Paddock clearing – To burn or not to burn…
September 9th, 2010
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Posted in Cattle, Chickens, General, Uncategorized | 
Tags: atmosphere, carbon, clearing, habitat, mulch, tree line
8 Responses to “Paddock clearing – To burn or not to burn…”
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Wow you do have a woody block. This is so timely. They are doing paddock burns in my area just now and I’ve been thinking how some still stick hard to the old ways. The grass does come back looking good after it. But what about all the life in the ground it must kill.
Looking at how you’ve managed the timber seems a better way. It could actually form barriers and save a bit on fencing perhaps?
I took your advice on the spare chain. I bought the stihl miniboss. It’s a good little saw. Later on I’ll get a bigger one to handle the larger trees that do fall.
It is a woody block! But that’s a blessing more than a curse.
The tree lines could be used as a barrier as long as you weren’t trying to keep in goats or such. In my case I’m still fencing as per normal but use the piles as a very coarse mulch. By interesting to see how it fares… I’ll be planting 300 Tagasate plants (tree lucerne) over the next few months.
Enjoyed your website again – including U Tube with reference to woody block!
Also plight of of small producers of free range eggs
Keep up the good work
David B
I know those woody blocks well. We’ve had ours for 5 years and the improvements are noticible with the introduction of fertility. We’ve been slashing our weeds and native grasses back into the soil. We don’t keep livestock, but there are plenty of naitive animals to leave their droppings. It all adds up. With the recent rains it’s incredibly green and lush, compared to 5 years ago.
It will be interesting to see how your paddocks improve. I’m curious if you discover you have too many trees spread over large distances? One thing we found with eucalyptus (mainly spotted gums) is hardly anything grows underneath. The wax coating on their leaves inhibit growth of other plants. The leaves take forever to break down too. However, nature has provided some hardy understory plants that are putting extra carbon in. We have fast growing wattles and lantana. The lantana came with the property, we didn’t plant it. The best soil is near these understory plants.
We’ve found the best way to live with eucalyptus is to have clumps of them, rather than a general dispersion around the property. It gives the ground opportunity to spread fertility between the clumps, helped along by planting understory trees around the clumps. In your case though, you’ll be using cow fertility instead.
I like your use of natural mulch and it’s great to see. We don’t burn our trees either. We prefer to use them as edging and mulch, providing feed and shelter for the native bandicoots and echidnas. It’s all about bringing the fertility back to the property, not burning it into the air. Your soil will love you for it!
I agree with regards the eucalypts, but the underlying philosophy is to have as much growing as possible… Maximize our ability to harvest the sunlight! That being the true source of fertility for almost all of earths ecosystems.
In the long term the eucalypts in this area will be swapped out with more productive species such as nuts and fruits. The reason for this is that these paddocks are in the anthropocentric zone where everything is placed for the benefit of human kind.
There are also designated zones for nature (about 2.5 acres or 1/6th of the block) and a shared zone where human needs and natures needs can co-exsist.
In the meantime the plan is to periodically collect the eucalypt leaves, with hand tools, and spread them on areas such as lane ways where their special characteristics will be most useful.
Re: what Chris said. My land is similar to yours Chris. While it was dry I let the wattles and lantana have their way. But now with so much rain we’ve had I’m clearing as much as I physically am able, to make way for something else. I’ve heard a few times from people now that the wattles are only good for termites. And it seems to be true because so many have holes in them from the ground by termites.
As far as clearing the eucalypt leaves go Shane how would you go about it on acres and acres of paddocks?
I have seen grass grow right up to the trunk around some eucalypts. Perhaps because the leaves were removed by someone?
Hi Michael
I agree that many of the techniques that I am trialling are not immediately applicable to large scale systems. For example, if I gave you a hand rake and 100 acres, you’d probably be there for the rest of your natural life! You’d get some great exercise though…
However the stated goal of This Sustainable House is not to be an authority on what we ‘should’ be doing, but rather providing options and trialling some of those options. All I am doing is looking at the natural systems that are operating on the property, and trying to emulate them in my anthropocentric activities.
That said, it doesn’t mean that these options can’t be applied to large scale systems, just that I’m not operating on that scale at the moment. For example, should the removal of eucalypt leaves prove to be very useful then it is conceivable that we could build a large paddock vacuum to do the task for us… Then we really could do the 100 acres, or more.
For me the key point is that we shouldn’t let the fact that these ideas are currently ‘inconceivable’ stop us. We should still push through and test the system; if it then proves useful then we can work out a way to make it more widely applicable. Some things will be more widely applicable, and some won’t. Still fun trying though!!!
Cheers
Shane
Yeah that’s a good idea to experiment on a small area and if it’s successful to work out how to scale it up. I didn’t think of a paddock vac. To be honest I haven’t known about them long. They are fairly expensive aren’t they?