So I planted 18 Hazelnut trees into the tree tubes - in mounds of 4 gallons of compost with the Winecap myclieum surrounding the compost. The winecap mycelium did survive diving deep down into the woodchips where the moisture was retained even in the 90 degrees full sun heat!!
Wow - I'm impressed by Nature!! Now will the Winecap Mycelium survive since I've spread it out to plant the Hazelnut trees? We'll see! Did I provide enough compost soil for the Hazelnut trees? They are three feet tall in some cases - and they have hardly any soil for their root ball!! So I figure they should be fine with 4 gallons of compost soil and then the mycelium will eat the woodchips thereby creating MORE soil for the trees!! That's the plan at least.
The trip to the farm was fantastic - a beautiful view of Lake Superior!!
Lake Superior is the world's largest freshwater lake by area (31,700 mi2 /82,100 km2). It is also the coldest and deepest of the Great Lakes, with a maximum depth of 406 meters (1,332 feet). By most measures, it is the healthiest of all the Great Lakes. ...the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh water.
Just imagine the Western US and Asia have wanted to steal the Lake Superior water and Nestle does steal it - via pumping nearby aquifers (that would feed into Lake Superior eventually) - at least that is my "opinion."
Now the water hoses were NOT feeding by gravity from my 65 gallon water tank - this was the 2nd time it happened! So I kept wondering what was crawled inside the hoses - at first I thought it was plastic molding that I saw pouring out towards the end of the tank - when I emptied it....Then I realized it's because there is still water IN the hose when I disconnect it - and thus the "gravity" has to push against the horizontal water - versus just AIR. Water is way more heavier and hence the gravity pressure wave is not as strong.....
water being approximately 775 times heavier than air.
So then I hooked up the water pump right at the start of the water tank - so the pressure from the pump would push the water through the hoses - at first I did one hose and it worked! Then I connected the 2nd hose. The third hose I had to cut off to unload the water tank into a bucket of water and then pump out of that bucket (the pump does not fit into the tank directly)..... I did this all off grid with a small lithium generator....
So that worked also - I pumped water out 300 feet. Now...how much farther can I go with just this one 1/6 horse power pump!! So it's maximum vertical head or lift is 30 feet...
The answer that says 30 ft is way off . 30 ft is the maximum suction for a vertical lift . That is the point where a 1 sq in column of water has a weight that is equal to the negative atmospheric pressure of - 14.7 psi . The water is 4.7 lbs every 10 ft so 4.7 x3 =14.1 psi . The pump can’t pull an absolute vacuum so that is the small difference . In fact 29 ft is all a water pump can lift . A horizontal pipe requires no vertical lift and it would take several hundred feet before the friction in the pipe would stop the pump from pulling water .
OK but now remember I also have gravity pressure for the first 150 feet!! So that means I should be able to get another 150 feet....
OK so I'll try another 150 feet of hose and see what happens! Regardless I did water all the Hazelnut tublings that I planted (I would not call them Seedlings since they've been growing since May at least and like I said some of the Hazelnuts are 3 feet tall)...
When I asked how many varieties - the farm worker said ten varieties! Wow. He said this is what Mark recommends - I think he said Mark and Phil - meaning Mark Shepard and Phil Rutter - the Hazelnut and Chestnut tree hybrid farmers. Actually Rutter has the Ph.D. to develop these cultivars or varieties....
https://superiorviewfarm.com/collections/hazelnuts/products/umhdi-open-pollinated-seedlings
I got a better price - since I bought a higher number of trees....
Wow they are half the price I paid if I had bought 75 more trees... then I would only pay twice as much! That's a huge discount by volume!! so a 50% discount in price.... I probably could have fit that many trees on the land but the cost of tree tubes and the watering labor would have been huge.
As it is I am hauling water from two different free sources - I have to rotate on one source...
So this is about maximum for what I can plant for this amount of water.
It will be fascinating to see if these trees survive and the roots can grow into the soil with the dead grass below. I covered the grass with a couple layers of thick newspaper and then the soil and the tree growing into that - so the newspaper rots fast. then I have woodchips covering more newspaper with the mushroom mycelium eating the woodchips to create more soil (and mushrooms)......
hmm.... most exciting was seeing the growth of the Mycelium in the woodchips!!
No comments:
Post a Comment