Hi Keith ;
> I doubt there is such a thing. Value means more than
> cash sale value.
I knew you would say that!
:-)
It's not what I think, it's what I've seen and learnt from practice
in various settings on three continents, and never having sold a tree.
> That's not a small tree Peter
Not too many of this size and I guess we just need to
define our terms. What do you call a tree 5 cm at the
base? 30 cm? 1 meter? 2 meters?
It depends which particular tree you mean. Not just which species,
which tree. What would you call call a tree 5 cm at the base? What
will you call it in five years' time? Oh, you cut it down? Are you
sure you're not going to regret that?
? I'd not accept that
> it's not a useful
> tree without value. What do the local people
> traditionally do with
> those species of tree?
Cut them down and make charcoal in pits with the big
pieces, burn the small branches and leaves in open
fires. No replanting at all. Not very clever or
sophisticated.
I think that's what they do now. What did they do traditionally? Do
you know what species of trees these are? What are their
characteristics? What are the local names for them? How were they
used traditionally? Those same species will also be found in other
parts of East and Southeast Asia - what do those traditional cultures
do with them? What is known about them botanically? Have you looked
at the big databases, like NewCrop, the Handbook of Energy Crops,
Plants For A Future?
> >Do you
> >try to utilize these or not?
>
> Of course.
How? In other words, what happens to the existing
forest? Does it stay or does it go? And if it goes,
how? Do you cut it down?
How can you even ask this question when you haven't even identified
the tree species yet, nor their mix and concentration, nor anything
except their varying sizes and lack of "value"? Do you even know what
species they are? A tree is a tree is a tree? Not!
Peter, you want to cut it down and replace it with a monocrop
oil-palm plantation, with the single purpose of providing feedstock
for biodiesel manufacture. The more you think about it the more you
think about integration and sustainability, and therefore the less
you have to think about monocrops and single-purposes.
> >How do you do this?
That's your problem - how will you frame it? Is it how to change an
unsustainable single-purpose monocrop into a sustainable multipurpose
diverse forest? Or how to get these two seemingly incompatible
entities to coexist, even to blend into one? Or is it not really a
practical problem at all but one of outlook? The only rule of ecology
is that everything is connected to everything else - not a
comfortable scenario for an engineer!
> A different bit of forest 100 yards away would not
> be exactly the
> same, and another project than yours taking it on
> would have
> different aims and different many things, and thus
> find different
> solutions. There's no clearcut single answer to that
> question.
Yes of course, but could you give me just one example
so I can visualize this.
"Of course", but I think that's what you're looking for, a clearcut
single answer.
There's a book here in front of me called "British Woodland Crafts",
written at a time when such things still existed. You'd plant a tree
in a certain way for coppicing, plant the same kind of tree in a
somewhat different way to give you long straight trunks for poles,
masts, pit-props, wagon-shafts. In the next county they probably did
all that a different way though, but then what can you expect from
foreigners?
Many cultures have or had such skills and traditions, including
Americans (I don't mean Native Americans).
Look at this table here, "Varieties to Plant and Their Uses", about a
third of the way down:
http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010148fert.farm/fertfarm-ch5.htm
Turner: Fertility Farming, Chapter 5
Do you want me to go on? I doubt it's helping you much.
The book you refer to below
lists many species of multipurpose trees. If none of
these are present in your forest to start, and if 20
years in the future you have a wonderful multipurpose
forest, then you must assume that somewhere there will
be a transformation from the native forest to the
multipurpose forest.
Forests are not static things, they're constantly in transformation.
How to do this? (Hummor me, I
know they are all different). One example would be
sufficient for me to visualize the process.
I don't think it would.
> I don't think there is such a shortage of info.
That's why I'm asking. I couldn't find anything on
exactly how to do it.
It's because you're asking the wrong question, IMHO.
> Do you know THE
> OVERSTORY, for instance? Go and do some browsing
> there.
No I didn't, thanks for the link. Downloading some
stuff now, but on Pacific Islands, so we'll see.
There's more than that there, including The Overstory itself.
Agroforestry resources will probably be helpful for you.
> There are lots of resources at the Trees section of
> our site:
> http://journeytoforever.org/tree.html
> Trees, soil and water
>
> You should read this:
>
> "Tree Crops -- A Permanent Agriculture," by J.
> Russell Smith,
> Harcourt-Brace, New York, 1929; Devin-Adair,
> Connecticut, 1950;
> Island Press Conservation Classics, 1987, ISBN
> 0-933289-44-0
> Russell Smith was 50 years ahead of his time,
> writing the basic text
> on agroforestry long before there was such a thing.
> He travelled
> widely and saw it all coming. The best book about
> trees -- it's
> inspired generations of environmental activists,
> including all the
> leading lights in the movement. Wonderful!
> Introductory chapters
> online in the Small Farms Library:
>
http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/smith/treecropsToC.html
> Buy the book from Island Press:
>
http://www.islandpress.org/books/Detail.tpl?cart=30831123971221&SKU=0-
>
> 933280-44-0
That's the page that I studied the most before I made
my post. Lot's of info directed at convincing people
that tree crops are a good thing, but not much info on
how to do it.
Again, you're asking the wrong question. There ain't no technical manual.
In other words, the missing chapters are for specific
breeds. While this would be interesting, this is not
my question yet, and I'm not at all suggesting that
you should scan all the chapters for my sake.
That's just as well! :-)
My question much more basic : what happens to the
existing forest when you try to transform it to these
wonderful species? I'm assuming that most of it gets
cut down.
Why should it be?
Do you know what a fung shui wood is? "Feng shui" maybe, Chinese
geomancy. The words mean "wind and water". Each old village has a
fung shui wood behind it, often at the foot of a hill. These groves
are planted for good fortune, but there are many different species in
them, and almost all of them are useful, often in many ways. Many
provide food of various kinds, and herbal medicines, or a vegetable
soap (that allegedly removes freckles), or a dye from the bark that's
used for dyeing fishing-nets, or or or - it goes on and on. The trees
are interspersed with "wild" trees, whether interlopers or trees that
have been left, or actually planted. One interesting thing about
these woods is that you can spot them when you know what to look for,
and then, if you know what further to look for, you can often find
the remains of long-gone ruins or habitations. But it's very
difficult to say how old those woods are - true permaculture. Not
specific to the Chinese, many cultures have similar things to show.
On an old hill-farm I took over once, all the upper terraces were
broken, the stone walls smashed down, the topsoil gone. I didn't
rebuild the terraces, but I wanted to stabilise it by planting trees
at the critical places. I thought there had been trees there before,
serving the same purpose, which the original farmers had planted, but
I wasn't sure. These were not regularly-shaped terraces, they curved
and broadened and narrowed with the shape of the contours. It took a
lot of studying it and thinking about it, but finally I was ready to
plant my trees and started digging holes for them. I was VERY
gratified to find that each time I dug a hole I soon hit the remains
of an old tree-stump! Right on top, every time. Cut down and burnt.
So I got it right, as the original farmers had also got it right.
You're looking for a list of instructions to tell you how to do that?
I'm getting into all this again now, here in Tamba. We have a lot of
trees here, but there are places where there should be more, and for
different reasons, and other places where there should be fewer, or
none. Nobody's touched any of the trees for seven or eight years, and
in many places they were a complete tangle. Now we've thinned them,
with the help of a friend (who looks after temple trees), untangled
them, let in the light (and taken out a lot of wood). Now we can see
them properly, for the first time. Interesting...
Regards
Keith
Nothing wrong with this, just asking.
Best Regards,
Peter G.
Thailand
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