V137: Pasture Cropping with Colin Seis

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Let's say that you own 1000 acres and you want to farm.

What do you do with that land?

One of the first decisions that many of you would come to is the decision of do I get livestock or go with annual crops.

Both common.  Both viable choices for farming big land.

One system is based in perennials and grazing animal’s and the other is based on annuals and mechanical tillage.  

For many people these two systems would be seen as mutually exclusive.  

Annuals and perennials don't really mix, at least on first thought they don't.  But what if you could do it?

How do you plant annuals into a perennial grass system and how do you graze animals through an annual system?

It all comes down to timing.  

If you seed annuals into dormant perennial grassland you take advantage of a niche in time where both species can co-exist.  Then you later harvest the annual crop and grass the animals through the now non-dormant perennials.

The system provides the benefit of zero tillage, rotational grazing, a constant plant cover on the soil and root mass under the soil, and minimal inputs costs.

The system is called Pasture Cropping and it was developed by Colin Seis.

Today's show is a presentation that Colin gave at PV2 in March 2015.  It was an honor to have him present at the conference, this guy is a true pioneer and innovator, and his work needs to be heard.

Learn more at permaculturevoices.com/137

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