[permaculture-oceania] Fruit fly and the rest of the pests

[Russ Grayson]

On 27/6/06 5:08 PM, "P Ferguson" <pennyfer at bigpond.net.au> wrote:

> Russ wrote ...>> What worries me a bit though is how people readily plant
> these species without thinking of fruit fly and the maintenance and
> horticultural know-how that will be required to manage the pest. Even in
> community gardens where there have been people with the knowledge to deal with
> the fly I have seen plenty of fruitfall on the ground from guava and other
> species.   In the garden of the place where I am presently living, guava and
> apple (coddling moth) were planted by, so I am told, people from a
> Permaculture organisation, yet the householder is not a gardener and is
> therefore unlikely to be able to effectively control fruit fly, coddling moth
> and the like. >
> 
> Respond:  Few permaculturists seem to have horticulture training, let alone
> knowledge of insects, pest or otherwise.  There is a sincere couple in Pt
> Kembla who suggested planting fruit trees along a common grassed area
> between houses.

I guess this would work if there were people to look after them and treat
the plantings as a community orchard, analogous to a community garden. Once,
a local government planner from Western Sydney brought up his concern at the
suggestion to plant fruit trees along roads. His concern, like yours, was
maintenance, and his response was that such plantings should be contingent
upon a community-based group approaching council.
 
> Response:  Even selling a house with an established garden is fraught with
> danger to the environment.   Does one cut down all the fruit trees for fear
> the next owner/tenant will neglect them and not control pests? Does one
> Take down the bird boxes in case the next owner/tenant doesn't have the
> nouse to evict mina birds and starlings?   Take down the bat boxes - ditto?

You have a point. My suggestion would be to have the estate agent advertise
the house as having fruit trees and to phrase this as a buying point to
attract people interested in having them. Once, a house we bought on the
north coast came with a few young fruit trees that closer inspection
revealed some as having that disease that ridges the stem so that it takes
more of a square section, and other disorers. That was due to the previous
owner neglecting the trees, not the new owners.

> As for people planting fruit trees that they can't look after, what about
> those who plant things like Norfolk Island Pines? pinus radiata?or the giant
> grevillea that grows to 80 feet and peppers its neighbours roofs with seeds
> that must sound like hail?

Grevillia robusta? Most suburban trees, I assume, fall into your category of
not being looked after. Like the trees I mentioned where I am temporatily
living - apples, a couple citrus (which Fiona gave a much-needed pruning to)
and guava. 

There's also a banana tree which was planted - I assume by people from the
same Permaculture association that established the other trees - that the
owner mentioned to me has never fruited. I had already thought that this
might not be one of your regular eating varieties - it has a reddy-pink and
quite thick and straight trunk culminating is a spray of
conventional-looking babana leaves, though quite long. It has not suckered.

I believe it is a banana relative - perhaps, parhaps not, a precursor of the
edible varieties. I suspect it is the Abbysynian banana.

There are edible banana precursors and relatives around, such as the banana
clump in the Sydney Botanic Gardens that produces a short, conventional
looking fruit containing hard, black seeds. An anthropologist friend found
some the the seeds and grew them out in his home food forest (his special
interest is ethnobotany). We sampled them and, yes, the creamy-coloured
flesh was edible but the seeds would prevent it becoming a popular food.

Where the Permaculture group found the Abbysiynian banana, if that is really
what it is, I have no idea, however they mistook it for a food variety. The
owner has contemplated cutting it out and replacing it with something
edible. 

> Respond:  Few permaculturists seem to have horticulture training, let alone
> knowledge of insects, pest or otherwise.

If my assumptions is correct regarding the above-mentioned banana and fruit
trees with pest potential, then that's evidence supporting what you say. I
only this week was told of a person with a knowledge of horticulture that
joined a Permaculture group only to dropout because there was too little
knowledge of horticulture in the group.

I don't want to go on with negative examples because some might get the idea
that they outnumber the positive, which I doubt, however just one more to
reflect on Penny's statement above. It, too, is in Sydney and it, too,
involves a Permaculture group that planted a straw mulched garden (which
weeds are now pushing through) but possibly did not think all that closely
about how to place plants according to height. Taller-growing species are in
front of shorter-growers, something that, while the winter sun is low in the
sky and given that this garden receives very little winter sunlight, could
reduce the rate of growth of the shorter species of vegetable.

These examples might be small stuff and I think they are atypical of
Permaculture in general, however I think it exemplifies the necessity of
considering one of Bill's dictums - the one about careful and thoughtful
observation and thinking rather than careless and thoughtless action (can't
remember the actual words and don't have a copy of the designer's manual
here - will have to wait for it to appear again for $35 at the remainered
bookshop at Railway Square).

Thanks for your comments Penny.
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