A Literal Oasis - Syntropic Agroforestry @ Lightning Ridge, NSW, Australia 

Thanks so much for watching! I’m so glad this information has been helpful for you. 😁

@@CuriosityMine The Curiosity Mind .

Absolutely! I actually cut a section from this video where we were discussing the nutritional benefits of prickly pear/nopal. It’s a tremendously versatile plant. 🌵

Thank you for a very informative video.

You’re very welcome, thanks Pat! 😁

Ideally it should be fermented or pickled to degrade the high concentrations of oxalic acids it has.

Great for live stock as well.

I know your struggle, l live in Portugal. Keep digging 😉 You might want to check out ”Scott Hall Syntropic Agroforestry” channel ✌

See also Permaculture, similar principles - Australian design (Bill Mollison)

I got an video that may help you not create swales (from what i heard isnt that good but somehow still helps)

@@peppermeat8059 Will have a look thnaks

Good luck, I hope you manage to develop an oasis, best wishes from Tasmania

Thank you for your comment. That's a new plant added to my planting list.

Prickly pear is an invasive species in Australia.

​@@thetriumphsprintaustralia is a joke. Prickly pear is a boon to their shitbush

We know. There was a rich fazendero who went to México in 1906 and took the plant to North East Brazil where it hot, sandy and dry; in other words another Mexico but beneath the equator and Portuguese is spoken. The Brazilians are stubborn. They feed the “Palma Forrageira” as they call the prickly pear cactus only to animals. They could be eating it also directly. Why starve? The Brazilian are not good at cactus husbandry. They should concentrate on each individual plant instead overcrowding each acre.

⁠@@ColonelKlink100Do not treat your cactus as you would Fraulein Linkmayer!!!!!

Record your progress, we'd all love to see it!

Driving Broken Hill to Wentworth, I am shocked by the many station paddocks of drifting sand, and many resident goats! Criminal destruction of land!

Yep, total criminal destruction for a quick buck with nothing passed on to the next generation but pain & anger.@@sandramaiden4707

Amazing! All the best and yes record and share your progress, so amazing to see other sharing their knowledge of looking after our earth 🥹

Yes Bill Mollison is a legend in that regard. I took a similar approach in terms of planting an overabundance of various plants on a suburban 900metre block. What I found was that eventually it became necessary to remove anything nonproductive or invasive or too dominant. So it reduced back to being more controlled and efficient. Then when the possums multiplied the whole game changed. The parrots eating most if not all the fruit. Rats attracted and sustained by the macadamias etc. Basic principles do apply. To build good soils. To hold and meander water, hopefully some automated watering. Mulch, habitat for birds and marsupials. No cats. No grass, invasive creepers or bad weeds. No large or unproductive trees. Garden and Building working together etc. Basically plant a lot and pare it back to what works the easiest. Learn from what local success you can find. Aim for superfoods and easy basics.🙂

David Holmgren was the real genius behind permaculture

Yes, I was thinking that too. But whatever it's called, it's very inspiring.

Everybody thinks that building a healthy and nutritive soil takes time. But with syntropy, this time can be significatively shortened. I'm sure that after just one year, the soil there was much better than the average soils here in south of France. This is because of what they call "catspring" in syntropic farming. Suddenly, after a few months (sometimes weeks), everything grows twice faster, producing lots of biomass and water, creating a vertuous circle in the system.

I watched a video by Geoff Lawton yesterday about syntropic agroforestry and he explained that it is a subcategory of regenerative agriculture. In other words, it's a great tool suitable for certain situations.

No doubt about that in my mind.

Sometimes knowledge is not scientific and based more on mythology than reality. "Planting Water" is a clue.

Salt passively attracts water in the kidneys to filter the blood, & some diabetic medications call sugar to be urinated out; an energy efficient technique indeed.

@@LaSorciereFeuillue Interesting insights into the role of salt(s). Someone could write a book about salts in all their forms and functions.

One third is still an accomplishment! 👍

@@CuriosityMine yeah the local wildlife seem to appreciate it ok and it sure beats looking at a completely bare paddock. 🦘🦘🦘🦘🦘🪲🐜🕷🪳🦋🦎🐇

Get well soon :)

You got one third completed while being ill. That's amazing! The wildlife that appreciates your work don't know that you planned to do more.

Any improvement is a blessing to your land. Well done.

Date of video is feb 23 after 2 years of above average rain - as of august 23 it has not rained out that way since august 22. True you can grow biomass and shade HOWEVER you will not grow food crops very well as a reliable form of food security in 400mm rainfall - you always need irrigation - they used irrigation to get it started + they will need irrigation to grow food in the future

​@@lauralee6628Would irrigation stil be necessay if the forest was 10,000 hectares or more in size?

@@anonanon7278 you need to reword your question = it depends on which species you intend growing = banana yes you need irrigation. mulga and other hardy species no you do not need irrigation as they currently grow out in that part of the country on rainfall alone. you can introduce multiple species that will grow on rainfall. you can introduce multiple species that need irrigation. cotton growers in similar areas (within a few hundred kilometres) apply 10,000,000 litre per hectare to produce a crop. travel to 650 mm rainfall on good soil and they grow cotton on rainfall only. there are other factors at play especially soil type. can you please reword your question so it makes sense ???

@@lauralee6628 Isn't the idea of a food forest to plant a wide range of complimentary plants and trees that provide various benefits to each other such shade, nitrogen fixing, soil hydration, ground cover, etc. Planting a monoculture forest will deplete the soil and won't encourage water retention in the soil. My question was more about whether a large biodiverse forest would need much rainfall because of the micro-climate it creates, and its propensity to store water in itself and the soil.

@@anonanon7278 you will find 10 metre tall eucalypt trees in (400mm) 14 inch rainfall in qld + nsw but not many per acre/hectare may be 1 to 10 trees max. you will find short closed canopy forest of mulga in same rainfall. there are some types of cactus that will fruit in 400 mm rain zones - but only when it rains - and they need shade to survive. so you need to "know" what will grow in 400 mm rainfall on red soil or on black soil. there are trees that will grow there. but if you want a "food forest" its yield per hectare on rainfall alone will be ??? this year and ??? next year. not unknown to go 3 years out west with almost no rain. THE YIELD of EVERY FOREST is DETERMINED BY the AMOUNT of RAIN that FALLS. That yield may be ZERO until it rains assuming trees survive. Eucalypt trees in original syntrophic farming plots were in high rainfall zones + there were constantly pollarded. So if you know it grows have a go. IF THIS METHOD WORKS there must BE OTHER EXAMPLES in 400mm rain zones???

I think I saw that, slowing water flow, with tree trunks etc.

Hehe yeah.. Big ol sprinkler at work

Yes. No mention of it was puzzling

Check out the follow up video for more information about the dam: Why is there a Dam? Syntropic Garden Q&A with Rebel & Thiago @ Lightning Ridge ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xFVq99kyJzI.html

Thank you so much! This was a fun video to make, I really appreciate the positive feedback. 😁👍

@@CuriosityMine Date of video is feb 23 after 2 years of above average rain - as of august 23 it has not rained out that way since august 22. True you can grow biomass and shade HOWEVER you will not grow food crops very well as a reliable form of food security in 400mm rainfall - you always need irrigation - they used irrigation to get it started + they will need irrigation to grow food in the future

100%. Thanks for watching!

We could have dachas round the urban areas. This connects people to local food production, and, other benefits.

The government don’t care about the people or supporting life itself. That’s why they have been instrumental in the mass murder of healthy bees in NSW. They want to create food shortages so we become reliant on their factory/laboratory produced fake food. It’s all about money for them at our expense. This is a globalist agenda. All the more reason we need to implement projects such as this. Just don’t let them know what you’re doing as they will do their best to destroy it as it’s not within their interest for you to be self reliant.

En videos de Brasil muestran como usan el nopal (palma forrageira) en el Cerrado (semiarido) y el maguey o sisal. Almacenan agua, sirven como mulch, las palas se pican y se dejan al pie de los cultivos, o se pican y se dejan en agua unos dias, para plantar arboles... Y ambas son excelentes cortafuegos.

⁠Ellos son ignorantes. No lo comen directo y solo se lo dan a animales. Y luego se quejan de hambre. Sisal no es el nombre de planta sino que Henequen. Sisal es nombre del puerto en Yucatán por donde se export la fibra del Henequen para todo el mundo. Un gran excepción fue una gran exportación de plantas vivas para plantaciones en Camagüey, Cuba.

You are wrong Opuntia Ficus Indica is the species name. There are over 200 varieties within that species. They are a cultivated crop not a weed. They have cultivated in Mexico for millennia. Australians should do the same, if for nothing else, wind and fire breaks. Each year Australia faces devastating fire yet nothing is done. The true weed is the Australian mindset.

Thank you so much! I’m glad you found the video interesting. Thanks for watching and commenting! 😁👍

It is Permaculture.

Syntropic Agriculture shares many of the principles that govern most other regenerative approaches. However, it was developed by Swiss geneticist and botanist Ernst Götsch in Brazil without any direct influence from other approaches or design systems. Even though many people compare Syntropic Agriculture with Permaculture, they are two different things. Syntropic Agriculture is an approach to Agroforestry Systems (SAFs) that aims to produce food, wood, fiber and natural medicines in a regenerative way. In other words, Syntropy aims to accumulate resources such as water, fertility, biodiversity and soil while producing. Permaculture is a regenerative design methodology that encompasses various other knowledge and practices within a structured design system. Syntropic Agriculture is a specific approach that was created to optimize the production of food, fiber and wood within agroforestry systems. ​While in a classic view of Permaculture SAFs and orchards tend to be positioned within zones 2 and 3, Syntropic Agriculture, by uniting the garden with the SAF and producing the producers' daily food, 'requests' a closer positioning. If you consider cocoa production in a traditional agroforest, there are 79 trees per hectare. Ernst's production reaches 1000 trees per hectare, considering routine tree pruning, one of the main approaches of his method. This improves the use of land without exhausting it, and creates the possibility of much greater production. Then no. Syntropic Agriculture is not Permaculture. Syntropic Agriculture is an innovative type of agroforestry.

This is the comment I needed, thankyou 👏 was wondering the differences. Cleared it right up 👍

Thank you so much! We’ll see what we can do. 😁

What pond?

0:41 has about four or five body's of water. And 0:45 to 0:50.

And 4:54.

Probably Artesian bore water.

Check out the follow up video for more information on the pond/dam: Why is there a Dam? Syntropic Garden Q&A with Rebel & Thiago @ Lightning Ridge ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xFVq99kyJzI.html

Date of video is feb 23 after 2 years of above average rain - as of august 23 it has not rained out that way since august 22. True you can grow biomass and shade HOWEVER you will not grow food crops very well as a reliable form of food security in 400mm rainfall - you always need irrigation - they used irrigation to get it started + they will need irrigation to grow food in the future

Caboolture is sub tropical. This is about semi arid regions.

​@@cincin4515can a subtropical latitude also be semi arid?

Do tree leaves help collect condensation at night?

Thanks so much, really appreciate the kind words. 😁

Thanks so much for the kind words! Definitely eye-opening and inspiring to see such a great and sensible approach to solving agricultural problems. 👍

not only carbon but water and biodiversity too!

Well last I learnt trees need carbon to live and produce oxygen which we need.A lot have people have swallowed the kool aid on this fairy tale

​@@davidpearn4344trees and plants use the gas carbon dioxide to perform photosynthesis which is the creation of sugars ( their food). They produce oxygen as a by-product. Carbon is created by plants in this process too. Their trunks and roots are carbon based just like our physical bodies. Please look up photosynthesis and the carbon cycle. Have a good day.

Plant's need carbon to grow, we are carbon being's; kill the carbon, you kill us and the tree's. Good carbons are good for growth. 101 biology.

Well don

Thank you sir! 😁👍

There are many things she appears not 2 mention it would seem

​@@TheSilmarillianmaybe she wants lots of profitable tourism.

@@rolfpoelman3486 I hear she already has that or so a friend of a friend told me

Cactus also has an opposite schedule for respiration - along with several other plants. A wild thought - While cactus is CAM respiration at night, your other plants' stomata are opening. When other plants are sleeping and "exhaling" other plants can breathe in. We can plant in such a way as to harness that release of resources

Syntropic agriculture is permaculture by another name. Permaculture training is available in Ethiopia for example with this NGO check it out: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-b1li9XQibQc.html

Also Leppington Sydney.

I was thinking the same. I'd have to believe that it help moisten the surrounding soil. I also wonder, without the pond, would it even stand a chance?

@@bill944 LOL Having been to Lightning Ridge a few times I was questioning it's very existence. The follow up video explains that quite well. Further, when you look at the footage in it of the flooding it further validates the Hydrophobic nature of the soil in outback Australia and just how significant this approach is. Ever been bogged in black soil country? The very fact that the grass is drier near the dam than where the soil's ability to absorb and hold water has been improved is impressive. I will definitely have to look for this place next time I'm in the area. Personally I would like to see this approach followed in not only outback Australia, but the whole world.

No its cquse by by disease in the plant or infections where a hollow forms and cstcyes wqter.. Its more common in paperbark or gum trees around soaks and billabongs.

Thanks for watching! 😁

Thanks so much! Really appreciate the feedback.

I appreciated the bit about the prickly pears and cacti. I'm from SA, pretty dry too. I've been trying to listen to some 'planting water' ideas.

Thanks Mike! 😁👍

Thanks so much!

Thanks so much Gary, really appreciate the positive feedback!

Such a poor understanding of the complexity of nature makes me speechless. Trees are litteraly producing rain, maintaining the "flying rivers", they are an indispensable factor of the water cycle, everybody should know that. But we live in a world of simplification, and the best representatives of this way of thinking hold the power!

Please fight this crazy idea!

This project in Arizona is different. Maybe they will go this way instead: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qEbBiO7Z7D8.html

Wow, that's astonishingly short sighted.

Depends on the tree species

Yeah, the pond a few feet away undermines the fantastical story about banana trees in the desert amd plants picking themselves up by their own boot straps...

​@@paulgushand there is a popular fruiting cactus called Prickly Pear which is not banned. And banana plants are not trees.

@@paulgush If they get 17 inches of rain a year, it's not what most people would call a desert . The soil is bad, and needs work - but is it a desert, really?

The climate at Lightning Ridge is semi-arid. For more information about the climate and the nearby dam, check out the follow up video: Why is there a Dam? Syntropic Garden Q&A with Rebel & Thiago @ Lightning Ridge ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xFVq99kyJzI.html