Regrarians WYSIWYG #CAD #FarmPlanning 23 Years On
We did this design & helped install it for Campbell Mercer and his family at their ‘Manna Hill Estate‘ at the turn of the century.
In 2001 our team used CAD software to design the entire layout of olives, agroforestry, internal road & main dam following the principles and geometry of ‘The Keyline Plan‘—with the result being a ‘What You See Is What You Get’ (WYSIWYG) printing of the plan onto the landscape. These days with Propagate‘s Overyield software & modern GPS tractor guidance hardware (such as AgriCien supplies), doing this kind of work has never been easier.
Yesterday I invited Campbell to talk about the design & how it has rolled out (good, bad & ugly) over the last 23 years.
Here is what he said:
• There’s not a lot I would do differently from a planning perspective – which says a lot about the thoughtfulness of the design and demonstrates, yet again, that taking time over the design can save a great deal of heart ache and/or expense further down the track!
• However, it would have been better to do a full inslope profile on the gravel driveway. Given that nearly half of the last 23 years have been classified as drought (& in the midst of another one) doing everything we could to collect runoff water would have been a worthwhile exercise
• Would have been interesting to see how the mixed species cover crops would have gone given the olives were planted at the start of the ‘Millennium Drought’. Given the conditions at the time they may not have achieved as much as we would have hoped.
• Also as the intensity of rainfall events has increased (but overall rainfall has decreased) the mounded rows may yet again prove their worth. Last year a rainfall event just to the north of us resulted in 220 mm (about 9 inches) in about 20 minutes. Some of our soils definitely could not absorb that amount of water in that time period—so having a design that can handle any associated runoff is a very useful attribute
• The only other thing that we might have given a bit more thought to was integration of livestock (which was definitely not part of the brief!). May not have done anything differently but relying solely on temporary e-fencing can be time intensive (but conversely does give tremendous flexibility)
• Probably the only other comment worth making is that a regenerative design doesn’t make for a regenerative farm—regardless of how good the initial design is. It is the ongoing management to achieve regenerative outcomes that is fundamental to the whole story and although a good design can help this (in terms of management) it really comes down to the practices implemented on a day-by-day basis over the long haul that generates the results.
PS. Campbell’s Manna Hill Estate Olive Oil has been awarded gold medals in the 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 Australian International Olive Awards & is the first olive grove in the world to be certified ‘Regenerative’ (by A Greener World)