Why Is The Eucalypt So Significant to Syntropic Ag?
Why is The Eucalypt So Significant?
One of the most significant features of syntropic agroforestry in the early phases, is the Eucalypt. In the language used by Ernst Gostch in Brazil, the Eucalypt is referred to as the “king”, where the banana is referred to as the “queen”. This is because in the first two years at least, the system relies on the power of the Eucalypt very heavily.
The Eucalypt is very powerful. It is one of the fastest growing and highest accumulators of high quality lignin rich biomass, which is foundational for these systems....basically it makes soil fast!
Keeping the soil covered with mulch is the primary indicator of syntropy in action - if the soil is not covered with biomass (mulch) provided by the system after implementation, something is wrong, it is leaning towards entropy.
The Eucalypt can provide this function like no other species, (I have tried others, which pioneer and grow very quickly, but the Eucalypt outperformed by an order of magnitude). This alone is enough reason to recognise this very important plant for performing such a role. The biomass (mulch) created from the eucalypt is very high in stable carbon, it is used as the top layer of mulch in a pruning cycle on top of other more succulent, greener and more nitrogen rich biomass such as banana, grasses, lantana and other more herbaceous species.
This is just the beginning of the fantastic power of the Eucalypt. The Eucalypts’ vigour is also shared throughout the macro organism of the ecology. The Eucalypt can work in two ways - for you and against you. Because the Eucalypt is such a powerful player in ecology, providing a powerful ecological function of biomass accumulation...which builds soil. It will move through the fast growing period of it’s lifecycle very quickly, when this happens it will slow down and signals from it passed underground via the soil web of life will slow other plants down.
The remedy for this is of course management, different ways of pruning the tree throughout it’s lifecycle. This is observed a lot by humans and the Eucalypt often gets a bad reputation for this. On the positive side, when we manage the Eucalypt to stay in a state of vigour, the opposite occurs - the signals sent through the soil web of life say “GROW!”. This is one of the magical things about this plant. It is truly amazing to witness this happening in front of one’s eyes. The effect can be observed in a matter of days. As managers and also a part of an intelligent system, this is how we use the Eucalypt, instead of leaving it to become senescent and then blaming it for being a bad tree.
The Eucalypt has much to give, it can be pruned many times and return with it’s vigour until it pushes up life around it into a state of abundance and succession moves up to a point where it no longer fits in, the Eucalyptus gracefully retires and passes on a higher state of life for other species to enjoy - what is there not to like about them?
If you would like to learn more about the fundamentals of Syntropic Agriculture and what role the eucalypt plays in the macro organism, please have a look at the courses that I offer, where my goal is to give you the understanding of the dynamic and give you the knowledge to begin your journey to abundance.
Earlybird for Level 1: The Foundations finishes tomorrow.
Kind regards
Scott
