FROM THE BEGINNING:The story of the creek

[The Old Ram-Australia]

I assume that is your pasture on the lower 2/3rds of the photo. Why is it brown/dead & dry but green beyond the fence?
Did a wildfire cross on the lower part of the area?

G'day GB,as always you are really observant.The area above the fence is the top of this catchment ,had not been grazed for about 5 months and had had the benifiet of the odd shower.By not grazing the tops the penetration was maximized and the Native sps that actually covers the whole area responded.The lower portion had been spring grazed ,but the dry summer and hot westerly winds had "burnt " the crowns right to the ground, but this sps is amazing it responds summer or winter to rainfall as you can see from the "after" pic,This particular paddock had "not" received one once of super/nitrogen for over 30 years,which adds to the value of the plant ,the protein value of the green plant is over 15%.It spreads by both seed and underground runners.The sps is quite evident in all 3 pics...T.O.R.

 

[greybeard]

Native sps

define 'SPS' regarding the context you are using it please.
(depending where one lives in the world, it can mean about 3 different things related to agriculture...A silvopastoral system is what we now call agroforestry here)

 

[The Old Ram-Australia]

define 'SPS' regarding the context you are using it please.
(depending where one lives in the world, it can mean about 3 different things related to agriculture...A silvopastoral system is what we now call agroforestry here)

sure "species" ie Native Microlaena stipoides.Introduced species, Cocksfoot (Dactylis glomerata).There are many of the Native ones on our place and I can list them if you wish.

 

[greybeard]

SPS='species' of grass or forage.
Thanks.
I have often seen species abbreviated sp and subspecies or 'several species' abbreviated spp but am not familiar with seeing it as sps.
I had initially looked it up and it seems SPS seems also, to be short for Australian seed company's products ie Stephen Pasture Seeds and South Pacific Seeds.

 

[The Old Ram-Australia]

SPS='species' of grass or forage.
Thanks.
I have often seen species abbreviated sp and subspecies or 'several species' abbreviated spp but am not familiar with seeing it as sps.
I had initially looked it up and it seems SPS seems also, to be short for Australian seed company's products ie Stephen Pasture Seeds and South Pacific Seeds.

It was an error in grammar on my part ,it was meant to denote "many".I suspect that the fact that when I turned 14 my formal education finished contributed to the mistake.T.O.R.

 

[The Old Ram-Australia]

PART 2.How do you measure a “good pasture”? In a good season everyone has” lots” of grass. To my mind the true measure is how it holds up when things are “dry” for a time. This is where managing the water below the surface comes into play and the plants that can access it.

For the peoples of the Northern Hemisphere it’s worth nothing that in Aussie most of our soils were borne from the sea rather than the fiery start of most of the North and so when they are treated like the north the whole system collapses.

Our pasture mix is about 70% perennial, 5% legume and 25% annual. I have found that maintaining the perennial % can be a challenge, but this is how I manage it. After a “dry spell” the first rains bring a burst of growth which is how the pasture replenishes its reserves, if in this fragile state you “graze” it off you could expect to lose about 40% of your crowns, instead we “sacrifice “maybe two paddocks in which we continue to hand feed the stock and after the second rain we can start to use the rest (the sacrifice ones are destined for a long rest to recover completely).

To gain a better understanding of how ours works I refer you to the next pic. In this pic “gravity” would seem to dictate that the lower paddock should be greener, but the truth is in a rain event the lower paddock simply “sheds” the bulk of the rain falling on it, whereas our paddock (the one above) will absorb at least the first 50mm of rainfall and hold it in the profile. We have shown that by applying these principles over the whole farm, generally speaking our green feed supply last way longer than our neighbors. In the pic the lower paddock after every extended “dry spell” the paddock is worked fertilized and sown with a “new mix” of improved seemed stock and is limed and supered in alternate years. To be honest after the biannual supering the first rains to give an improved bulk of forage, but it seems that the new pasture species have little or no resistance to any sort of”dry spell”.

In the next installment I think we should look at the landscape and explain how the catchment and its management influences the water holding capacity within both the sloping land and the floodplain below.

 

[The Old Ram-Australia]

Part 3.When it rains does your farm look like a shallow lake? Only to show when the rain has gone that a “scratch” of the soil shows it’s completely dry?

By controlling the speed of the flow down the slope it becomes an easier task to control and hold the flow down the creek, in the next part we will look at how we developed the system as it stands today and the plans for the concept into the future.

 

[The Old Ram-Australia]

In 2008, we began improving our 800-meter section of a local creek which traversed our property. Normal practice is to create a solid wall, which in most cases creates an "illegal dam" or to lay logs across the flow. I suspect that these two options would only work if you were starting at the head water, as a peak flow higher than the wall would just flow over the top and damage the structure. We used field stone in the first instance, but from the outset it did not appear to be porous enough to contain the peak flow and stop debris from moving down the flow line (as the photos illustrate).

The wall was increased in height as the grass growth responded to the "damp patch" it created. In the next post we'll look at a new approach to handling "peak flows”.
Photo 1.Shows stone wall start,it was made higher when we got more stone.(Aug 2008)
Photo 2.Shows the limitation of this approach ,when the flow exceeds the height of the wall there is nor reduction in water speed and the debris is simply washed over the top.(May 2010)
Photo 3.Shows the results at 10/2012.Even at this early stage you will see that you must be patient and record everything as it happens.

 

[The Old Ram-Australia]

THE STICKS

P1.This is designed to slow the flow and avoid damage to the downstream bed.

P2.The area has started to stabilize but note the dryness up the sides of the cut.

P3.The site is still feeling the effect of “wet and dry”.

P4.Two years on, the effects are now constant and the whole area is “green “year round.

P5. Taken in 2014, the whole area is now repaired and the creek area is now subjected to a grazing cycle within the whole farm program.

 

[Sheepshape]

Good to see that your water conservation plans really work. With climate change these initiatives are going to be vital if we are to prevent deserts from forming.

Over here we usually have too much rather than too little rain, so last summer was a shock to us all.

In my (not so short) lifetime I have seen the unpredictability of weather increase. Like you we are looking at ways of conserving water whilst preventing flooding, planting trees, enlarging culverts, collecting rainwater, 'terracing' etc. In the end, a lot more needs to be done to minimise those many parts of climate change that we contribute to.

Good luck with your venture.