swales and keyline water harvesting

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  • April 14, 2011 at 1:12 am #42601
    sickle hocks
    Participant

    I’ve been interested in some of the permaculture design ideas relating to water security on the farm, especially after watching an intense spring melt run-off event over the last few days.

    You’ve probably read about these, but briefly…swales are a series of small parallel ditches (tree-lined) that run exactly across the land’s contours, they idea is to essentially stop run-off and recharge soil water and groundwater…keylines are similar but the ditches are made with a bit of slope to channel water to an inter-linked network of very small storage dams spaced quite closely on the land…

    I wondered if anyone here has put any of these ideas to use?

    Also, can you imagine any way to create these systems using draft animal power…plows??…or are we in the realm of machinery or slave labor??

    here are some examples, they used a tractor plow set super deep…there is a good animated video here of how the swale works

    http://www.clearskyfarm.com/1/post/2010/06/water-issues-swales.html

    Would be interested in your thoughts…

    April 14, 2011 at 1:49 am #66662
    dominiquer60
    Moderator

    After decades of cropping contour strips we have some low profile swales between each strip that certainly capture water and minimize erosion. Alternating and rotating between row crops and sod helps a lot as well. We are also firm believers of water bars on farm roads, driveways, even the path down to the greenhouse. We have strange land in the fact that the higher up in elevation you go the wetter it gets, the fields on top of the hill can be beasts.

    Maybe this is not exactly what you were looking for, but this is how we manage our water and soil successfully with each staying where they belong, usually.

    Erika

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