much about them. Well ok bro, but instead of walking past it with the camera and doing nothing,, you could stub the weed with your boot, fold it down to cover the soil, and then you did something about that one.
In marginal semi arid areas like yours,,, those 1% actions can sometimes be the difference between a wanted plant surviving or not surviving. Just saying,
Yes. I could do that. And what would it help? Nothing. Because right next to it on the neighbor's land and the other neighbor and along the road, etc. there is millions more. They say: pick your battles wisely. I try to do that.
That "bad" plant is only bad from the perspective of a rancher who doesn't want their livestock to eat it. If you keep bees you will be happy because it has a lot of flowers. So "bad" is a question of context - isn't it?
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito i was thinking more in terms of stubbing the plant out and laying it on the ground to provide soil shade,,, its good for that.
Bird flocks :- a flock of geese came over our place this morning,, i hope you get some with camera handy.
The miyawaki update was a cool video
My feeling: A lot of things you did were premature. Sorry I have to break it to you in this fashion. For Miyawaki I strongly believe you have failed to work on infrastructure. Even for those who showed up to help you. You quickly threw important elements of the Miyawaki to work overboard (Mulch!!) You quickly pull out ideas from your pocket and follow those ideas without thinking twice. Too diverse, too haphazardly, not enough water for everything. You practically abandoned Miyawaki concept even before the last trees were in the ground. In fact you didn’t even put the last Miyawaki trees into the ground. They were standing around in crates and dried out and again you were making up excuses. Do these plants and trees even still exist, or are they fire wood by now? Do you realize that This organisation spent a lot of money to bring the project to you, or at least do you appreciate it? All things considered, I cannot say that I would have been any better than you. As I am criticising you, I feel indeed as if I am criticising myself. In my opinion you fail at following through. Why don’t you call the Miyawaki people and ask them for an honest evaluation of the site setup\preparations, when they arrived and for an evaluation of the current situation. Ask yourself if the people who showed up to help, have left with a good feeling, or if they were mostly frustrated. Why am I saying all of this? All it took for me, was one glance at the dying cypresses and the way they were put into the ground. You have so much crap laying around but nobody bothered to tie a stick to them. Each cypress was pointing in another direction. That is disappointing. That’s not a thorough activity, but rather actionism to appear like something meaningful has happened. On another note: You do know that cypresses are full of sap and etheric oils? There’s your fire hazard you wanted to avoid. Everything on the technical side you are showing to us is unfinished and makeshift and needs a second or a third visit to be completed or done right. Please think about doing things in a way that you can consider them done and don’t require a revisit. It will make you happier because it gives you the rewarding feeling of accomplishment. Again, these are suggestions for how to approach the little things. Nobody does everything right, l understand, but work towards little progresses bit by bit.
Also, don’t even think about buying a small excavator, imagining to do save money instead of renting a big one. If you calculate the cubic metres you will quickly understand what I mean. It’s simple calculation. Your rotor tiller (Einachstraktor) should be in use day after day and not sit around and rot, or else it was a wrong investment mow the hay and weeds pile it up somehow, or throw it in a pit and water it so it starts rotting. Moist, humid carbon rich compost is what you aim for. Not four inches, not ten inches, but two three foot deep (or more). Burn some of the wood and add charcoal and ashes. Buy a wood chipper or a shredder. The smaller this stuff is, the quicker it decomposes. even plain cardboard is great, but you have to get it into the ground or on a compost heap and it needs to be moist and hence it needs to be covered. try composting your organic matter by using foil to cover it. then bring it into the ground. Every pile of horse poop is valuable, but you *must* gather it and put lots of it in one place. It is such a waste to leave it laying where the horse dropped it. It will dry out, become dust and be blown away. Take a bucket with you and pick that sh.t up and keep adding stuff to your compost. Again, keep it covered so the humidity can condense and seep back into the compost. Start in a smaller scale, but big as far as the nutrients in that small place and then get bigger and bigger as time progresses. On another note I would like to ask if you have ever heard of Topinambur. That is a crop that almost needs nothing, but the Dehesa may be too dry. You know better than me. Remember, the things you show to us with a happy face are (nine times out of ten) something you didn’t even plant. That is nature working for you. Your four horses, isn’t that what you were criticising about the ranchers? At the same time you point at the horse manure and claim that that’s bio mass. It isn’t, if you just leave it where it is, then you are no better than the cattle ranchers. Again, sorry if I’m too rude.
It's ok that you write whatever you feel like writing. No problem.
You are an outside observer watching a TH-cam channel with very limited scope and detail. If this were a scripted show, professionally produced and well prepared you would only see a crafted message which obviously would be all rosy and positive.
It isn't and so you see random bits and pieces and still have no idea about anything else beyond the video clips. You might listen carefully what I say and you can figure out more details - if you really want to.
I still read your comment and certainly will process your thoughts. But you will understand that I cannot answer and explain every single point. It's not your skin that's in the game neither.
I guess you want to see success and how wonderful all those methods that you see in other videos or read about supposedly work. And now you are frustrated because you don't see that promised success. I was believing the same and learned about reality the hard way.
I suggest you try it yourself and then you will very quickly learn how little you would accomplish in a 24 hours day. Yes, you can quit your job and work full-time on your project. And then ... From what will you live and feed your family? There is a LOT more to consider and unless one has external funding that allows to spend other people's money the big ideas become smaller and smaller quickly.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimitoIt is your „Totschlagargument“ to say. „This may work in Germany, but not in Spain.“ or „Try for yourself and you will see…“ or „It is way too hot, you don’t understand.“ and in return I use your Argument. „I post no videos, so you know even less about me than I know about you through your videos.“
But that stuff aside, did you see that another person posted similar suggestions about composting/mulching? The only difference being him/her being way more sensitive in their approach to you.
My frustration is irrelevant. I believe first of all you should take care of the most important person, yourself, so you can take care of your family. I hope that’s what you are doing. Looking at you in your videos, I get the feeling you tend to forget to look after your own wellbeing at times. I will eagerly wait for your next video.
I think a lot of viewers of your channel appreciate the rift between the theory of perm and how difficult it actually is in practice, especially in a difficult environment like yours. However, an impression shared by many is that there is no clear design/thought out approach to what you are doing (feels too often all over the place). But again, it' super tough and especially if you dont have much experience it can be a daunting task
I do not value "big upfront design" or any way of following a plan. It never works. It's a delusion.
So that messy approach is actually "inspect and adapt" and that's also why I call everything an experiment. Sure, it was necessary to scale back due to lack of resources and many other reasons but that does not invalidate the overall approach itself.
There is actually someone who does the same on a much, much bigger scale and is heavily criticized for it: SpaceX. Others fly a rocket for the first time and nothing explodes while they lose a lot of vehicles. It's called a test and they want data as they always explain again and again.
If you do something for the first time, you need to learn and cannot be afraid of failing. Or leave it to those who have done it before but then THEY did it and not you.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito of course feedback is essential but feedback is meant to be recursive with regard to design based on site observation, purpose, etc. In any case, you are the one doing it so massive respect to you (instead of YT commentators) and I hope it's clear that everyone wants you to succeed and tries to provide constructive criticism.