Author Topic: How to start a farm? (Commercializing Permaculture... ?)  (Read 14358 times)

SeaWalnut

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Re: How to start a farm? (Commercializing Permaculture... ?)
« Reply #50 on: May 15, 2019, 07:12:18 AM »
After manny plans and crazy ideas i started beekekping and its the nicest thing.Now instead of food crops i plant flowers for the bees .Phacelia tanacetifolia can make a ton of nectar per hectare wich its a lot more expensive than corn and can be planted 2 times a year.You dont even need to have a big land.With aquacoulture there is a high risk that you could loose everything over night.Chickens,goats ,pigs and otther animals i dont like to farm because its a dirty job ,big responsability,time consuming and i dont like to kill animals.

nattyfroootz

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Re: How to start a farm? (Commercializing Permaculture... ?)
« Reply #51 on: May 15, 2019, 10:45:31 AM »
Yee haw, Phacelia tanacetifolia is a great plant! Smells amazing and has purple pollen as well.

Stoked to hear you using that rad California Native dryland adapted species.
Grow cooler fruits

www.wildlandsplants.com

Caesar

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Re: How to start a farm? (Commercializing Permaculture... ?)
« Reply #52 on: May 22, 2019, 11:26:22 AM »
I'm glad to hear all these good things about Lacy Phacelia. It was on my list of companion plants, and I had intended to include it in the flower strips between crop beds.

I might include some aquaponic systems on the farm for the short term, but in the long term, I think I'd keep aquaculture simple, maybe some crayfish or acociles in the aquatic crop ponds; nothing too fancy, just for subsistence rather than production.

Animals are a huge responsibility, and I'm in no rush to deal with them, but they do have their benefits, and the work can be minimized if you work them into the farm according to available resources and niches. Again, I'd keep them more for subsistence, with the crops being the main productive force of the farm.



I got myself some Mesquite seeds, Prosopis alba. I already had the Breadfruit and the Air Potatoes, now I need the Maya Nut, the Tahitian Chestnut, and the Sago Palm, and I'll have a strong collection of some of the most productive starchy staples in the world. For fat, Avocado, Macadamia and other tropical nuts & oilfruit. For vegetable protein, mainly Chachafruto and annual pulse crops. With a good system in place, I could theoretically keep myself fed without a supermarket... Not that I'd stop going, but it's good to have food security.

* https://permaculturenews.org/2012/02/25/perennial-staple-crops-of-the-world/

* https://permaculturenews.org/2013/05/01/staple-fruits-of-the-world/

SeaWalnut

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Re: How to start a farm? (Commercializing Permaculture... ?)
« Reply #53 on: May 22, 2019, 03:34:38 PM »
African catfish( clarias) its a really nice one with little demands on oxigen and space.I have a small basin in wich i want to grow rainbow,brook and brown trouts.Rainbows for sure but brook and browns its so so,might get too hot in my area.A few years ago i wanted to make the pond with saltwater and to grow a pair of Mahi mahi but id need a round basin for those because they like to swim a lot .I toght to breed tropical lobsters( Panulirus ornatus),slipper lobsters and blue crabs but most of these are really big canibals,especially the crabs.I.hoped to lower the canibalistic behaviour by making them all molt at same time and i discovered a substance that does that guaranteed.Because id grow quite low numbers of crustaceans i would have sold them after they have molted as soft shell wich are more expensive than hard shells.

pineislander

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Re: How to start a farm? (Commercializing Permaculture... ?)
« Reply #54 on: May 23, 2019, 07:31:10 AM »
You might look into 'electric blue lobster crayfish' culture. Not for edible but each individual brings in about $25 USD for the aquarium trade.

Caesar

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Re: How to start a farm? (Commercializing Permaculture... ?)
« Reply #55 on: June 05, 2019, 11:16:45 PM »
I think I might get in trouble if I sold the lobsters for aquaria instead of eating them myself (żunless I ship them overseas perhaps?). I've seen the little Cambarellus types in pet stores here, but the big ones (like the redclaws I had wanted from the start) are considered as invasive species. Indeed, I think there's a feral population of redclaws on the north side. We have freshwater crabs here that breed little crablets in full freshwater, but they need land, and they don't get along well. Folks eat them but they prefer the coastal land crabs 'cause they grow bigger and are easier to find. Breeding saltwater crustaceans seems problematic, with all the larval stages they have to go through.

Most of the info on Clarias talks of rearing them on pellet-based food. They're intriguing enough, especially with their low demands, but we can go lower! What kind of crop residue could they feed on, to eliminate outside input? That'd be an ideally raised permaculture fish!

SeaWalnut

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Re: How to start a farm? (Commercializing Permaculture... ?)
« Reply #56 on: June 05, 2019, 11:50:09 PM »
Most famous crab in the world i think its the blue Maryland crab,the savory swimmer wich needs a salinity comparable to bottled drinking water and eats any type of garbage and debris like grass or anything you would rather have composted on the farm.They have a short larval stage with less demands compared to true lobsters wich most of them have never been bred by humans and in farms they are just fattening wild caught juveniles.Thing with these crabs its that they need a lot of space because they are canibals or to be kept each crab in a small cage like they do in China with bigger crabs like mud crabs.Coconut crabs are nice land crabs but their endangered badly and its a shame to eat one.

SeaWalnut

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Re: How to start a farm? (Commercializing Permaculture... ?)
« Reply #57 on: June 06, 2019, 12:07:14 AM »
First of all you need to know how much water you have and whats the temperature it gets because on high temp the oxygen leaves the water but that would be no problem for a fish like Clarias wich can breathe air.Then if you dont have a constant flow of water like a stream or something,you can recycle and filter your water verry good by using plants that fed on fish waste similar to hydroponics just in this care you clwan the water of Nitrates,ammonia,phosphates.
To feed the fish you would need pellets in case you want to keep high density.Protein based plants like soy or otther legumes can be used to make verry cheap pellets but you have to know the aminoacids profile of each fish food( somme are carnivorous otther vegetarian).
To make the pellets float you would need an extruder that verry expensive machine but i know a trick to make them float for cheap by incorporating small bits of corn into the paste you use for pellets and then place them.in a microwave so that those small bits of corn expand and assure buoyancy.
Rainbow trout its #1 aquacultured fish if you can grow that .It grows to 300 grains in the first year and up to 28 C temp of the water its fine.Can grow 200 kilos of live rainbow trouts in just one ton of water but the water needs to be pristine and high in oxigen.Also you can buy fertilised trout eggs by post and grow them .
At night you can install somme LED lamps close to the water surface that will atract insects and watch the trouts jumping and catch them in the air.