Adapting Dry Farming Techniques to Vegetable Gardens
Adapting Dry Farming Techniques to Vegetable Gardens
This webinar is part of the 2019 series of Advanced Training Webinars for Master Gardeners sponsored by Oregon State University Extension.
Intrigued by dry farming techniques but not sure how to implement in your own garden or Master Garden demonstration garden? In this webinar, Amy Garrett (OSU Extension Small Farms) will share research results on dry farmed crops including tomatoes, squash and melons. She’ll also share examples of how these techniques have been adopted by PNW gardeners. Resources will be provided to help you answer questions at Master Gardener Plant Clinics. Note: This webinar is the first in a series exploring efficient water use in gardens.
irrigation+rainfall = evaporation + transpiration + runoff + leaching
Which one of these processes do Farmers really have control over during the growing season? If you have the ability to irrigate your sandy soils and water is cheap and plentiful, then you are fortunate and have some control on the left side of the equation. If you do not have irrigation, you must look at the factors on the right side of the equation to see what can be controlled or minimized to benefit your crop. Evaporation from the soil surface can be reduced with mulch or leaving crop residue on the soil surface. Transpiration is a function of the plant leaf surface area and the weather. Runoff is or should be minimal in sandy textured soils with high percolation rates.
This leaves the leaching of water out of the root zone as the #1 controllable loss of moisture to your crop. Interrupting the downward movement of moisture in your soil by installing a "smart" barrier can greatly reduce the leaching of water and nutrients. SWRT subsurface membranes detain/retain up to 90% of irrigation or rainfall in the root zone for crop use by disrupting the gravitational movement of water in the soil while still allowing excess water to percolate and do not create anaerobic soil conditions.
Lmfao..try it in texas…how anyone grows for profit is mind blowing there.
U not only have hostil brutal heat with a tiny spring window if your lucky..about one year outta 10 in my 80 plus year experience…but the vicious hordes of bugs…and now NO BEES ECT…its one of the hell on earth…if u cant grow in oregon u can cant grow …i went there several and well…felt disgusted depressed and discouraged..
I’ve been looking into deep mulch pits, buried logs, that search (techniques and tactics to increase moisture retention and water holding capacity of areas in dry land) brought me to dry farming. Thank you for this video. It may be of interest to you: Geoff Lawton’s greening the desert project in Jordan, has some good examples of utilizing deep mulch pits at the end or beginning of a swale to help infiltrate rain water slowly into the surrounding ground. He is big on earthworks to create a system that eventually uses no outside irrigation, but there us upfront work to get there. Anyway. Thank you again. Good luck to you
I’m growing in sunken beds in the Willamette valley. Three Sisters for calorie production. 1,000 sq. ft in calorie crops and another 4-6,000 in other vegetables and fruits. All dry gardened. This is the first year trialing these beds, but I’m planning to weigh my harvest to see what percentage of a person’s calories are produced in this space.
I did not catch the link to the 1920 publication on dryland gardening (or farming). Could you please repeat it? Thank you
Have you tried desert dry farming i know someone on youtube that hasn’t watered in 6 months he only waters when he plants thats it oh we get 1 or less inches of rain here a year so mybe step up the dry farming game you focused on places that get decent rain what about places with almost none
A layer of moss from the woods, topped off with bark chips did an amazing job for us last year in one small (no till) part of the garden. Great water retention, and no weeds.
For some reason, the first link to the dryfarm page isn’t working anymore — Unless I somehow typed it in wrong!