Hello, we are just getting started at Rancho San Martin in southern Baja California and i though we should share what we have so far and what is to come in the future. Currently the property consists of 20 hectares of which approx. 2 hectares are a cleared field the remaining 18 hectares is wild desert. We have put in a swale at the top of the field in order to capture the water that was running on to the property. We determined that the catchment area was approx. 30 hectares up slope of the field. Based off our 100 year rain event history and soil type and slope we went with a 4 meter wide by 1 meter deep swale. The swale is approximately 75 meters long with a 3 meter long spillway. Our calculations were based mostly off of Brad Lancasters books. We heavily seeded the berm of the the swale with a mixture of low water use plants including amaranth, papalo, sunflower, tapari bean, huauzontle, buffalo grass and basil seeds. Hopefully these will help to stabilize the berm during a rain event. Currently our plan is to have a alley cropping system consisting of 9 meter thick rows of leguminous/fodder trees( Leucaena, moringa and tagasaste) and 20 meter thick alleys of papaya production. Once the papaya form their canopy we plan on planting heat sensitive crops under to diversify plant production and increase yields per hectare. When the system is mature we should have about 5 rows of leguminous trees with 4 alleys of papaya production. For the initial stages of the project we have made enough compost to amend the first 20 meter alley of papaya. Our soil is very sandy with very little organic matter and making enough compost for the entire field seems impractical. In order to improve our soils we were planning on converting our alley cropping system to a silvopasture. Our plan is to graze livestock on the leguminous trees in order to build up nutrients and organic matter. Any input on this strategy?
Well, with this new forum software, the "right" way is somewhat muddled. The best way I've found so far is to use a free image hosting service (I use photobucket) to store images you want to display in your posts. Then use the "Upload Attachments" function (not the "Share Photos" function) and select "Upload from URL", paste the direct link to your photo, and voila'! Your photo can be of any size/resolution and there are no limits to how many you can upload into posts. The "Share Photos" function requires you to upload to the forum server or use photos already uploaded. There are file size and photo quantity restrictions (that are fairly small) that will become limiting as you upload more pics over time.
Sounds good. In India farmers figured out that for 20 acres of land, use one acre for a pond. These numbers were for the desert. Something to think about. I would use ducks to seal the pond as Geoff explains. I understand you are using hectors. Any updates?