Subject: Re: reprise: guilds

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 10:09:32 -0400 (EDT)

In a message dated 10/5/97 12:27:05 PM, [email-masked] wrote:

>Im not content to see this "discussion" about guilds laid to rest yet. 
>Dan H mentioned that he thot it was one of Mollison's weaker ideas, that
>there are no ready made answers when it comes to species selection.  &
>while I agree that nothing replaces knowing the plants & what will work
>& what wont work, I also think that there are ways of thinking of design
>that build upon nature & evolutionary affinities that some plants have
>with other plants.  Companion planting has been mentioned tho in my book
>I think of garden annuals.  I am also quite interested in designs that
>further the ideas of Alan Kapuler & Olaf Brentmar & co-evolutionary
>gardening, which I see as a taxonomical guild system.  
>
>Also for the record I wonder if the notion of guilds actually originates
>from Mollison, I believe that indigenous agriculture has been enlarging
>upon these notions forever, for instance the 3 sisters & medicine
>gardens are 2 that come to mind.  But then what is a guild?
>
>
>Miekal And

It is sad to read of Miekal's discontentment.  Alas.

I have two objections to the use of the term "guilds" as a speaker of
English.  First, it is pretentious.  Second, it departs significantly from
the meaning of the word guild, which is a group of artisans who DO THE SAME
WORK who enforce standards, and perform certain other functions that, in
today's legal parlance, would be called "constraint of trade."  

Plants work well in permaculture designs because they do different things.
 While spontaneous associations do occur and should be noted and emulated
where appropriate, that phrase (spontaneous associations) works better.

The fact is that most guilds and companion planting associations, where
valid, and there is untold amounts of bullshit circulated in these matters,
have nothing to do with evolutionary associations.  Do you plant tagetes with
cabbages?  Aside from the fact that this is one of the bogus companion
associations, as tagetes (marigolds) attract feeding cabbage butterflies
which then lay more eggs on the cabbages than they would otherwise, one genus
(Tagetes) originated in Mesoamerica and the brassica was probably cultivated
originally in Persia, though that is less clear.  In any case, they did not
coevolve in the field or out.  The three sisters is an interesting example
because unless one uses properly adapted cultivars of these three species,
they will fail as a "guild."  And the suitability of this association (which
is a simpler and more explanitory word) varies to climate and soil
conditions.  Moreover, alleged benefits conferred to each crop are
questionable--we are simply able to make them grow together to trap more
sunlight and get more totoal food.  While the beans enjoy the support
provided by corn, a pole would provide a better support that did not compete
for light, water an nutrients.  The corn gets a trace of nitrogen from the
beans, maybe, but more likely the beans take more N from the soil than they
contribute in the growing season.  The pumpkins do not benefit either plant,
though they benefit the soil as a ground cover and benefit us, again, with
more yield, as racoons do not like to go into heavy pumpkin vine territory
because of what may be lurking there (one assumes).   So we can force these
plants to grow together for our benefit, but hardly because they are great
for each other.  There are long term soil benefits but since these are
domesticated plants that do not freely self-sow, this is immaterial.
 Succeeding generations will not benefit unless we specifically force them to
grow there again.

Apios and blueberry or cranberry (which is just another blueberry that
happens not to be blue or taste as good) is an example of a natural
association of co-evolved plants, one might think.  Except that most of the
species of blueberry that associate with apios are not from the warmer areas
where apios evolved.  No the Native Americans brought apios into the picture
and the assocation, while spontaneous, is not an example of coevolution.
 Likewise with black raspberry and cultivated varieties of apples.  I have
never seen spontaneous associations of native crabapples and R occidentalis
in the wild, so I'm guessing that at best it is rare, not the kind of
dependable thing one would like for comfortable intellectual shortcuts like
the term guild.  Comfortable, but inappropriate, I contend.

Finally (I hope), thinking in terms of guilds is a way to avoid thinking like
the Earth, thinking as a permaculturist.  A paramount consideration in
permaculture is that we understand the properties and requirements of
elements.  Intellectually (or intuitively when we are advanced enough) we
combine species X and species Y because IT SUITS OUR PURPOSES.  A guild, as
the term is used in its original meanint, suits the purposes of the members
of the guild which are agreed upon, the same therefore.  It is the opposite.
 The artisan guild is not for the benefit of others but to their detriment to
the exent that the craft is controlled and its accessiblity more costly than
otherwise necessary.  It is to the benefit of the society to the extent that
a standard of excellence is maintained.  These are absolutely immaterial
considerations to the issue of useful plant associates, which we want mainly
for our purposes and which we control by compelling species to associate.

It is indeed a great idea to look at spontaneous associatons of useful plants
that have co-evolved and see if we can fit in.  However this is a far
narrower selection of associations than ever was intended by the Mollisonian
use of the term guild, which is just sloppy language, sloppy thinking, and
very, very bad permaculture.  Or rather it isn't permaculture at all, in my
opinion.

For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since
1982), Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design Courses,
consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981), and now correspondence
courses via email.  Next starts in Oct. 1997. Internships available.
Copyright, 1997, Dan & Cynthia Hemenway, P.O. Box 52, Sparr FL 32192 USA
 [email-masked]  

We don't have time to rush.

---

From: Lee Flier <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 1997 12:22:41 -0500

I think the problem here is that we're assuming that everyone knows that
permaculturists are supposed to interplant different species together as
opposed to monocropping.  When Mollison came up with the "guild" concept,
that was far from obvious, and still is to many people that we would teach.

My understanding of a guild as Mollison defines it is any group of diverse
species that are in beneficial relationship to each other (and that
includes us). I think what Dan is trying to say is that we should never
stop thinking about what might make up a good association and that's why he
doesn't want to follow any prescribed list.  I agree that we should never
stop observing and experimenting, but I also think it's OK to look at what
has worked for other people.  This is the way other cultures used to pass
on knowledge to each other and they DID survive quite well before one
culture (us) decided to flaunt the basic laws of survival.

In the course I took from Bill Mollison he emphasised many times that the
knowledge we pass on to others must be simple and easy to pass on to more
people in turn, including people who are "uneducated", of a different
language or culture, and have little scientific knowledge.  In coming up
with guilds, he told us to keep in mind the basic concepts: you should take
advantage of layers (canopy, understory, herb, root, vining plant, etc.),
and think in terms of what each of the plants need and what could give it
to them.  That is, if a plant is plagued by a particular pest insect, plant
something with it that will attract predators of that insect, such as a
dense ground cover that snakes or lizards might like.  If a plant uses a
lot of nitrogen it can be planted with a nitrogen fixer, etc.

As to how to determine what works and what doesn't in your climate and
microclimate, Mollison suggested two things: 1) observe what works well in
natural systems and try to find out through research what characteristics
make them work well, and 2) the first year, plant out as many diverse types
of species as you can get your hands on.  Be prepared to have to control
some species that try to take over!  But you will observe out of 50 or 100
species that you might plant, that 4 or 5 of them do exceptionally well
together, a larger number will do well but not quite as well, and some will
fail altogether.  The next year, plant more of the successes, less of the
failures, and try the neutrals in different associations along with some
that you didn't plant last year.  But the important thing is that if you
plant out hundreds of species right away, SOMETHING will grow, and you will
both learn something and have something to eat, probably even if there's a
bad drought or other adverse condition.

As for Dan's comments that we think we know too much about nature, I'd like
to restate another Mollisonism that is often understated:  ANYTHING we know
about permaculture is ONLY applicable to that 4% of the earth's land mass
that we should need in order to produce our own food.  If a natural system
exists well on its own we should LEAVE IT ALONE.  However almost anything
will help heal the land by comparison to monoculture farming, strip malls,
and places that have become desert due to deforestation.  These are our
areas of focus and we should not attempt to "fix" the rest of the world,
unless we have ourselves damaged it and it needs to be healed.  Nor should
we step up our present rate of food production simply because we can now
get a higher yield from the same space.  That would only result in a
population increase.  The idea is to decrease the amount of space and
resources we are currently using to produce food, and that doesn't need to
be rocket science.  Other cultures and species have fed themselves just
fine by simply being observant of natural patterns and passing their
observations on.

= Lee =

==================================
Lee A. Flier
[email-masked]
http://lflier.home.mindspring.com
Atlanta and Ellijay, Georgia, U.S.A.