What is Syntropic Farming?
Modern Farming is about optimising an organisms output (with specific purchased inputs) for a saleable volume. Syntropy is about optimising the entire systems (macro organism) and using its productivity to power you chosen organism/s. Picture growing a forest with specific food, fodder and farmacueticals in mind. Syntropic systems are generally longer term continually diversifying and increasing in complexity over 10s to 100s of year. Thus Syntropy when done earnestly provides its own fertiliser/water/pest control etc, as a natural forest would, the human merely steers the plants to optimise their collective growth over time. I would call the earlier forms of farming quite like syntropic as its early practitioners would have been Amazonian tribes, Aboriginal harvest, burn and replant, wildlife, yam and wild grain farms, or Asian swidden (rotational slash and burn) agriculture.
What are the core principles of syntropic farming?
• The natural succession of species or the medium through which life moves through time and space - Succession – P1, P2, S1, S2, S3, Climax
• Fertility comes from the system, initially grow grass P1 (like a farmer), cut it like your making hay, windrow it but leave that windrow to rot and fertilise and smother the weeds and grass for a later tree implementation. Thus avoiding soil cultivation, herbicide and monoculture trophy plant suffering.
• Manage the macro organism not the individual trophy plants, no trophy plants.
• Strategic management – pruning to facilitate best growth options for the consortia have the bonus effect of creating much if not all of the systems fertiliser/mulch/compost, carefully organised insitu in the tree lines.
• Lifecycle, Strata and Time – manifest a everchanging but complex Consortia.
• No prejudice, all plants are added to the mix to allow nature the best change of having the perfect plants for the soil, climate and times.
• Plant in supportive guilds a high diversity of plants and seeds. This can be methodically done or randomly done and managed at a higher cost of ‘wasted seed’.– Methodically is the prior planning of guild plants the light needs, timeframes (life spans, peak growth periods), space and height characteristics and other beneficial factors.
How do you go about designing a syntropic farm layout to maximize biodiversity and productivity?
• Consider your context – Climate, Geography, Water, Proximity and capacity.
• Start small with repeating patterns and expand what works. Early pruning of biomass plants presents either cuttings or mulch depending on expansion plans.
• Planting normally North South lines to allow more even light into the rows. Given the natural of the agriculture, tree based, heavy soil cover, no til and decompacted soil, contours based soil/water conservation plantings as less critical.
• Biodiversity is not something we peruse when it occurs it is the results of a mass planting of seeds with no discretion; the initial consortia may even be a monoculture if nature sees it as the most effective organism for the system to move forward in succession.
• If converting a grass paddock into syntropic tree rows we space those tree row at least wide enough so that the grass we can cut between those rows easily services the mulch/fertiliser needs of the tree row for the year. In Mediterranean we might only get 1 cut per year so tree row spacing should initially be wide. Biomass plant interrows can help to create alternative year round active rows that can still be machine cut for mulch but can be deep rooted and active in all season.
Is the process of planting and cultivating crops in a syntropic system different to a conventional horticulture enterprise?
• All the soil is covered (mulch or plants) all the time in SAF.
• Given the focus on system succession in Syntropics we are looking to move the system from P1-P2-S1 to S2 to keep it healthy (resets are ok), conventional ag tends to stay in the P1 stage of yearly repeat of annuals. Those systems with perennials tend to be monoculture orchards with similarly little successionally change.
• Planting again in conventional ag focuses on single organisms and keeping them alive while keeping the macro organism at arms length – we unnaturally falsify the winners. Syntropic planting is highly diverse and can be seen as complex/time consuming as we understand the benefit of putting seeds of all types and function into the mix for nature to pick its winners and we apply maintenance to steer this to our preference.
• Timelines are entirely different Syntropic is planted and planned for 10s of years with opportunities arising as the system evolves, but broadacre cropping is planned and adapted each season based on a climate and market price gamble.
• Syntropic ensures many plants growing in parallel with different lifespans so that as one is harvested the next is ready to take on that space/soil food web (syntropy) rather than mass plantings mass harvest and death and exposure – entropy.
• Our market garden needs shade, produce in 30 days, produce in 60 days, produce in 90 days. And a repeat of this seasonally and annually. Instead of planting lettuce in one bed broccoli in another bed and garlic in a 3rd bed syntropics plants them in the same bed at the same time recognising that the strata (light needs), lifecycle and timings of all these crops are different (and in this case complementary). One planting even plants all the crops (saved time and space), the fastest crops photosynthesis fastest and thus grow the soil food web to help power them, harvesting the lettuce/radish/coriander/asian greens makes space for the slower growing but now 30 day old beans/broccoli/beetroot/corn/squash, the SFW having lost it champion latches on the this next best crop, fast forward 30 days and we are harvesting the 60-70 day crops and bouncing the SFW onto the 90-110 day crops capsicums/tomatoes/garlic/pumpkins/cabbage/cauli, then as annual seasonal veggies are done and seasons change perennial crops like ginger/cassava/rhubarb/asparagus pickup the SFW to mature a crop for harvest. While all this is happening we planted tree seedlings, herbs and garden growing powerhouses in the same space that are now emerging to take up the space and light that would otherwise have been occupied by seasonal weeds.
What do you see as the primary benefits of syntropic farming for both the environment and farmers?
• A way to step off the fertiliser, spray, ‘biggering’ dependence of diminishing returns of conventional agriculture. After a slow small start syntropics can snow ball via onsite resources into an independent enterprise of choice rather than dependence and necessity. Choice and diversity brings a healthy mental state.
• Environmental wins are obvious, more stable landscapes, diverse ecologies, less pesticides and fertilisers and a space when humans an nature do work well together as opposed to antagonise.
Have you encountered any challenges while implementing syntropic farming methods, and how did you address them?
• Its early days, enthusiasts, citizen scientists and philanthropists are still finding the challenges and trying ways to address them. SAF is new enough where it started in the tropics, here in the Mediterranean and temperate climates the systems are 3-4 years old at most with early small system in WA being in their 3rd year.
• Challenges are creating and maintaining enough mulch on your tree rows to hold back kikuyu and other undesired growth in this hard to manage sensitive tree line.
• Finding enough seed for large plantings 30-40 seed types per meter adds up, purchasing this volume of seed if even possible is costly so it involves planning and harvesting you own.
• Management of larger scale systems, as when rows get beyond 100m in length hand tools and “single owners” can not manage the biomass cycling without mechanisation. Retrofitting mechanisation to suit SAF so that it cane be viable for farmers is a important challenge to resolve.
Are any particular considerations that need be taken into account for our climate here as compared to syntropic farming in the tropics?
• Management timings - Mulch from grass rows can be cut multiple times over wet tropical summers but once in a dry spring/summer. Getting enough mulch to fulfil the needs of the tree row but not leave the grass lanes bare over summer is something we need to figure out.
• Most plants that are optimal for a tropical/sub tropical system and not for a med/temperate system and thus we need to experiment to find our analogues for their ‘champions’ functionality. What replaces Banana, Pigeon Pea, Gliricidia, Mombasa grass, etc.
• Frost impacts.
• Everything – Essentially all we can take is the principles and some growing and management insights and then we must look to conventional and native horticulture to raid for all plants, seeds and resources that might work well for us. Plant the systems with no discretion and learn to SAF as the system matures and teaches you.
How does syntropic farming contribute to soil health and ecosystem resilience?
No till, deeper roots, diversity, natural fertility, high growth function leading to high management leading to high soil growth.
Has there been much take up of Syntropic Farming in Southwest?
• A few amateurs and a few alternative orchardists looking at ways to improve orchard health. A few broader acre farmers are understanding the need for there farms ecosystems to move through succession and are looking at ways to use the smarts of SAF to set up shelterbelts and agroforestry by the km.
Have you got success story or project related to syntropic farming that you can share with us?
• Forest on Conte is powering ahead, its a labour of love but a excellent research project on plant species, propagation and various applications of SAF.
• 11 acre Syntropic Farm has just been kicked off just south of Perth on Richardson Rd in conjunction with a kindy and cafe. Early days but certainly one of the first commercial plantings.
What advice would you give to someone interested in starting their own syntropic farm?
• Read up on the online resources. Sign up to Scott Halls education and peer support platform, $10 a month of something.
• Join the facebook groups – Syntropic Agriculture Western Australia
• Join local growing groups and community gardens and garden groups to get access to vast range of plant matter to propagate.
• Start a plant nursery/green house and garden first. Roll that into you first rows and them with those rows pruning annually exponentially expand.
• Order tube stock by December for June Planting the following year.
• Start small, start conventional, adapt and migrate as life allows.
Are there any websites or resources available that can provide more information for any of our listeners who want to take a deeper dive into the topic?
• Agenda Gotsch
• Misty Creek Agroforestry
• Forest on Conte
• Syntropia
• Facebook – pages and champions – Reville Hall