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by jbeales 2168 days ago
So they rediscovered orchards?
4 comments

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

ernst gotsch is the name to lookup.

Growing food under a forest canopy with plenty of pruning, which creates healthy soil and less/no need for fertilizers. It's an effort to mimic a forest ecosystem and let things grow in their natural way (livestock is another aspect).

Very cool. Thanks for the ref! Are there any books of his you'd recommend?
I don't have book recommendations, but this channel is worth watching:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf9s-yeskYZweEuKyq1ia6w

It's more complicated than that. They blend traditional food crops with trees, shrubs, etc, often alongside some kind of transition cycle where they'll change what is growing where over time. Sort of a blend of sustainable logging with farming.
It looks to me less like rediscovering orchards, and more mixing them in with livestock/other crops in a beneficial manner.
Mixing with livestock isn't really new either. So long as the animal doesn't kill the trees orchards are pretty great places for animals. I think I've seen orchards that are also hay operations too.

I guess if we get into something more mixed then that they haven't really rediscovered orchards, they've rediscovered permaculture!

I think I've seen orchards that are also hay operations too.

I've mowed, raked, and baled a fair amount of hay over the years. This involves driving tractors and trucks around in fields pulling easily damaged implements in precise circles. Doing so in the presence of lots of mature trees seems a daunting task...