{"id":20853,"date":"2016-05-29T19:10:28","date_gmt":"2016-05-30T00:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=20853"},"modified":"2016-05-29T19:10:28","modified_gmt":"2016-05-30T00:10:28","slug":"perennial-polycultures-the-biomass-belt-fertility-without-manure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=20853","title":{"rendered":"Perennial Polycultures-The Biomass Belt: Fertility Without Manure"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Balkep-Feature\"<\/p>\n

PERENNIAL POLYCULTURES \u2013 THE BIOMASS BELT: FERTILITY WITHOUT MANURE<\/a><\/h3>\n
We\u2019re extending the\u00a0Polyculture Project<\/a>\u00a0to include experimental perennial polycultures on various plots of our newly acquired land. Our aim is to develop models that are low cost to establish and maintain, can produce healthy affordable nutritious food and will enhance biodiversity.<\/div>\n

We\u2019ve been looking into fencing our plots, and how to meet fertility demands of the establishing perennial crops such as fruits, nuts, herbs and perennial vegetables without relying on animal manures and imported compost, and have come up with a polyculture that may meet both of these needs that we call the biomass belt.<\/p>\n

WHAT IS THE BIOMASS BELT?<\/p>\n

The biomass belt is a perennial polyculture dedicated to growing mulch and fertilizer fodder that can apply to annual and perennial crops. It\u2019s a very simple closed system that can quickly provide a supply of nutrient dense liquid fertiliser or nutrient dense mulch material as well as valuable habitat.<\/p>\n

HOW DOES IT WORK?<\/p>\n

The polyculture is composed of mineral accumulating comfrey in raised beds, Nitrogen fixing ground cover sown into the pathways and a Nitrogen fixing hedgerow. Local native herbaceous annuals and perennials are also encouraged to grow within the hedgerow.<\/p>\n

\"Illustration
Illustration by Georgi Pavlov \u2013 www.georgipavlov.net<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The comfrey is grown in raised beds for biomass and can be cut from 4 \u2013 7 times each year with the material being used to make liquid fertiliser or used directly as mulch. The deeply rooted comfrey mines nutrients deep in the subsoil that would otherwise wash away with the underground soil water or remain inaccessible to other plants. Some of these nutrients are relocated within the comfrey leaf biomass. As the biomass is cut and applied as the mulch or converted into liquid fertiliser, the nutrients are delivered back to the top soil and again accessible to crops and other plants.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PERENNIAL POLYCULTURES \u2013 THE BIOMASS BELT: FERTILITY WITHOUT MANURE We\u2019re extending the\u00a0Polyculture Project\u00a0to include experimental perennial polycultures on various plots of our newly acquired land. Our aim is to develop models that are low cost to establish and maintain, can produce healthy affordable nutritious food and will enhance biodiversity. We\u2019ve been looking into fencing our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[13958,72,9185,13594,13460,13959,13960,11802,8713,4554],"class_list":["post-20853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-survival-2","tag-annual","tag-biodiversity","tag-design","tag-food-plants","tag-medicinal-plants","tag-nurseries-propogation","tag-paul-alfrey","tag-plant-systems","tag-plants","tag-trees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20853"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20854,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20853\/revisions\/20854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}