Natural Sequence Farming
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What is Natural Sequence Farming?
Natural Sequence Farming is primarily concerned with water management. It does this by easing erosion and recharging the store of water under the floodplains and river banks to ease the deficit in drought.
In the natural state of a watercourse, water is moving slowly and allowing deposition of sediment. The water is clear.
When the environment has been damaged, the water is not slowed by vegetation and so runs faster. Fast running water erodes sediment leaving sharp walls and gullies. The water is brown with carried sediment – lost fertility.
Table of Contents
Creating a Chain of Ponds
A good practice is to create a series of “leaky weirs” across gullies and eroded streams to slow the water flow, and encourage deposition of silt upstream and the dispersal of water into the stream bank storage as a reserve for harsher times.
Natural water storage is the prime goal of Natural Sequence Farming.
Creating Terraces on an Eroded Slope
A version of the chain of ponds practice can be used on sheet eroded slopes using walls of loosely placed rock. Water running off the slope will be slowed allowing deposition creating a series of natural terraces. As the silt dam fills, the porous wall can be increased in height to continue the process.
These terraces store water in the silt and become a perfect environment for vegetation which arise from wind or water borne seeds.
The stored water leaks slowly out of the silt dam maintaining a natural irrigation flow to lower terraces over the year.
The Downhill Flow of Fertility
The natural flow of fertility is downhill, assisted by wind and water.
Before the mass clearing of the landscape, the ridgelines were covered in trees. Animals ate in the lower country and camped on the ridge to avoid the cold of winter and heat of summer.
The birds and larger animals left their manure etc in the camps. Over time these deposits broke down and were washed down-slope to fertilise the slopes and lower country. Thus the cycle was complete.
Modifying Eroded Watercourses
When a watercourse erodes, it generally has steep banks which are easily undercut. The best treatment of gully erosion is to cut the banks to a gentle batter and sow them with a pasture of mixed grasses, legumes and forbes.
This will protect the banks from further erosion.
Reduce access to grazing animals on the banks to maintain the ground-cover’s protection.
Prior to devoting my time to Properly Organic and Designer Acres, I served as a contracted super tech in the bleeding edge of satellite imagery, business management and accounting software, then telecommunication software bringing SMS and Mobile Application Protocol into Australia. I then decided to return to the land. I quickly discovered that apart the shape of the bales and the colour of the tractors little had changed.