I have acquired a farmland in Coorg with Palmoil trees. I would like to turn that into multilayer farm based on palekar model, as attached below.
I would appreciate a critical analysis from you farm gurus, both positive and negative.
The grid is 30’ by 30’ feet, with 5’ each between plants.
Thanks
Legume is completely eliminated in your model. in coffee row have at least one legume alternatively. It can be any of these Gliricedia/ Erythrina/cowpea/drumstick etc.
To have success you must have arecanut at beginning, when they go beyond 12-15 ft you can start planting banana. or beginning have both and when arecanut start yielding, few years you must stop banana or use dwarf verity when they grow tall you can start banana.
Sri,
The palm tree are already there, maybe 5 years old. Now I want to plant the others, is planting areca this late an issue?. Yes legume is missing, may or may not opt for them.
There is no issue with Palm. Planting areca is not late but Banana may suppress growth of arecanut . Once areca grows around 15ft you can go for banana.
If you want to eliminate legume then don’t call it Sri.Palekars method. You are violating the fundamental idea of ZBNF.
you are planting all monocots and spacing is 5ft. roots will compete.
Thanks Sri,
In the palekar model the spacing is 4.5’ between plant. If I plant Legume, then SPACING HAVE NO ISSUES??
yes. you need to have monocot, diecot combination then roots don’t compete.
Pointless if you change basic design without having a reason for its being so in the first place and your having a better reason for the change after that.
In any dense planting design, legumes job is to fix nitrogen into the soil. Most other plants are consumers of nitrogen.
Take out the legumes and resign yourself to buy oodles for fertilizers for your land, is my assumption, without knowing much about Mr. Palekar’s design.