Vegetables Loves Eucalyptus | FOOD FOREST | ALLEY CROPING | AGROFORESTRY PRACTICES

Hi guys, this is Gennaro from Sitio do Jazz here in Brasilia, Brazil. Today I wanted to bring you guys an idea about eucalyptus, discuss that a little bit and go a little bit deeper than what we've done in previous videos. We've got another short video in our YouTube channel to touch on the subject but I wanted to go a little bit deeper into this today. We understand that eucalyptus is a tree that booms, it thrives with poor conditions, it's able to come through. This is obviously why mankind has chosen to explore this marvellous tree because it's able to produce more in less time with less in worse conditions. You can plant it in monoculture and it thrives. Imagine in an agroforestry system how powerful it can be, how much material, how much organic matter it can produce in that space of time. So obviously we're looking for high volume material producers, matter producers. So obviously here in our climate the banana and the eucalyptus are the mothers of agroforestry because they're the ones that give us the first boom of organic matter to feed back to the soil in the tree beds. So we've established that eucalyptus is producing a lot of material, we're chopping it down, we're feeding it down to the soil. It's amazing, both wood and leafage coverage. So what happened is several years back some of my friends which produce vegetables, people which have a market and really depend on the vegetable system to sustain their system, the families and the operation. So for veg producers we're really trying to produce more veg between those tree rows. So the classic of having two vegetable beds between each tree row became a little bit... a little wasp there on my hand but that's all right. People were really producing two vegetable beds between each tree row and we wanted more, we wanted to produce more veg. So we thought all right, so what are we going to do now? We're going to produce three vegetable beds in between each tree row. Okay, so how are we going to produce enough organic material to feed three vegetable beds? Because now the trees, the tree rows have been spread out wider instead of four and a half, five meters, they're now six and a half, seven meters wide. So we've got a bigger gap in the of those three beds, those three rows and now we need to produce organic matter to cover that bigger gap. We've got more, a bigger hole in between. So you know people were discussing it, our professor, our teacher, he slept on it and he came back the next day and said, I know what we're going to do. We're going to plant eucalyptus every meter, one by one by one every meter in the tree bed. We're going to plant eucalyptus tree and the eucalyptus is going to have the power to feed back, to produce enough organic matter so we can feed more area. Let's dense the eucalyptus and we're like, wow, okay. Obviously, I mean we're cool with the myth that eucalyptus dries land and it provokes fire and it provokes droughts. That's all a big myth. Obviously, what does that is monoculture and monoculture within eucalyptus systems is one of the worst. Usually, you're already planting eucalyptus monoculture in areas which are decayed already, in areas which not much else would survive it apart from the eucalyptus. So already these being planted in poor conditions and then he comes in the monoculture people like really taking out tons and tons of cubic matter and they're not giving it back and then it dries and it's the eucalyptus fault. Obviously, it's not. So we're comfortable with the situation where the eucalyptus is not a villain, it's not causing drought, it's not his fault. It's the system that people are planting it in. Yeah, sure. So we're planting it every meter but we're chopping it down and feeding back to the soil. So now we're actually planting water because we know what organic matter does to the soil. It covers the soil, gives it the shade, keeps the moisture in. The roots of the eucalyptus helps penetrate, break through the compacted soil. So when it rains, the water can reach down back into the soil. So eucalyptus is blessed. You really plant a lot of water with this amazing tree. So we planted it every meter now to feed the soil. So we can have a bigger gap between each tree rows and produce more veg. So that's quite interesting with that breakthrough. We've got examples here. So we've got our babies here. This is our tree row. Obviously, if we get closer, we've got bananas that have been harvested. They're coming back. We've got guavas, we've got what's that guacamole, the avocados, some bananas, other trees that birds have been planting. Lots of nice trees coming through. A bit of cotton there, moringas, nice moringas coming through. A lot of timberwood here, a lot of cinnamon, timberwood. It's countless. We've got barren nuts coming through from the bottom. So as you can see, this is a classic tree, but it's a wide variety of seeds that were planted. We've got jaca, jacafru. All right, a lot of timberwood involved there as well. But the mother who's really bringing them up, the eucalyptus tree, it's not only producing the organic matter, but it's also giving the condition, the immediate forest condition so that the other trees and the other seeds and seedlings can come through in the comfort zone. It's giving it the shade, it's blocking it from the wind. So the eucalyptus is giving it an immediate forest climate. The banana and eucalyptus gives it an immediate forest sensation. Obviously, I'm at the border of the valley. This is not the model tree bed. As you can see, there's more timberwood coming through here. Beautiful. All right. So what we have here in the next row, in our next tree row, is another example. We've developed it further, or this is where we've managed it further. We're working our way down. And as you can see, the eucalyptus here has been trimmed. As you can see, can you really see? It's just a little skeleton, a little thin skeleton, right? This system here is a year and a half old, okay? So you can see how much organic material it's already produced in the background there. We've got all that bush, the eucalyptus. We've already trimmed that. We're trimming it again now. If we can see the vegetable bed on the ground, how much organic matter it's actually producing. Look at that. We've actually managed to cover all our corridors with the eucalyptus matter. Look at that. And then, you know what we're doing here. What we're doing here, look. Oh, wow. Look, there's water here. Oh, wow. It's actually wet. Oh, wow. There's a lot of life activity underneath here. Really amazing. Let's go further. Let's see how far we can get. Ah, really flat soil. Real great activity going on here. Real great activity. A lot of life in the soil. So had we not had this trimming of this eucalyptus, you know, that would have been exposed to the sun, you know. So we're able to really cover the soil with the eucalyptus. It's really amazing. All the bananas have been used, have been trimmed down. So here, this is the classic example. Now I'm able to produce three vegetable beds in between each tree row and the bananas have been trimmed down to cover the vegetable soil. The eucalyptus has been trimmed down to cover all the corridors with this matter. So isn't it blessed? Aren't we so lucky to have trees like the eucalyptus, which with holds, which really supports so much trimming. It's not stressed because of this. It's just laughing. It's finding it great. It's gonna provoke more photosynthesis. It's gonna boom again, right? So from the Agroforestry Academy crew, I hope this has been interesting, this insight. Look at how many eucalyptus trees. And it's not provoking shade. It is planting water. It's producing life activity under the soil as it covers. And in our region, at least, there's not many other plants that will produce this much matter in this amount of time. Okay? So now we're going ahead here and we've planted strawberries and tomatoes, right? Obviously, we've got a little quick pick of the weed. With all this organic material that we've used here, it's really blocked most of the weed. But there's always a little bit. We'll just give that one plucking of the weed. We don't need to be here six, seven times throughout the crop time, about the crop life. We come in here and just give it the one picking, the one weeding of this vegetable bed, and that should be sufficient. That's my boy, Polar. Polar, say, marvelous, marvelous. So we're renewing these three vegetable beds in the back here. I might as well bring you in on what's happening. We're going to plant beans, black beans. We're going to plant tobacco, and we're going to plant strawberries. And we're going to plant grass for the horses as well. Okay? So we'll be coming back here and showing you this very soon and how it develops. Thank you very much from the Agroforest Academy crew, Go Collectors Underground crew. This one's you.