With several years of unpredictable weather and extremes outside of the climate we would expect. Some tree lines may suffer losses and need gaps filled, I've been thinking about annual plants that may do that job, and in this year's drought, amaranth with it's love of heat and quick growing, fleshy stems and has been and indispensable. Are there any other gap fillers that may help in needy times.?

As most of Europe crisps in record temperatures, and even in my lush oasis the grass is starting to yellow, most the trees in the syntropic lines are putting on new growth, the trees over five years old are looking very happy, and yes, the last trees planted at the end of spring have suffered losses and are wilting, although I'm sure the majority will survive,and the bonus of syntropic systems is no matter when in the day somewhere there's a shady place to put my chair.

What do syntropic farmers do while they're waiting for the trees to grow? In theory as the number of rows grow so does the complexity of maintenance, propagation, and preparing of new sites. A good system should build early crops and biomass fast, followed by new planting material. Then fruit, nuts and finally timber and firewood or biochar. How can you calculate the time taken to keep a system running smoothly? I realise I'm asking hypothetical questions because my context is a original food forest, not a new syntropic system. My reason is to debate what's to come.

Hey guys ! Had a bit of a break from the platform, but planning on posting more often again ! I had the opportunity to interview Scott Hall again about a method of syntropic agroforestry he calls Successional Accumulation - an approach that aims to establish systems with little to no external amendments and, in many climates, little to no irrigation. (In brittle climates, some irrigation and mulch are still usually needed to suppress weeds and retain soil moisture, but the requirements are far lower than with the typical Plant All at Once approach.) For many people, it may seem like Scott is reinventing the wheel or proposing something that Ernst Götsch never practiced. But in reality, Ernst started his farm using a very similar approach; he simply never coined a specific term for it. Today, Plant All at Once is used in the vast majority of syntropic systems. While it can produce impressive results, it is also demanding because it often requires large quantities of amendments and biomass to support primary species and crops. In brittle climates, these inputs can be difficult and expensive to obtain, especially during dry years when straw bales are expensive adn scarce. Access is another challenge. Many farms are located in remote areas, and the cost of transportation for all materials continues to rise. That's why Scott's ideas are so interesting. Successional Accumulation offers a different pathway - one that seeks to build fertility and biomass progressively using trees only, rather than importing large quantities of biomass upfront. Enjoy the interview - there are some real gems in there!

After listening to YouTube videos on simple Pioneer planting, this seems the natural progression for small low profile projects on poor sites, and with limited resources. Going one step further would be to allow sites to go wild, cut and scrape the brush and make dead hedges on to the proposed tree lines and allow the the Pioneers to grow in the inter rows, when the dead hedges are degraded move the saplings to the rows to make a controlled infestation. Otherwise what I have done is find a local pre disturbance (demolition site ) and extract pioneer plants to use in your infestation, only l didn't call it a infestation, just being resourceful, obviously ask the land owners permission before taking weed saplings. On most abandoned sites in my region, elderberry, buddleia, pseudoacacia, birch, willow, broom and gorse grow quickly and are a nuisance to the land owners. All these plants and eleagnus, horse chestnut, poplar and many more I retrieved from a old factory site being redeveloped, less than a kilometre from the farm .