Three Key Principles of Syntropic Agriculture, Permaculture Food Forests
- Support Species
- Stratification
- Succession
Support species are an essential component in your food forest. In working with the main food or culinary crops you plant, support species help ensure a holistically generative system –one with much less need for external inputs, as we see in conventional agriculture.
In subtropic bio-regions, a few important ones are;
- Eucalyptus, for an early and steady source of canopy cover and biomass from prunings.
- Pigeon pea, a shrub, for a fast growing and good source of nitrogen fixation, and
- Comfrey, an herbaceous taproot plant and dynamic accumulator, acting as a good ground-cover and fertiliser for a variety of nutrients and minerals in the subsoil –such as nitrogen, phosphorus, magnesium, and silica.
All three of these species are sufficiently versatile and useful offering sources of wood, food, and medicine in addition to their support role. For instance, pigeon pea is the original Indian dhal, producing lentils in small pods which can be collected when at seed. Leaves can be a source of fodder for animals, and older growth of branches can be used for fencing and firewood.
In conventional agriculture, often the single species crop approach is taken, overlooking the benefits of support species. In times of inflation, supply chain issues, and diminishing returns in soil fertility and crop output, however, we can ask whether this makes sense?
In adopting a more systematic mentality, along with orienting to harmonise with nature’s intelligence and ways of doing, we may find we can save money and time, not to mention create an abundant and thriving ecosystem which provides our needs and helps promote balance to degraded soil and lands.
Finally, in addition to crop support species, we can also consider ‘animal support species’ in our system. Animals are as essential in ensuring a healthy syntropic system as our plant support species are.
Stratification refers to the many different layers which occupy your food forest. This principle deals with the dimension of space in the system (conversely, succession our next principle, deals with time).
If you look at a natural forest, we see often dense plantings of a variety of plants and trees at various vertical levels. In syntropics, there are 9 layers we want to think about and plan for;
- Canopy or Tall Tree Layer (~ over 9 meters high, and can include timber trees, large nut trees, nitrogen-fixing trees).
- Sub-Canopy/ Large Shrub Layer (~ 3 to 9 meters high, and generally includes most fruit trees).
- Shrub Layer (~ up to 3 meters high, and can include species of fruiting bushes, and flowering, medicinal or other beneficial plants).
- Herbaceous Layer (non-woody stem plants, such as many culinary and medicinal herbs).
- Groundcover/ Creeper Layer (generally shade tolerant, dense, and close to ground plants).
- Underground Layer (root crops).
- Vertical/ Climber Layer (vines and climbers which span multiple layers).
- Aquatic/ Wetland Layer (refers to ponds, water features, swales, paddy's, wetlands, dams, swamps, mangroves, creeks, rivers, and can include many aquatic species).
- Mycelial/ Fungal Layer (the underground fungal network which transports nutrients and moisture from one area of the forest to another. Can include fungus and mushrooms).
A relevant concept to mention here is a Guild. The creation of a guild means a collection of species situated together in a given area which function harmoniously together –and of which many guilds together can make up a food forest. An example guild one might create could be eucalyptus and moringa as support canopy and emergent canopy species, banana and paw-paw as sub-canopy, pigeon pea as support shrub, comfrey as support herbaceous layer, sweet potato as both groundcover and underground root crop, passion fruit as vertical climber, swale and bird bath as aquatic layer, and given the right soil conditions, a dense and healthy mycelial network connecting all plants together amid the broader system it is part of.
Stratification of your food forest species is another way to create a system in which all plants and trees (like nodes in a system) are acting cooperatively and in harmony with one another. It’s important to know here certain factors for growing trees together well, such as the structure of mature trees (are they umbrella shaped like mango and walnut, or open like guava and almond?), which trees are best in optimising for sun or shade conditions, tree height and width at maturity, and moisture needs.
Succession is the evolution of the system over time. Unlike static food forests, syntropic food forests are more dynamic and changing as the system matures, and usually involve denser plantings as a result. Specific species may dominate niches or guilds at various times. What this may look like at any one moment will depends on what is being created and what the goals or outcomes desirable by the grower are.
If soil fertility or type is unsatisfactory to ideal growing of select crops or the system as a whole, then pioneer species (a special subset of support species) can be utilised. Later, once the soil profile has been improved, pioneers can be replaced by food crops and more general support species. Certain support species, such as eucalyptus occupying the canopy, can be later replaced or removed as more slow growing fruit trees such as mango, jackfruit, or loquat come to sufficient size.
Succession dynamics is what can take an abandoned car park with perhaps just a flower growing through a concrete crack, and eventually turn it into a dense and thriving forest. This, in-fact, is what syntropy is all about –the evolution of systems to more complexity, order, organisation, and accumulation over time.
In terms of syntropic vs entropic systems, a useful distinction to make is between simple, complicated, and complex systems. Complex systems tend to be anti-fragile, self-evolving, self-repairing, have emergent properties, and often involve many interdependent connections within them. These are generally how natural systems like a forest or human body are structured. By contrast, most human made systems are simple or complicated. Complicated systems are generally fragile, more predictable, not self-evolving or self-repairing, and typically the sum of their parts. When it comes to sustainability and regeneration in farming, it's important to think about how we may align more with a complex approach...
Conventional agriculture as practiced globally today, tends to be entropic in nature. It favours simple and complicated organisation (rather than complex), leading to instability, disorder, and depletion dynamics (or indeed, accumulation of bad things like harmful toxins and by-products rather than life-enhancing outcomes). It often destroys more than it produces, or takes more energy to produce a food than you ultimately get from it. And according to some scientists, based on existing rates of soil degradation, we have perhaps only another 50 years of harvests left.
This leads to some final thoughts…
By adopting an approach which looks at the system in a holistic and integrated way, we can help ourselves and the Earth. The three principles of support species, stratification, and succession all help us to create a functional diversity of species –functional in terms of what it is we are intending to create. This functional diversity tends to be more resilient to shocks and stressors over time affecting the system (for instance, certain invasive species), leading to stability. With stability, the opportunity for fertility of soil and land is achievable. And the end result of this process is productivity, or produce –the various foods and outputs we need.
Functional Diversity --> Stability --> Fertility --> Productivity
The mindset here, though, is perhaps counter-intuitively the opposite of established approaches, in which the end result is often the sole or primary focus, i.e., productivity, or perhaps even profits from sale to the consumer. This is putting the cart before the proverbial horse. If we focus on healthy alive soil instead, we can eventually reap the productivity and benefits we want. Yet if we focus on productivity or profits (as in, what we get out of the system instead of what we put in), we risk achieving neither this or fertility.
Though there are of-course nuances and trade-offs to consider in comparing any agricultural approach, it is hoped this article has helped explain how syntropic/ permaculture food forests work, and why they make sense to implement.
If you would like to get started on exploring the potential creation of your own food forest system (which can be as small or big as you like), with the guidance and support to help you along the way to achieve your goals, feel free to get in touch with us today.