Subject: Re: Mollison too general?

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1999 09:38:00 EDT

In a message dated 6/5/99 7:24:24 AM, [email-masked] wrote:

<<I am doing an organic gardening internship this quarter and we got into
a big discussion about permaculture and Mollison's ideas. Keep in mind I
am a beginner to permaculture and most of these ideas. On a tape of a
lecture Mollison gave at Eco-farm I was listening to Bill describe the
need for shade in vegetable farming situations because most plants
produced higher yield when they weren't exposed to intensive prolonged
heat patterns. His idea was that integrating trees would curb heat
stresses thereby increasing yield. Seemed logical to me so I asked the
guy I am interning with if he had heard the idea and if he was thinking
of going for more of the forest approach. Since he was mainly dealing
with medicinal herbs he said most of the herbs seemed to thrive in full
sun, but did not discount Bill's ideas. He suggest that Bill's ideas
were "too general" and not mindful of independent crop species and the
needs of plants at an individual level. Certainly a logically valid
point. But my question to the group is does Mollison deserve some merit
here AND in general can I expect Mollison to over-generalize or over
simplify? Any help here would help, especially before my ideas of
permaculture get too lofty. This is not meant to stir up a Mollison
debate, but merely to get different perspectives on how to interpret
Mollison and see what critiques of his ideas are out there. 
Wishing you all well,
Kevin Snorf>>

Kevin:
	The answer to your question is yes and no.  Bill often propounds his 
fanciful speculations, not always labeld as such.  And he sometimes  has 
extremely concrete results to report.  The problem lies when people not in a 
permaculture frame of mind, and there is such a thing, look at something Bill 
speculates about (and as I said, very often it is not labeled as speculation 
but presented as fact tantamount to personal experience.)  
	I think if someone is to regard Bill as a guide, then I strongly 
advise them as a first step to understand permaculture.  Virtually every top 
permaculture teacher, including Bill, stresses that permaculture is "site 
specific."  Context specific might be a better term, since that includes the 
proclivities of people who influence the site,, the character of species that 
may influence the site, etc.  Let me give you an example from another 
context.  
	Bill is a great proponent of the swale.  He prances up and down the 
stage, chanting swale here swale there and some people, alas, dash out, 
disregard EVERYTHING ELSE HE SAYS, and tear up the landscape putting swales 
in everywhere.  Yet the first principle of permaculture design (sustainable 
design in general) is restraint, do only what is necessary, ultimate 
conservation including energy for change.  The second principle is wholistic 
design--no element is seen outside the context of the other elements.  Bill 
teaches this.  He goes to great length to teach the management of water and 
though I am unaware of anyplace where he says it outright, the sum 
consequence of what he teaches includes the principle that if you concentrate 
water someplace, you damn well better know what is going to happen to it 
there.  I have seen designs in the name of permaculture, nothing I would call 
a permaculture design, where swales were created in places that would cause 
serious erosion if they overflowed, for example.  And certainly we don't need 
to randomly slashing up the Earth with swales without a purposeful design.  
	The key is that permaculture is DESIGN.  No design, no permaculture.  
It is assumed that the design will be implemented, but the implementation is 
not permaculture, any more than carpentry or plumbing is architecture.  When, 
in the context of talking about architecture, the architect drifts on to how 
he uses his radial-arm saw, it may be interesting, but we view it as a 
sidebar, so to speak, and maybe evidence of one way to achieve a certain 
construction s/he designed.
	Permaculture applies general principles to specific situations.  You 
need specific information tied to that site, that ecosystem, those people 
living there, that human culture, etc., etc.  The best permaculture designers 
already have lots of concrete experience in some field(s) of direct 
work--gardening, massage, solar building, forestry, whatever.  Generally, 
their academic experience is secondary.  They immerse themselves in the 
specifics of the site and let the site inform the design.  
	If one wants to introduce species or cobble together species 
assemblies, this requires even more detailed information.  If one has 
grounded experience in working with, say, plant species, in the past, one is 
well prepared to correctly interpret this information and insightfully apply 
it in the context of the specific site.  Specificity is where it is at.  
	Now a comment about plants needing shade to reduce their heat 
exposure is a real shot in the dark, unless the context is known.  I have no 
idea of the soil and climate situation of "eco-farm."  Bill does tend to look 
for ways to get people  to integrate their systems with trees.  In tropical 
and subtropical situations, much of the food in traditional gardens are 
grown, indeed, in little agroforestries.  Even sun-loving plants like  
tomatoes bear acceptably in such contexts.  Bill usually notes that when you 
combine species like that,  a given crop may yield less than if it had all 
the space it wants.  However, the total tonnage of food produced per acre is 
greater, if the job is done well.  Obviously you can overcrowd.  And if you 
live there,  you can then adjust the design by thinning.
	Let me share some personal experience on this.  Because we live where 
the summer climate is very hot, we favor as many trees as possible for HUMAN 
comfort.  Vegetables get a lower priority.   Peppers, especially habanernos, 
don't mind more than half shade.  We get acceptable yields of sweet potatoes, 
beans, and most greens.  However the problem is not shade but root  
competition, specifically for moisture.  Here we have sand.  Only someone 
from Florida would call it soil.  Water falls through it.  Three days after a 
rain, under mulch, in summer, crops are wilted.  The commonest shade is the 
sabal palm which is a water hog.  Only cacti and epiphytes do well at the 
base of these trees.  (Well, there ARE some tricks to get around this.) The 
best tree we have for evapo-transpirational cooling is clearly the mockernut 
hickory.  It must be sucking water no-stop by  the hundreds or thousands of 
gallons daily.  Tough plants like establish comfrey die next to palms and 
almost die if we miss a water cycle in our little forest garden experiments.  
In loamy or clay soils, we would not have such extreme problems.  If we did 
not have such strong evaporation potential (almost continual westerly winds 
from the Gulf of Mexico and high summer temps), plants would not suffer so 
quickly from moisture stress.  Mollison's advice thoughts on shade are tricky 
to apply here.  I can grow sweet potatoes no problem, but did  you ever try 
to dig root crops around established trees?