[Pil-pc-oceania] Deep Trench Watering - Keith Stewart

[Keith Stewart]

Please feel free to edit or do 'whatever' with this email I have sent to Menindee.

Keith Stewart
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I am an old 'Permaculture Worker' and also very practical.

Some 3 years ago I spent some time in Broken Hill, but did not make the time to follow up a VERY interesting concept that 'Somone' was using at Menindee
to enable them to still grow crops when there was little rain - or water to use to irrigate
from your local lakes and rivers.

The concept was to dig a series of narrow, one or two meters deep, very narrow trenches across a field.

Put rock etc at the bottom of each trench.

Then backfill and plant on the surface.

Water was sent into the bottom of the trenches from the end of each field,
 instead of being sprayed from aboveground level.

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[ I could fax you a drawing of my memory of your system. ]

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Where much of the precious water was wasted by evaporation.

This forced the plants to send roots deep down to obtain water. [ and obtain, bring up and use minerals etc. ]

Your 'Deep Trench' method might be an even better method than used in Israel where they use slow drip surface irrigation plus mulch to produce fresh produce from the
desert that is then exported by air to Europe.

Does it work, here in Australia?

Keith Stewart
ENDS
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