Subject: Erosion Control

From: [email-masked] (Dan Settles, Dept. of Cell Biology DUMC)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 09:55:12 -0400

Sorry if you receive this twice.  I'm attempting to post this message from a different account after having an e-mail problem.
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I'd like to see if anyone would like to discuss erosion control.  I
bought a farm recently that has been used to grow tobacco, wheat, oats
and soybeans.  Some of the fields have a moderate slope and due to the
nature of tobacco farming there is a problem with soil erosion.  I was very
concerned about this so I called my county soil conservation office and
asked about what could be done.  The state (NC) and federal government
both have cost sharing money available to help stop soil erosion of
farmland, but I'm not sure I like the methods that they have
recommended.  Their preferred method of controlling erosion seems to be
to build waterways to slow down the water and move it away from the
fields.  The waterways are basically flat shallow channels seeded in
perennial grasses that are designed to slow down the water as it runs out
of the tilled fields.  The eroding soil is then captured (partially) in
these waterways and the excess water is channeled away from the fields
and off into the woods.  Typically, the waterways fill up with soil in
8-10 years and they come back in with heavy equipment, dig out the
channels, put the soil back on the fields, and reseed the waterways.
While this is better than doing nothing, it seems like a waste of effort,
money, water, soil, etc.

My long term goal is to drastically decrease the amount of annual crops
planted, but for now I am trying to deal with the erosion problem.  My
knowledge and experience is rather limited, but I believe the
permaculture approach to this would be quite different than what the
government says I should do.  My understanding is that a permaculture
design would attempt to capture the water and hold it in the soil rather
than diverting it from the fields.  Does anyone have experience with
using permaculture methods on farmland in a way that would satisfy the
soil conservation agents?  I have considered not using their suggestions
at all, but it just occurred to me that I might have an opportunity here
to get some permaculture design and waterway work done and get some of my
tax money back to help pay for it.  I˜d certainly appreciate any thoughts
or experience about this.

Dan Settles
Oxford, NC

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From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 1997 01:14:19 -0400 (EDT)

> and off into the woods.  Typically, the waterways fill up with soil in

You should probably build some sort of catchment area for the
nutrient-rich water after it leaves silt and soil behind in
swales planted in a variety of annual and perennial crops, legumes,
trees and shrubs. The catchment area should be a capable of allowing
you to develop aquaculture systems. Small gravity-fed watering holes or
small ponds interconnected and at differing elevations would position
irrigation water for use by different cropping systems along the way.

Instead of planting the fields between swales with the usual grass & grain
crops you could develop permanent turf there with a variety of native
weeds and special perennial and legume crops. Useful self-seeding weeds
such as ragweed, Carolina horse nettle (mineral mining), plantain, greater
and lesser burdock, small-flowered daisy (Monarch butterflies), goldenrod
(bees, paper wasps), milkweed (Monarch butterflies), lambs quarters, 
amaranth and wild millet would serve many purposes and not be
hard to establish and maintain. Tall white and yellow sweet clover,
comfrey, purslane, Jerusalem artichokes, red clover, alsike clover, 
lespedeza, alfalfa could be added as well. Annual ryegrass, winter rye, 
winter pea, crimson clover and vetch should be planted in early Fall
for Winter and Spring cover and erosion control. All these crops would
catch soil nutrients for later recycling mostly in situ, water runoff
would end up on the swales or in the catchment ponds.
You could easily turn this turf into production beds, orchards or row crop
gardens at any time. The weed seed bank developed after years of growing 
the above plants should not be difficult to work with. Crab, Johnson or
Bermuda grass, thorny pigweed and a few other annual weed plants will,
if allowed to spread in your turf, be difficult to eradicate and cause
lots of problems. 

I have had serious problems with soil erosion and nutrient leaching from
excessive runoff and have begun to implement some of these solutions
around my property. I now lose almost no topsoil and fields of diverse 
weeds, swales and small catchments areas hold and recycle valuable
nutrients.

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From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 1997 01:14:19 -0400 (EDT)