Natural sequence farming
Natural sequence farming is a series of land management practices to restore the natural water cycle within agricultural landscapes and improve landscape functionality. Developed by Peter Andrew, natural sequence farming seeks to restore the role of natural water cycles to reverse salinity, slow erosion and increase soil and water quality, using vegetation to regenerate land and restore waterways. The method is nature-based with no reliance on synthetic herbicides, fertilisers or other chemical inputs.
Slowing the flow of water over the landscape has a positive effect, leading to increased farm productivity, reduced inputs, and increased environmental biodiversity.
Natural sequence farming follows 5 core principles.
- Slow the flow.
- Let all plants grow.
- Careful where the animals go.
- Filtration is a must-know.
- Return to the top to recycle the lot.
Slowing the flow of water
Slowing the flow of water across the land and improving water infiltration is critical to hydrating the landscape. Valuable nutrients and organic matter move with this water and will be deposited more evenly within the landscape while making these nutrients more available to plants and livestock. Use of structures like leaky weirs and contour banks will help to slow the water thereby reducing the erosion potential and increasing the infiltration of water into the soil. Water will move down through and across the soil profile, rehydrating the landscape and helping to mitigate the impacts of drought and high rainfall events. Ready access to soil moisture improves the quality of pasture feed by increasing the availability of nutrients in plants as well increasing plant growth rate.
Care should be taken when installing water-holding structures to ensure no unintended consequences are created, like causing water to pool and waterlog trees which will eventually cause them to die.
Eroded gullies should be fenced off. Place fences well away from the gully walls, and preferably on flatter land to enable future remediation work to be done without causing more damage. The fenced area can be used as a small grazing paddock in an emergency if feed is short.
Before installing any structures, contact the landscape board to find out if a water affecting activity permit is required.
Letting all plants grow
Having green living plants all year round creates lots of benefits to the landscape like increased soil microbiology health, cycling of soil nutrients, building soil carbon, building soil structure and cooling the soil during summer. Green plants reduce soil surface evaporation, helping to conserve soil moisture. Living plants also offer critical habitat to many creatures, some who provide productive benefits to agriculture.
Growing plants can provide a visual indication of soil constraints like nutrient deficiencies or mineral toxicities, pH extremes, salinity or soil compaction. Some plants can accumulate nutrients from deep within the soil, bring them closer to the surface. Often these accumulator plants are woody, have deep root systems and thrive in harsh conditions. Other plants exploit patches of fertility within the landscape. There are plants who act as balancers in the landscape too and they grow where nitrates have become excessive, turning these nutrients into food for microbes.
Plants can help to reduce erosion problems as their diverse root structures are able to stabilise the soil.
While all living plants can be beneficial, be mindful that weeds will cause other problems and, by law, all declared weeds must be managed. Contact your regional landscape board to seek advice about managing weeds.
Be careful where the animals go
Managing animals within the landscape is important to ensure that sensitive areas, like wetlands, streams, and steps (an area in the landscape where the gradient flattens and then goes steep again) are protected from damage.
Animals help to move fertility around the property through their dung and urine. Moving animals is an easy way to move nutrients and fertilise the landscape. Trampling of vegetation can also contribute to building soil organic matter.
Filtration is a must-know
Water filtration areas such as billabongs, wetlands, floodplains, and swampy meadows provide a vital service of filtering out nutrients and organic matter instead of it being lost downstream. These filtration areas in the landscape play a pivotal role by helping to provide effective nutrient cycling.
Return to the top to recycle the lot
Cycling nutrients on the property reduce losses going downstream and boosts productivity. This can be done by allowing animal grazing in the filtration zones for a brief time before livestock are moved to the top of the landscape to manure and add nutrients. If livestock may damage the filtration zone, harvesting vegetation by hand or machine could be used instead. This process builds natural fertility. Do not harvest too much vegetation as it could damage this fragile ecosystem and leave it susceptible to harm from big rain events.
The power of increasing trees in the landscape
Increasing the diversity of trees within the landscape is important for many reasons. Here are just a few.
Even non-native trees can have positive impacts on the environment of your property. Deciduous European trees contribute to soil fertility through the annual cycle of dropping their leaves which break down readily. These types of trees can serve as a potential fire break around homes as they are less flammable.
Trees can create a cooler environment by providing shade and protecting the soil from the baking effects of direct sunlight. They transpire water into the air which has a cooling effect, acting like an evaporative air conditioner. They also capture dew at night which falls from the leaves and creates an island of moisture around the tree.
Trees contribute to increasing the biodiversity on property as they offer habitat and wildlife corridors for many birds, small mammals, and insects.
Some trees and shrubs can be harvested for forage in a managed way to provide additional feed for livestock.
Ready to have a go?
If you think that natural sequence farming is something that you’d like to put in place, then you can learn more about this process through Tarwyn park training courses.
For more information:
Can rock dams reverse climate change?
Stuart McWilliam: Showcase of Natural Sequence Farming - YouTube
Over the Fence with Stuart Andrews from Forage Farms - Natural Sequence Farming