PERMACULTURE

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PERMACULTURE
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INTRODUCTION

• The word "permaculture" was coined in 1978 by
  Bill Mollison, an Australian ecologist, and one
  of his students, David Holmgren. It is a
  contraction of "permanent agriculture" or
  "permanent culture.
• Permaculture is about designing ecological human
  habitats and food production systems.
• Permaculture is a design system for creating
  sustainable human environments.

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• ORIGIN
• In mid 1970 , two australians Bill Mollison and
  David holmgren, started to develop ideas that
  they hoped could be used to create stable
  agricultural systems, This was the result of
  their perception of a rapidly growing use of
  destructive industrial and agricultural methods.
  They saw that these methods were poisoning land
  and water reducing Biodiversity, removing the
  billions of tons of soil from previously fertile
  landscapes.
• A design approach called PERMACULTURE was
  their response and was first made public with the
  publication of PERMACULTURE ONE in 1978.

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• CHARACTERISTICS
• Permaculture is one of the most holistic,
  integrated systems analysis and design
  methodologies found in the world.
• Permaculture promotes organic agriculture which
  does not use pesticides to pollute the
  environment.
• Permaculture aims to maximize symbiotic and
  synergistic relationships between site
  components.
• Permaculture is urban planning as well as rural
  land design.
• Permaculture design is site specific, client
  specific, and culture specific.
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• Permaculture design includes the interaction
  between organisms and their surroundings.
• The ecological processes of plants, animals,
  water, weather and nutrient cycles are integrated
  with human needs and technologies for food,
  energy, shelter and infrastructure.
• Permaculture is not limited to plant and animal
  agriculture, but also includes community planning
  and development, use of appropriate technologies.
• Many of the appropriate technologies advocated by
  permaculturists are well known. Among these are
  solar and wind power, solar greenhouses and solar
  food cooking.

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• A cropping system refers to growing a combination
  of crops in space and time.
• An ideal cropping system should
• use natural resources efficiently
• provide stable and high returns
• do not damage the environment

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• Commonly practiced cropping systems are
• Crop rotation practices
• Intercropping systems
• Mixed cropping systems
• Ratoon cropping

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• Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series
  of dissimilar type of crops in the same space in
  sequential seasons
• Crop rotation simply means not growing the same
  crop on the same place each year, thus reducing
  disease build up.
• Another important reason for rotation is to make
  use of fertiliser left over from the previous
  crop.
• .

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• Growing the same vegetables in the same spot each
  year can lead to problems. Soil
  living pests and diseases, which thrive on that
  particular crop, can build up in the soil to
  epidemic levels.
• Vegetables also have various mineral needs and
  continuous cropping of one particular crop can
  lead to the levels of nutrients in the soil
  becoming unbalanced.
• To prevent the build up of pests and diseases in
  the soil and to help the vegetables in their
  nutrient needs, your crops need to be rotated. It
  is a fact that vegetables prefer to be grown in
  soil that has been used for a different crop
  previously than in soil that has been used for
  one of their own kind.

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• Some of the general purposes of crop rotation
  are
• improve or maintain soil fertility,
• check erosion,
• reduce the build-up of pests,
• spread the workload on family labor, use of
  bullocks and farm equipment, hired labor etc.
• less reliance on agricultural chemicals,
• increase net profits

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• Crop rotation can also improve soil structure and
  fertility
• by alternating deep-rooted and
  shallow-rooted plants
• Crop rotation avoids a decrease in soil
  fertility, as growing the same crop
  repeatedly in the same place eventually depletes
  the soil of various nutrients.