Keyline and Fertile Futures
This paper has been adapted from a book in progress called
Fertile Futures
THE LAY OF THE LAND
This paper discusses Australian Dr Neville Yeomans[1] life experiences that guided and informed his evolving of the Fraser House therapeutic community psychiatric unit in 1959 in North Ryde, Sydney, NSW and his later outreach. The precursors of Yeomans’ way of thinking, processing and acting are traced firstly to the pioneering work of Neville’s father Percival A. Yeomans[2] who was described by the world famous English agriculturalist Lady Balfour in the 1970’s as the person making the greatest contribution to sustainable agriculture in the past 200 years (Mulligan and Hill 2001, p. 194). The chapter details the influence on Nevilles father’s evolving of Keyline, a set of processes and practices for harvesting water, generating new vibrant topsoil and creating sustainable agriculture. It also traces the influences on Neville Yeomans and his father of their relating with Australian Aboriginal and Islander people. As well Neville’s East Asia influences are discussed.
INSPIRING TRAUMA
Neville’s traumatic incidents
discussed in Chapter One also had a profound, though different impact on his
father P.A. Yeomans, (Mulligan and Hill 2001, p. 193). As mentioned in Chapter One,
three-year-old Neville became lost in West Queensland desert country and was
found by an Aboriginal tracker. At the time when Neville was lost Neville’s
father was a mine assayer and a keen observer of landscapes and landforms. Neville’s
father was deeply impressed
by the Aboriginal tracker’s profound knowledge of the minutiae of his local
land; in that harsh dry rocky climate with compacted soils, the tracker had
such an intimacy with the landscape that he was not relying on following
footprints. For example, he would notice minute traces left as evidence of the
movements of a little boy that would not be made by other creatures or natural
phenomena – such as the way soil grains were on a dead leaf contrary to the
prevailing breeze.
The other thing was that upon
finding little Neville, the tracker was so intimately connected to the local
land and its form, he knew exactly where to go to find water. It was not that
this tracker knew where a creek or a water hole was, as there was no surface
water.
The tracker knew how to find water
whenever he wanted it, and wherever he was in his homeland. He and his people ‘be
long’ there (40,000 plus years). They were an integral part of the land.
They were never apart from it. The tracker was ‘of the land’. He and his
community saw the Earth as a loving Mother that provided well for them
continually.[3] As soon as
the tracker found Neville, he had to find the right kind of spot for a short
easy dig. Because of Neville’s dehydration, the tracker needed water for
Neville fast. He used his knowledge of his place and quickly had Neville
sipping water. Mulligan and Hill report about the incident where Neville was
lost:
According to Neville, it was
probably this incident that gave his father his enduring interest in the
movement of water through Australian landscapes, because he could see that an
understanding of this would be a huge advantage for people living in the driest
inhabited continent on Earth (2001, p. 193).
WATER TELLING US WHAT TO
DO WITH IT
In the years after leaving mine
assaying, P.A. Yeomans had moved on to having his own earth-moving company. P.
A. had just purchased the Nevallan[4]
and Yobarnie[5] properties
in Richmond, NSW[6] with his
brother-in-law Jim Barnes in 1943 - a year before the bushfire where Neville
saw his uncle Jim Barnes burn to death.
P. A. emulated the Aboriginal
tracker in becoming familiar with the landform of his two properties. P.A.
wanted to store or use all of the water that landed on the properties.
P.A. wanted to be able to water his two properties so they were so lush and
green all year round, they would be virtually fireproof. When the families
acquired the properties the soil was ‘low grade’. It was undulating hill
country with plenty of ridges that were composed of low-fertility shale strewn
with stones. The following photo taken at Nevallan, one of the Yeomans’ farms
shows the original poor shale and rock ‘soil’ throughout the two properties
when the properties were acquired.
Photo 1.
The low fertility shale strewn with stones on
P.A.’s farm - from Plate 30 in P.A.’s book ‘Challenge of
Landscape’ – used
with permission (Yeomans 1958b; Yeomans
1958a)
Photo 2 shows a spade full of
fertile soil after two years of the processes evolved by P.A. and his sons. To
clearly show the difference in the soil, a clump of the fertile soil has been
placed beside earth on the base of a tree stump that became exposed when the
tree fell over. This lighter low-grade soil had not been involved in the
processes the Yeoman’s evolved.
Photo 2. Fertile soil after two years compared to the
original soil - a copy of Plate 30 in
P.A.’s book ‘Challenge of Landscape’ - Used with permission
Within three years, Yeomans and his sons had energized what
conventional wisdom said was impossible; they had altered the natural system so
that the natural emergent properties of the farm, as ‘living system’, created
ten centimetres (4 inches) of lush dark fertile soil over most of the property (Yeomans
and Murray Valley Development League 1974). What is important is that the local natural ecosystem did the
work. P.A. enabled emergent aspects in nature to self-organize towards
increased fertility. With the interventions that P.A. introduced, the property
became lush and green twelve months of the year. It was virtually fireproofed!
The balance of this chapter will
specify the processes the Yeomans evolved and applied on their farms and the
Indigenous precursors they drew upon. It then briefly introduces the ways
Neville evolved in adapting his family’s farming processes relating to the
natural life world to evolving change in the social life world.
Keyline Emerges
Over thousands of years, if this continent’s Aborigines wanted to spear fish in the shallow creeks and rivers, they would copy the behaviour of the wading birds that wade slowly, and then react extremely fast with their long beaks. The Aboriginal hunter with his spear mimics these waders. Resonant with the continent’s Indigenous ways, P.A. and his sons engaged in bio-mimicry - letting the water, the landforms, the soil biota, and the balance of the local eco-system tell them what to do. Neville told me (July 1998) that P.A. would take Neville and Neville’s younger brother Allan out onto the farms as they were growing up, whenever it rained, so they all could learn to see directly how the rain soaked in at different times, how long before run-off would occur on different land forms, and what paths down the slopes the run-off moved on different land shapes. Like the continent’s Aborigines, they were learning to have all of their senses focused in the here-and-now, attending to all that was happening in nature. As action researchers, they became connoisseurs of their land and all life on it (Eisner 1991, p. 176).
The Yeomans were being informed by landform and able to make very fine discriminations. Whatever action P.A. and his sons did, they always observed how nature responded. P. A. obtained contour line maps of his property with a useful scale to further aid his understanding of landform. According to Ken Yeomans (P.A.s third and youngest son) in an October 2003 phone discussion, the map scale was typically 1 in 25,000 with 5 metre contours. Neville said that his father constantly referred to the three primary landscape features - the main ridge (elevated from the horizontal), the primary ridge (lateral to the main ridge) and the primary valleys (lateral vertical cleavages). The farm was perceived by P.A. as a cleavered unity, a feature pervasive in nature. P. A. discovered where the best places were to store run-off water for maximum later distribution using the free energy of gravity feed. It was high in a special place in the primary valleys. Overflow from dams high in the primary valleys were linked by gravity-based over-flow channels to lower dams. Below is a succinct statement written by P.A. Yeomans about what he called ‘Keyline’. It is from P.A.’s speech at the UN Habitat ‘On Human Settlements’ Forum in Vancouver, Canada during 27th May to 11th June 1976. P.A.’s speech was entitled ‘The Australian Keyline Plan for the Enrichment of Human Settlements’ (1976, p. 5-6).
Keyline relates to a special feature of
topography namely, the break of slope that occurs in any primary valley.
Primary valleys are the highest series of valleys in every water catchment
region and lie on either side of a main or water divide ridge. They are widely
observed as the generally smooth or grassed over valleys of farming and grazing
land but are often overlooked and disguised in the city. On either side of the
primary valley is a primary ridge. Of the three basic shapes of land, namely,
main ridge, primary valley and primary ridge, the primary valley shape occupies
the smallest area of land and the primary ridge shape, the largest. In the rural
situation irrigation is a matter of watering the large primary ridge shapes,
even on land which appears flat.
All of the structures, processes and practices that P. A. Yeomans evolved he also called Keyline (Yeomans, P. A. 1971b; Yeomans, P. A. 1971a). Yeomans first outlined his ideas about water movement and how to detect Keypoints in a book entitled, ‘The Keyline Plan’ (1954). The books, ‘Challenge of Landscape’ (Yeomans 1958a), ‘Water for Every Farm’ (Yeomans, P. A. 1965), and ‘The City Forest : The Keyline Plan for the Human Environment Revolution’ (Yeomans, P. A. 1971a) followed. Three of P.A. Yeomans’ books, ‘The Challenge of Landscape’ (Yeomans 1958b), ‘The Keyline Plan’ (Yeomans, P. A. 1955), and the ‘City Forest’ (Yeomans, P. A. 1971b), including all of their diagrams and photos, are now on-line on the Internet through the Soil and Health Organization. In 1993, Ken Yeomans, Neville’s younger brother published his book, ‘Water for Every Farm: Yeoman’s Keyline Plan’ (Yeomans and Yeomans 1993). This book clarified some aspects of Keyline.
Diagram 1 below shows the main
ridge (the dotted line along the left), two primary ridges and two primary
valleys. A Keyline and a Keypoint only occur in primary valleys and each
primary valley has only one Keyline and Keypoint. One Keypoint is shown in the
diagram. The other Keypoint is on the Keyline towards the top of the diagram
(where it crosses the flow line shown as a dotted line). Note that the Keypoint
is on the primary valley flow line on the contour above the first wider gap
between the contours.
The flow line is marked on Diagram
1 below as the dotted line through the Keypoint. This wider space between
contours indicates less steepness on the slope. The dotted line along the
primary ridges in the diagram below is the water divide line which, other
things being equal divides the flow of water into one or other of the primary
valleys on each side of the primary ridge. The dotted line along the main ridge
is also a water divide line.
Allan (Dec 2005) pointed
out that the diagram below shows that the contours above the Keyline are closer
together at the valley flow line above the Keypoint and get wider apart as
these contours go around the ridges on both sides of the valley. The reverse is
the case below the Keypoint. The contours are wider apart on the flow line
below the Keypoint and come closer together towards the ridges on both sides of
the valley. The point where the contours are closest is the boundary between
valley and ridge.
Diagram 1. The Three Keyline
Features – Photo
from P.A.’s UN Habitat Speech (1976, p. 9)
Above the Keypoint is
typically an armchair-shaped land form that directs the water run-off so that most
of it ends up arriving in an area that may be as small as a square metre (the
Keypoint) – sometimes the very start of the typical creek as creek. P.A. found
that the optimal locations for dams were at the Keypoint on the Keyline in the
respective Primary Valleys on his properties.
P.A.’s ‘On Human Settlements’ Forum speech contains another description
of Keyline:
It
will be observed that in the primary valleys the first slope falling from the
ridge above is short and steep – usually the steepest slope in the immediate
environs[7]
– while the second slope is flatter, much longer and extends to the watercourse
below. The point at which the change occurs between these two slopes is named
the Keypoint; the Keyline extends on the same level on either side of this
Keypoint and partly encloses a concave shape on the land. Only primary valleys
have Keylines (see contour diagram above) (Yeomans, P. A. 1971b; Yeomans, P. A. 1971a; 1976, p.
7-8).
Ken Yeomans in a December 2005 email referred to the above quote:
I question
the technical accuracy of saying it ‘partially’ encloses a concave shape
on the land. Actually the Keyline occupies all of the concave shape of the
contour line curve.
The change of
direction of the contour from concave through the valley to the
convex curve of the ridge defines the end of the Keyline on
either side of each primary valley.
Diagram 1 above shows Ken Yeomans point mentioned above - that the Keyline extends either side of the Keypoint for a particular distance along the contour line running through the Keypoint. P.A then goes on in his On Human Settlements Forum Speech to give a key point summary (1976, p. 9):
The Keyline is significant because:
1. It is the first place in any valley where rain run-off water, concentrated from the higher slopes, can form a stream.
2. It is also the first place where run-off water disappears when the rain stops unless the water is contained.
3. It is the highest possible storage site in any valley of the land.
4. It is often the highest point at which good construction material for earth dams is available (higher up the earth may be less decomposed and less suitable for dam building).
5. It is the essential starting point for a water control system in any landscape that produces run-off; and
6. It is the line of change when the three shapes of the land merge and readily disclose the geometry of land contours and the behaviour of surface flowing waters.
The Keyline is thus of major significance to any concept that aims to enrich the environment by controlling and using all available water. Note point six above - the Keypoint in nature is saturated with information carrying capacity. On this typically square metre of land is the junction of all three land forms. Information distributed through each landform is present at the Keypoint. The Keypoint, for those with eyes to see, is the place that reveals the interaction of water with land. There is a confluence at the Keypoint of the water runoff from the main ridge above the primary valley and adjacent primary ridges down the curved slope at the head of the primary valley.
Lincoln and Guba made a similar point about distribution of information within a system (quoted in Chapter Four):
Information is
distributed throughout the system rather than concentrated at specific points.
At each point information about the whole is contained in the part. Not only
can the entire reality be found in the part, but also the part can be found in
the whole. What is detected in any part must also characterize the whole.
Everything is interconnected (1985, p. 59).
The Yeomans’ genius was that they spotted the information distributed throughout the three landform systems and saw how the distributed information inter-connects and interacts at the Keypoint. Keypoints are saturated with information that is distributed in the system. Sensing and observing the Keypoint may reveal insights as to how the whole complex dynamic system works.
Resonant with the above, as discussed in Chapter Three, Neuman also makes the same observation that at each point in a living system, information about the whole is contained in the part (1997, p. 433). Not only can the entire reality be found in the part, but also the part can be found in the whole. What is detected in any part must also characterize the whole. Everything is interconnected, inter-dependent, inter-related and inter-woven. Also resonant with Yeomans and Neuman, Joseph Jaworski (1998, p. 80) writes of a conversation with theoretical physicist Dr. David Bohm:
We were talking about a radical, disorientating new view of reality which we couldn’t ignore. We were talking about the awareness of the essential inter-relatedness of all phenomena – physiological, social, and cultural. We were talking about a systems view of life and a systems view of the universe. Nothing could be understood in isolation, everything had to be seen as a part of the unified whole.
Jaworski writes of Bohm saying that it’s an abstraction to talk of nonliving matter:
Different people are not separate, they are all enfolded into the whole, and they are all a manifestation of the whole. It is only through an abstraction that they look separate. Everything is included in everything else.
Yourself is actually the whole of mankind. That’s the idea of implicate order – that everything is enfolded in everything.
While Jaworski and Bohm
were talking about a ‘radical, disorientating new view of reality’, this view
has been the natural view of Australian Aborigines since antiquity, and it was
this view that the Yeoman’s used to perceive inter-related things that Western
farmers had never seen before. Barabasi (2003) in his book ‘Linked - How Everything is Linked to
Everything and What it Means’ also explores the same theme.
Consistent with the foregoing, for the Yeomans, the farm was a
living system made up of interconnected, inter-related, inter-dependent and
interwoven living systems and associated inorganics. I have been referring to
this as ‘connexity’; Neville or the other Yeomans did not use this term,
although it connotes their understanding of system linkages well.
Where the context around a
Keypoint made it possible P.A. placed a dam wall some way below the Keypoint so
that the dam could fill to that Keypoint when it was full. He designed his
farms Nevallan and Yobarnie to fit nature. All of the dams were placed so as to
simultaneously get water run-off, pass overflow to a dam below by gravity, and
by gravity-based irrigation, pass on the water to the soil when desired.
Neville (August 1998) and Allan (May 2002) both confirmed that they were with
their father at the moment when they recognized what he called the Keypoint and
the Keyline in landform – the central concepts in Keyline (Yeomans 1955a, p.
118).
Allan Yeomans in a phone
conversation (December 2005) noted that the Keypoint and Keyline in successive
primary valleys along a main ridge have an ascending (or descending) elevation
as occurs in Diagram 1 above. Allan spoke of regular patterns in nature; as an
example, the Yeomans’ experience was that often the height of the bottom of a
dam wall below a Keypoint in a primary valley being above the height of the top
of the dam wall in the adjacent primary valley (refer Diagram 1 above). This
has implications for linking the two dams by over-flow channel along a contour.
Photo
3. A Photo I took in July 2001 showing the dam’s overflow channel
The above photo shows the
gentle slope on the overflow channel of the dam shown in photo 4 below. There
was no sign of erosion on this channel even though this dam and the other
Keyline structures on the property had had no maintenance by the current
landowner for over twenty years. A noteworthy aspect of the farm is that
before PA Yeomans commenced his work there in the 1950s, the soil was regarded
by agricultural experts who visited the farm as being low-grade shale strewn
with small rocks (as can be seen on both sides of the Keyline channel). Some of
the area where Keyline processes were implemented is shown in the background
ridge in the photo and the processes have produced staggering increases in
biomass – what conventional wisdom says takes 800 years to produce. One
researcher who had travelled the world extensively, commented that after 3
years of Keyline process the new earth generated was on a par with what he had
seen in the fertile Nile Delta.
P.A. wrote:
Once the eye becomes trained to see these
simple land shapes, and the mind has selected and classified one or two, there
is a fascination in the continuous broadening of one’s understanding and
appreciation of the landscape (1958, p. 56).
The
Social Ecologist, Stuart Hill and I visited Nevallan for the first time in 2001
and I took Photo 4 below showing the place where P.A. and Neville first spotted
the Keypoint and Keyline. The
very spot where they realised the significance of the Keypoint is where the
closest water is in the closest dam in photo 3 below; the primary ridges are on
the left and right of the primary valley.
Like
all Keypoints, the one in the photo is on the drainage line. Photo 4 shows one
of the primary ridges on the left near the top of the primary valley. The
Chapter One Photo 3 was taken looking up towards where the photo below was taken.
Stuart Hill, in Chapter Eight
of his book on Australia’s Ecological Pioneers, outlines some aspects of the
process P. A. and his sons used (Mulligan and Hill 2001, p. 193):
What Yeomans senior discovered
through such patient observation was that there is a line across the slope of a
hillside where the water table is closest to the surface. The ground along this
line looks wettest and is reflective when it rains heavily.
It is the line along which it makes
most sense to locate the highest irrigation dams within the landscape, because
this is where the run-off water from above can most effectively be collected
and subsequently used at the most appropriate time to irrigate the more gently
sloping land below. Yeomans called this line the Keyline.
Photo 4.
Photo I took during July 2001- looking down towards the Keypoint at the top of
the dam.
Keyline Ploughing
A key aspect of Keyline was how the
Yeomans changed the natural self-organizing surface flow of water and the flow
of water underground through the soil via Keyline ploughing. Keyline ploughing in the valley involves ploughing parallel
to the Keyline both above and below the Keyline. There is a different pattern
of ploughing on the ridges, discussed below.
This pattern in the valleys
stops an eroding rush of surface water down to the valley floor, slows the
flow, spreads the soaking, and allows for a massive increase in the moisture
levels in the soil without water-logging. Consequently, water is ‘stored’ as it
slowly filters through the soil, as well as being kept in all the interlinked
dams. Recognizing the above properties of landform and their implications for
water flow was a key reason why Lady Balfour held PA Yeomans in such high
esteem. It involved a very particular kind of close relating to nature in its
myriad complexities to perceive the things that the Yeomans family perceived
and to recognise the implications and the possibilities that flow from this
perceiving and reflecting.
PA Yeomans developed a chisel plough
for Keyline ploughing that was called the Bunyip Slipper Imp with Shakaerator
(that is it shakes and aerates). This shaking action reduces soil compaction. P. A. Yeomans won the Prince Phillip Agricultural Design
Award in 1974 for his design of this plough. PA’s son Allan who had an
engineering background worked closely with his father on plough design and
production. The plough is shown in photo 5.
The plough has the effect of placing a loose cap on a chisel groove so there is air and space for water run-off to run along in the grooves underground. This cap on the top of the groove minimises evaporation by sun and wind (Foster 2003). These changes to the soil and water interaction are vital in the driest inhabited country in the World. P. A. did not use ploughing that inverted the soil as he found that it damaged soil ecology. In Diagram 2 below, the red lines depict rainwater run-off (in an ‘S’ shaped curve) as it happens without the chisel ploughing. Once the run-off hits the chisel ploughing it is turned around and runs out along the ridges on both sides of the valley. Note that the chisel ploughing is parallel to the Keyline above and below the Keyline. Note also that because of the shape of the land both above and below the Keyline, the ploughing both above and below soon goes of contour in a downhill direction as can be seen at the places marked A and B on the diagram.
On the ridges, chisel ploughing is
carried out parallel to a selected contour line as depicted in Diagram 3 below.
This ploughing pattern on the
ridges also turns the rain or irrigation water flowing on the ridges from
running off the sides of the ridge in an ‘S’ shaped curve to the valley floor.
The chisel cuts have the water again turned so that it runs at a much shallower
slope along the side of the ridge. This again slows the speed of run-off
and allows the water to be stored as it passes through the soil. Water seeping
through the soil all the way to creeks and rivers through Keyline channels
tends to emerge as crystal clear spring water out of the banks of creeks and
rivers either on the Keyline property or in neighbouring properties.
Keyline
ploughing is not the same as contour ploughing. When Keyline pattern ploughing
goes ‘off contour’ as all contour cultivation does, it does so with a unique
and important effect; this chisel ploughing results in shifting the direction
of flow of surface water so it flows down hill more slowly along the sides of
the primary ridges on each side of the primary valley. Keyline pattern
plowing intercepts the flow of surface water causing it to drift sideways in the furrows
away from the steep sides of primary ridges toward the flatter middle area
(adjacent to the water divide line) of primary ridges. When runoff water
finally reaches the primary valleys, the Keyline pattern ploughing causes the
water to spread wide and shallow, especially when it reaches any grassy valley
floor. Erosion ceases to be a problem and any existing erosion gutters can
start to heal. Soil conservation banks and artificial grassed waterways
intended to safely dispose of farm water become obsolete.
When
engaged in Keyline ploughing in the primary valley each pass of the cultivation
equipment working parallel down from the Keyline stops in the steepest area
which is the actual side of the valley. A U turn is done, turning in the down
slope direction and cultivation resumes travelling back adjacent to the ripping
just done till the steepest area on the other side of the valley is reached, at
which point another U turn is done. Cultivation proceeds down through the
valley in this way. The pattern starts near to contour (depending on the
guide line chosen; as it may be a channel sloping in either direction). The
grade or angle progressively increases till the operator deems the “off
contour” effect sufficient or excessive and at this point starts working down
from a lower near contour guide line.
Soon it will
be obvious to the operator driving the
tractor and doing the cultivation that the cultivation is on an
ascending grade towards the valley’s flow line (the centre line), and once past
the centre line this becomes a descending grade, which is progressively more
off contour when travelling from the centre of the valley around and
down towards the sides of the valley. To
express this another way, when travelling towards the centre line (technically
called a flow line) of the valley, the path being travelled is gaining height.
This
is why the water flows back the other way in the cultivation furrows. When the
tractor reaches the centre line of the valley and the operator makes the turn
to head out of the valley towards the ridge on the other side, the grade or
slope he will follow is a descending one, and more so as the pattern develops.
Runoff water will follow the rip marks away from the centre of the valley to
lower areas on the side of the valley. Hence the ploughing pattern has a water
spreading effect in the valley floor.
Photo 5 Bunyip Slipper Imp with Shakaerator
Diagram 2.
Rain and irrigation water being turned out along both ridges – adapted diagram
from P. A. Yeomans’ book ‘Water for Every Farm’ (1965, p. 60) – used with permission
Diagram 3. Keyline Ploughing Process for Ridges - from
P. A. Yeomans’ book ‘Water for Every Farm’ (Yeomans,
P. A. 1965, p. 60) – used
with permission.
In contrast, contour ploughing
parallel to contours other than the Keyline contour soon has water running towards
the valley’s flow line further up the valley than would naturally occur rather
than away from it towards the ridges (from a phone conversation with
Allan Yeomans Dec, 2005). Keyline ploughing is very different to contour
ploughing as described by PA Yeomans in his book ‘The Challenge of Landscape’
(1958a, Ch 6, 1958b, Chap 6).
Contour cultivation, theoretically, is cultivation that
leaves a pattern of all furrows on the true contour. However, every run of the
tractor and plough would need to follow a true contour line marked on the land
with a levelling instrument or the land must be of perfectly even slope.
Contour cultivation, as practised, is neither of these. It is simply
cultivation in the spaces between contour lines that have been levelled-in and
marked on the land by permanent or semi-permanent furrows or banks. It leaves a
pattern of furrows half parallelling up from the lower contour and half
parallelling down from the marked contour above. This pattern is illustrated on
our map-diagram (below), which is a contour map of an actual land form, typical
of country with a medium but not hard rock base. It is granite type country.
The pattern of practical contour cultivation is illustrated
by the broken lines each representing many actual furrows on the land. Arrow
heads on the lines illustrate the downhill direction of the furrows. Furrows
without arrows may be accepted as contour lines.
It is seen from Diagram 4 that half the lines with arrows
(the top right hand set in the top diagram) fall downhill in the general
direction of the flow path and of the
valley, thereby tending to cause earlier
concentration of run-off and faster
flow to the valley. An approximately equal number slope downhill in the
opposite direction and away from the valley, opposing the flow lines, which at any point are at right angles to
contour lines, causing the run-off to spread as intended with the
Keyline pattern cultivation. Contour cultivation is therefore much better than
straight-line or round-the-paddock work.
Ken Yeomans in a March 2007
conversation described the fundamental difference in Keyline ploughing (refer
Yeomans (2003):
Keyline cultivation, however, produces a pattern
of furrows in which all, or a very large majority redirect the
natural flow pattern of water over land surfaces.
The result is when runoff
water reaches the flow line of a valley it forms a wider, shallower and slower
flowing stream than would otherwise occur. Only Keyline pattern cultivation has
this unique and important effect.
Diagram 4
from PA Yeomans (1958a, Chap 6, 1958b, Chap 6) used with permission
Photo 6. Plate 3 from K & PA Yeomans book (1993) (used with
permission).
Keyline pattern cultivation holds water on a primary ridge. The source
water can be from heavy rain or from the flooding stream from a Keyline irrigation
channel. In either case the water is restrained from running off the
ridge and given time to soak into the soil.
Diagram 5. Figure 12. From K & PA
Yeomans book (1993) (used with permission).
This plan emphasises the boundary between and the pattern formed by
primary valley cultivation and primary ridge cultivation. After the cultivation
is done the boundary becomes indistinguishable.
Creating
Deep Soil Fast
There is fractal like repetition in
nature (Mandelbrot 1983) and in the Yeomans’
designs. Neville said that one of his father’s design principles was ‘work with
the free energy in the system’ (Dec 1993, July 1998). This was evident in the
Yeomans use of design layout that maximized the capacity to use gravity.
Another example of thriving free energy is creating the context for the massive
increase in detritivores (worms and other organisms that break down detritus -
decaying organic matter) for generating new soil.
P.A and Neville did not rest with
the notion prevailing in most quarters, that it can take up to 800 years to make
ten centimetres of soil by rock erosion and other breaking-down processes. They
asked how they could create ten centimetres or more of new topsoil in a few
years. They reasoned that vibrant living soil could be created by
constituting an underground context/environment bringing together detritivores
with ideal combinations of air, moisture, seasonal warmth and a steady supply
of organic detritus (dead organic matter).
They knew that cropping a certain
height off grasses and plants just before flowering/seeding either by grazing
or cutting created a shock to the plant and a comparable size of dieback in
root systems. The energy that the plant had geared up for flowering and seeding
is diverted into rapid growth for survival. The roots that die create the
organic material for decomposing. What’s more, the dead organic root matter is already
spread underground through the soil where it is needed. The space previously
taken up by the roots become air chambers. The cut vegetation material was also
recycled into the soil and for a time acts as mulch holding in any moisture
present. The plant responds with vigorous new growth that is strategically
irrigated. Keyline chisel ploughing and flood-flow irrigation would increase
soil moisture content and reduce compaction.
This combination supplied the conditions for a massive increase in detritivores (Yeomans, P. A. 1971b; Yeomans, P. A. 1971a; Yeomans and Murray Valley Development League 1974; Yeomans 1976). Ten centimetres of new topsoil was created in three years – something that was previously thought to take around 800 years! Earthworms emerged in abundance, the size of which (over 60 cm or 24 inches) had never been seen before in the region. The Riverland Journal carried an article stating that H. Schenk, head of the Farm Bureau of America described Nevallan earthworms as being among the best he had seen. His words were, ‘Boy this must be the best soil ever was’ (Yeomans 1956; Yeomans, P. A. 1971b; Yeomans, P. A. 1971a). Neville told me (December 1993) he heard one well-travelled visitor saying that the only other place he had seen comparable worms was in the fertile fields of the Nile delta in Egypt.
Photo 7.
Chisel ‘terracing’ effect and the
water harvesting achieved – Photo from P.A. Yeoman’s book ‘City Forest Plate 1 – used with permission
In P. A. Yeomans’ ‘City Forest’ Book (1971b; 1971a) he acknowledges the seminal supporting role Neville played in the forming of his ideas:
‘….as psychiatrist and sociologist, for keeping me up to date on the social and community implications’.
He had Neville write the Forward (Appendix 4) to this last book (The City Forest) about adapting his ideas to the design and layout of a city.
Thirty
years after P.A.'s death, the system he established on the farm still works by
itself with little maintenance required. As can be seen from the photo below
that I took in July 2001 when I walked the farm with Stuart Hill, the farm
still looks like sweeping gardens or a golf course. The surrounding farms were
covered with dry brown grass.
Photo 8.
The farm during July 2001 looking back to the Keypoint at the left of the dam
Neville had evolved Fraser House back in 1959 when P. A. had Keyline well under way. Neville worked closely with his father throughout Neville’s years at Fraser House and Fraser House outreach in the years 1968 through 1971 when the City Forest Book was published. In the Forward to the City Forest Neville sums up Keyline’s soil approach in these terms:
‘The soil which gives us life must be developed in its own living processes so that it grows richer year by year rather than poorer.’
In the 1970’s, Neville wrote a weekly column in the Now Newspaper (a Sydney suburban paper) called ‘Yeomans Omens’ (Various Newspaper Journalists 1959-1974). In this column he wrote that between 20,000 and 50,000 acres of Keyline forest could totally absorb and purify the liquid effluent of Sydney. From this City Forest clean water would re-enter the rivers and dams or the sea. A natural by-product would be copious new fertile soil.
Photo 9.
The
Header to Neville’s Newspaper column in the Now Newspaper
On 24 April 1974 P.A. Yeomans sent off to the South Australian Government a design for the proposed City of Monarto in South Australia. Monarto was to be a large metropolis to be built within the Japanese ‘Multi-Function Polis’ model[8] for a population of 200,000. PA Yeomans based his design upon the Keyline ideas in his book, ‘The City Forest’. A copy of these plans is in the NSW Mitchell Library (Yeomans and Murray Valley Development League 1974). In keeping with connexity, Yeomans’ proposal linked into all the aspects of the local context into his the design including reckoning land-scale factors, as well as geological structure and other features including: shape, form, climate, natural plant cover, various soil types, capacities for development and use for the city, climate factors - prevailing wind, pattern of temperature, annual rainfall, amount and incidence of runoff, including all water that flows from outside and across the cityscape, waste water, and water runoff from roads, roofs, and sealed surfaces. Yeomans’ proposal incorporated the use of city effluent for irrigation of forests to be planted in the proposed city, and the purification of the surplus water by passing it through the forest soil and biosystem.
The Monarto plan mentions that:
‘Many species of trees that grow in medium rainfall areas respond to the greatly increased water and fertilizing factors of the effluents by producing several times their normal timber and with improved cell and fibre structure.
For instance, trees for fence posts are available three years after planting.
By that time rainforest soil will have been created more than 150cm (5 feet) deep (my italics) (Yeomans and Murray Valley Development League 1974).
Many other people and groups sent in design proposals. There was a large amount of conjecture about and resistance to the concept of Multi-Function Polis and the city of Monarto was never built.
Designing Farms
A
fundamental aspect of Keyline is that it involves design, and not just any
design; rather, a design guided by nature in the local place and context, such
that the resultant design superbly fits the local natural system. The Yeomans
let nature tell them what to do. They always attended to nature and respected
the design in nature, and designed and redesigned their interventions in a way
that melded in with nature’s design, ‘design principles’ and emergent
properties (Capra 1997, p.28). The Yeomans used ‘dynamic living systems’ as a strategic frame
in their thinking, design work and action. They also used bio-mimicry
(mimicking nature) in their designs (Suzuki and Dressel 2002, p. 66,
110). They engaged with all of the inherent aspects of the farm as a
holarchical living system (Holonic Manufacturing Systems
2000). They were ever aware that the ‘wholes’ in the living systems of
the farms were made up of parts, and these parts were themselves wholes made up
of parts. The Yeomans were very connected to this web of linkages.
After
the Yeomans had introduced some changes to the soil environment the massive
changes were self-organizing. The soil, organic matter, water and
detritivores, as naturally occurring integrated systems, had emergent
qualities; that is, aspects started emerging, or coming into being, which had
not being present at lower levels of organization.
In December 2005, Allan Yeomans told me that the special properties and significance of Keypoints and Keylines, as well as the associated design principles such as Keyline cultivation, and placement of roads, fences and irrigation channels were slowly realised over a number of years. Keyline insights and design principles guide placement of paddocks, rows of trees as windbreaks and shade for stock, fences, gates, and roads. Landform and flood irrigation flow are also taken into account in designing where paddock boundaries are placed. The photo below shows the strategic design of tree plantings as windbreaks and shade for livestock.
Photo 10. Aerial photo of the Trees on Nevallan - Photo from Priority One – Together We can Beat Global Warming (Yeomans, A. 2005, p. 137) – Used with permission
Before P. A. and his sons’ work, Australian (and other) farms had rarely been
designed. They tended
to evolve in a haphazard or ‘traditional’ way – ‘this is the way we always do
it’. Farmers would impose their will on nature (‘dominion over’ in the Jewish
and Christian tradition). If something was ‘in the way’, farmers would
‘bulldoze’ it out of the way.
In designing and using Keyline, things are placed
relative to other system parts and place for maximizing working well with nature,
functionality, emergence, inter-related fit, and use of free energy in the
system (for example, using gravity, and the transformative energy of the detritivores that break down
organic matter). Neville spoke to me (Dec 1993) of his father constantly fine-tuning
things till they would fit. Neville described this as ‘the survival of the
fitting’. This is discussed more fully in other places (Yeomans 1954; Yeomans,
Percival. A. 1955; Yeomans 1958b; Yeomans 1958a; Holmes 1960; Yeomans, P. A.
1965; Yeomans, P. A. 1971b; Yeomans, P. A. 1971a; Yeomans 1976; Yeomans and
Yeomans 1993; Hill 2000; Holmgren 2001; Yeomans 2001; The Development Of Narrow
Tyned Plows 2002).
Neville’s father made repeated use of ‘do the opposite’ type lateral thinking. For example, P.A. experimented with putting a pipe through dam walls – something conventional wisdom said was never done because of ‘inevitable’ wash out along the outside of the pipe. Neville’s father solved this problem by putting baffles along the outside of the pipe. Water running along the outside would carry with it small gravel and soil particles that would be trapped by the baffles and fill in any gaps and compact the soil around the outside of the pipe and therefore strengthen the seal around it. Because dams were placed high in the land topography, all the Yeomans had to do was turn on the valve on the outside base of each dam wall on their properties and they had gravity fed flowing water. No pumps and associated power were required.
Diagram 6. Pipe through dam wall with the dam filled to the
Keypoint marked by the square
Given that Australia is the
driest inhabited continent and the wide spread concern about the extensive and
prolonged drought in Australia, and concerns about water storage, allocation
and use, and the capture and use of storm water and grey water in urban areas,
as well as the social relocation of farmers to open up new farming areas the
Australia’s far North, it is timely to revisit PA Yeoman’s work especially within
a context of Dr Neville Yeomans application of his father’s ideas in
re-constituting society.
Ideas are evolving for
applying the Keyline wisdom above in increasing the fertility and volume of
soil on Pacific Islands as a world model towards fertile futures.