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Redman Regular Member Joined: 12/06/2010 Location: AustraliaPosts: 41
Posted: 05:14am 24 Jun 2010
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Not lost, they go overseas and do well.
Even I have a modern farming concept no one is using that involves a distribution model no one is using but its going to be years before I can prove it. Once set up it should be very profitable, efficient and productive employing 10 or more people. Drought, hail, frost is not an issue. Cotton, Wheat, Barly, Canolola, fruits and veg all grown organically all year round.
OH&S is easy to work with and so are taxes. Its getting the money to start with and dealing with stupid, ignorant local governments that is the hardest part.
VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539
Posted: 10:07am 24 Jun 2010
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Hi Redman
All the best of luck on you getting it going, and may the force be with you dealing with the cretin pubic serpents that will do their very best to stop you from doing something beneficial. And I sincerely hope you don't get flushed down the bio toilet by the import of second grade chemical laced products from Asia.
All the best
BobFoolin Around
Redman Regular Member Joined: 12/06/2010 Location: AustraliaPosts: 41
Posted: 05:10pm 24 Jun 2010
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Thanks Bob
I won't be using any chemicals, not one!
Asian fertilizer has mercury binder and potassium salts that damage soils especially clay ones. Clay + salts and metals is not good.
I will be employing natural methods of controlled flooding and media to produce weed free crops. Basically its a giant hydro like setup on a standard broad acre lot. Yeah, it costs a bucket of money to set up but the water saved (in giga liters) would pay itself off in 10 years over 100 acres. IIRC 1 gl = $40,000 depending on state and river.
I am getting good results in a controlled environment with 6 times the yields and 1/100th of the water loss. This method is analogous to the floodplain cropping where regular winter floods kill off weeds and leave nutrient rich soils full of biology. All I am doing is recreating this effect using a sealing method and irrigation technology that is fairly grass roots and basic but it does perform beautifully.
Given Australia is an arid region with prolific droughts I think I can get cotton and rice growing double the yield in half the space in half the time reliably.
It still remains organic because the fertilizer originates from animals and it forms a closed loop.
Australia needs a better way of farming broad acre crops reliably. I like a challenge..Edited by Redman 2010-06-26
VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539
Posted: 12:47am 25 Jun 2010
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Hi Redman
Have you looked into a combination of fish farming combined with it as some I worked on in Asia use the filter water from the fish ponds to fertilize the rice paddies.
They have plenty of water up there so that's not a problem but if you have water to flood irrigate with it could be put to two uses, the water borne insects and so from the paddy are supplementary food for the fish. You would need some more turkey nest dams but they are cost effective with the extra income from fish.
All the best
Bob Foolin Around
Redman Regular Member Joined: 12/06/2010 Location: AustraliaPosts: 41
Posted: 05:40am 25 Jun 2010
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Aquaponics the back bone of the system.
Cheers.
Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1450
Posted: 08:52am 25 Jun 2010
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That wouldn't be BHP's infamous HBI plant Dom, I was living in Hedland at the time and the only to get a job there was applying for it in NZ. As a contractor I was working for a conveyor belt mob and the main feed bucket broke and crashed to the base. It was our job to hook a line to it and raise it to re-connect it, our H2S senors were beeping constantly and the HBI worker said keep working your only a contractor so turn the sensors off. My boss replied to him well your our rep on this job so you aint going anywhere... When we got back to the workshop my boss made a unsafe report which was swept under the carpet in the interest of the kiwi workers.
Another good one from that plant, I was working in a machine shop when a HBI worker came in needing a 1" bore coupling made, I told him I gave the bore a 0.005" crush so tell the fitter to put it in the pie oven to warm up. No sooner I got home and cracked a beer the phone rang and I got called out AGAIN, the same guy was there asking for another coupling to be machined. It turned out the fitter tried to use a 14lb hammer to install it and when asked by the foreman what kind of fitter would use a 14lb hammer to install a 1" coupling the fitter replied in his kiwi voice ' a carpet fitter bro'. Now can you believe this the guy wasn't sacked.
It's no wonder that site was scrapped, the concept was a valid idea and the 5 or so Billion spent was in vain as to make any project work getting the 'mates in' just doesn't cut the mustard and the wholesale plundering was a site to see.
VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539
Posted: 10:57am 25 Jun 2010
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Hi Brian
I have worked in the engineering field for years and it always surprised me how difficult it is to get people with common sense and a feeling for the job. These days with added influence of drugs it is even worse.
Even the basic education of reading and writing is nearly totally absent and as for comprehension of blueprints and instruction manuals they can read the words but no further connection to the brain.
Its not just here though as I have had the same problems in Asia USA and the UK. Haven't worked in NZ but the few Kiwi's I have worked with here where eager to learn new skills.
The worst ones I came across where the new out of collage or university and Knew it all.
All the best
BobFoolin Around
Redman Regular Member Joined: 12/06/2010 Location: AustraliaPosts: 41
Posted: 05:49pm 25 Jun 2010
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I guess you can put me in that bucket, my English writing skills are no better than year 7 and I know it.
Where does that ' and the , go again?
Spelling?
Pffft.
I can read a blue print fine though, hand me a schematic and I am not lost on it.
You should see my hand writing, I should have been a doctor of medicine.
I can only blame myself, failing to control many aspects of idiots sitting behind me sticking chewing gum in my hair and taking a shining to kicking the crap out of me after school because I was a "geek who drew gum leaves".
(You know those books Darwin wrote with the pictures?.....meh...)Edited by Redman 2010-06-27
domwild Guru Joined: 16/12/2005 Location: AustraliaPosts: 873
Posted: 11:20pm 25 Jun 2010
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Redman,
Is yours a "ponds and swales" system to catch the water? Read about it in permaculture magazines. Am trying to establish something similar on my plantation but with only a tractor and small bucket it takes a long time.Taxation as a means of achieving prosperity is like a man standing inside a bucket trying to lift himself up.
Winston Churchill
VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539
Posted: 01:08am 26 Jun 2010
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Hi Redman
That's why computers have spell checkers, but the important part of learning process it the comprehension and the ability to do and understand the job at hand, in my experience a good TA is often better than the Tradesman he is assisting.
While I was away overseas working a few years ago my milling machine electric control box was vandalized when I needed it going again my friend a systems electrician volunteered to repair it for me, after two days he went away pulling hid hair out.
I spent a couple of hours with the cutters to clear all the clutter and rewired it from scratch the next day.
The point of this is that a bit of knowledge and starting with a clean slate is easier than trying to get a rats nest of wires working.
You didn't let the Idiots with chewing gum stop you or intimidate you as you are doing and they are probably working for the council filling pot holes.
Hi Dom
Have a look at the Keyline System we used it with great success in victoria many years ago, we also made a special device for contour cultivating on the slopes to prevent wash damage erosion and stimulate pasture growth.
All the best
Bob Foolin Around
Redman Regular Member Joined: 12/06/2010 Location: AustraliaPosts: 41
Posted: 06:45am 26 Jun 2010
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@vk
They ended up as tradesmen.
One is a Cop (lol)
Another a concreter.
None have their own business.
It takes time I guess but it will pay off. Swales simply slow down down the water loss.
How old is the plantation?
Have you tried digging in pits and traps? e.g a crate with a geo textile wrap that will hold 20 liters at root level or lower for days on end in clay soils.
Part of the problem in Australia is irrigation and shallow roots. Shallow roots + drought = multiples of water use and vulnerable crops.
The deeper you can get your roots the better and a pipe in the ground to deliver air.
If you can do it, dig a 2 meter wide 2m deep ditch, line it with plastic, try not to puncture it and keep it level by "stepping" it down. Once done cover them over and plant your trees directly on top.
Join the ditches with sealed pipe and in the ditches use ag pipe wrapped in geo fabric. Now you have a deep well from which to feed the plants. Water will spill in and dwell before it rises up through the substrate. It will "bloom" out like cauliflower feeding the roots on all sides.
Keep a level detection method so you know its not overflowing.
So you can, using basic math extrapolate in how much is being consumed and how its blooming in 3 dimensions.
You can reasobly establish where its getting to and then you can set your pump timer to work with the soils you have and the their absorption rates.
Once a bloom has been achieved you have to drain the excess away and allow the water suspended to sink again. This keeps it away from the top where you will loose it and where it will feed weeds..
Clusters of weeds will telltale of over supply or leveling errors. You can fix these in winter when your trees are dormant.
Drip ammonia in small quantities or Seasol into the feed water.
This will feed your trees.
You will need to fill then allow it to completely empty once a week at least, this draws oxygen into the reservoir which feed plants and kills nasties. the ammonia breaks down into nitrate (via bacteria) and ammonia is a product of bacteria so its organic. 1ml of Ammonia per 100 liters is plenty. There are test kits for you so you know everything about your sub soils condition and nutrient load, this is how you get to it, the water feeding out in drain cycle contains all the data you need. PH, nutrients, Dissolved Oxygen and if you can, get a 1000x microscope and learn how to gram stain. Then you will know what is living down there.
Agg pipe (300mm) is about $1.80/m direct from Rockla.
Plastic sheeting is $90 cents/m direct. it doesn't need to be super tough liner, it just needs to create a mostly impermeable trench.
Reasoning?
Ditches have the greenest grass...
(Ditches with basalt dust are greener)
The ditches will catch excess rain water so your dams will fill overnight on 10mm of rain assuming they are in mass.
You could also try putting big pipes in the ground parallel to the landscape contour using this method. Once they fill they stay filled until you use the water. It remains cool so evaporation loss is minimal.
Each swale is then connected to an overflow pit, then a big pipe.
Each pipe say 1m D X 100 meters = 100,000 liters fully protected from losses.
Over 20 acres and a swale every 10 meters with a pipe arrangement (over time I know were not loaded) you could theoretically safely hold 1ml on your lot with ease and council will know nothing about it. Increase the density and you can hold more than an average dam.
The water will always be 17 degrees...
Just some ideas I want to play with. Experiments here have shown it works.
Plants with some roots that are always wet perform really well. When other parts are dry the toughen up and dig deep but they don't waste a drop. Edited by Redman 2010-06-27
VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539
Posted: 07:40am 26 Jun 2010
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Hi Red and Dom
The method we used was a heavy set of straight disks 30" diameter with a center shaft 8 inches diameter it weighed around 4 tonne with weights on the top carrier it was dragged on the contour lines and cut groves 6 to eight inches deep in the soil every six inches. Instead of the water running off the paddock it went into the cuts and stored in the top soil, it allowed oxygen to penetrate as well and increase the microbiology of the soil, seeds washed into the cuts and germinated deeper in the damp zone so where more drought tolerant also the fertilizer went into the soil instead of ending up in the creek, Incorporating this method of cultivation with the Keyline contours and dams, there wasnt any run off during normal rain.
The worms loved it and they did their bit to increase fertility, on the heavy clay soils it allowed the dolomite to go deeper and increased the effect no end. As for the trees they got an agg drain pipe each four foot deep and packed around with gravel to allow the water to peculate into the soil, each row of trees has a swale on the low side to give the water time to penetrate.
So much for my farm which was a hole in the ground I poured money into rather than give it to politicians to waste.
All the best
BobFoolin Around
Redman Regular Member Joined: 12/06/2010 Location: AustraliaPosts: 41
Posted: 08:07pm 26 Jun 2010
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Nice technique, it works well when you do as you say, follow the contours across rather than down. It makes me giggle when I see massive orchards with heaped mounds supporting trees and the mounds run downhill.
When you go and look at Asian farms (Google is enough) that are older than the pyramids themselves you see contoured structured farms with passive irrigation methods. The heavy summer rains are directed to the end of walled orchards much like rice farms then allowed to flow down heavy rock lined "gutters". It all ends up in dams along the way. The interesting part is the organic mass in the soils is so deep it could rain 6 inches and not flood. It takes days for the water to even get to the base rock.
Many lessons to be learned but western farmers, at least organic farmers are only starting to see these features and what they do.
Slow the water down and store the excess, then you have it when you really need it most. In the meantime, as you stated earlier, the water is being injected with ammonia from fish poo that translates almost instantly into nitrate.
And to think big industry mined tropical islands for years to sell ancient fossil bird poo as the "miracle" fertiliser, super phosphate.
phosphate = metal attracts alkaline, Metal + Alkaline = salt
Salt in soil = bad.
Oh well, NM....
It sounds like your farm is doing well and it sounds like you have heavy clays, you must be near the west side of the divide with the hills in view. Does it have degraded granite gravel / grit, rounded river pebbles or sandy binder?
See if you can get your hands on mined basalt (blue stone/ blue metal) dust.
Basalt makes that beautiful black volcanic soil when it breaks down. The dust is super fine particles of this rock. The darker the basalt the better it is.
Bacteria and acids oxidizes the rock into base minerals and mosses will assist in this. If you spread around and manage to invite mosses you will be laughing at how well the mini ecosystem manages water.
Once mosses get established they can hold 100 times their mass in water but also provide massive amounts of slow release, sustained fertilisation just from rock minerals.
Summer heat browns it off but it comes back.
Australia has many species that are the first green things to appear after a fire.
They are turning clay and rock minerals into plant food and establishing a water bank and seeding media.
Amazing stuff.
Basalt dust, fish poo...great!
Turn your prunings and excess into gas, use the gas to power your home, use the waste and the tea from the digester to feed your farm. Its almost all sugar starch
Sugar starch = fungi = worms = castings.
Fungi release enzymes that kill opportunistic and harmful bacteria,compete with other parasitic fungi like die back and provide carbon and sugars direct to the roots. Never dismiss them though be aware they do use nitrates.
For methane...
1 dry tonne Organic anything = average 1000 kwh.
Work out your tonnage of compost mass over a year.
Divide into 48 hour feed lots for your digester. This is the rate you need to lazily feed it. Its a living thing so treat it like a pet and give it a name...
with that number add M^3 with 1:1 water.
Now extrapolate that and work out the tank size required to hold that amount + 12 days.
Once you know what size tank you need you can extract 1000 watts per tonne every hour in perpituity so long as you feed it.
Use the heat from a small generator exhaust to dry your waste and heat the tank to an optimal 68 deg C (Buy a cheap small genny as the acids will eat away at it slowly). You can neutralize them by running your gas stream through crushed limestone which will not react explosively like metals will. Once its used up mix it into your compost and the soils will dilute and consume it. To store the gas you can use double size blow up beds or buy a compressor that can work to 12,000 kpi.That is the pressure where Methane liquefies @ 20c IIRC.
Once you get that going, if its what you want to do the loop is closed and you are also getting energy from it without degrading or polluting anything, in fact by digesting it you speed up the break down process 1000 fold.
Nature rocks...
Must sleep / rant over...
Edited by Redman 2010-06-28
domwild Guru Joined: 16/12/2005 Location: AustraliaPosts: 873
Posted: 11:33pm 26 Jun 2010
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Redman,
Interesting! The mounds for the blue gum plantation run along the contours but the winter creeks running through them I will convert to a pond and swale system to hold the water. Blue gums need 800 mm of rain and the district has dropped from 1200/1100 down to the occasional 800 over the last 15 years.
The soil is heavy black soil ex ancient forest, in fact near here is the Treetop Walk. A system of hanging bridges, where tourists can marvel at the tops of ancient tingle trees. The biggest was hollow and could park a car. The original farmer was obliged to clear the forest leading to waterlogged paddocks and minor salting. My plantation is soaking up the water again. Below a few meters of sand is brown clay. Wooded hills in the distance store the water all year long.
Blue metal dust is very good. Some farmers spread carbon from a colliery (from Collie in WA) to return carbon to the soil after many harvests.
We are off-topic and I hope Glenn does not mind.
Taxation as a means of achieving prosperity is like a man standing inside a bucket trying to lift himself up.
Winston Churchill
domwild Guru Joined: 16/12/2005 Location: AustraliaPosts: 873
Posted: 11:14pm 28 Jun 2010
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Redman,
The plantation was planted in 1994, 1996 and 1997 and harvested in 2004, 2006 and 2008.
The comments about hiding water are very timely and correct. Councils or state governments have tried and perhaps succeeded in taxing farmers for keeping water in dams and so it is wise to hide the water underground. Taxation as a means of achieving prosperity is like a man standing inside a bucket trying to lift himself up.
Winston Churchill
VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539
Posted: 02:10am 29 Jun 2010
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Hi Dom
They have been trying to charge for surface water for years, I put a small dam on my property in Victoria for house garden and fire fighting, several years later I got a bill from water resources for the water in my dam as it wasn't collect wholly on my property but from a drain from the forestry behind my property.
So every year I got a bill for the water and every year I would send them a counter bill for storing their water on my property in my dam that went on for a number of years, Other government laws like not cutting firewood from fallen trees on the road verge and what colour my water tank and roof had to be painted made up my mind to move from the Gestapo state, now the cancer of incompetent government is spreading everywhere, example King Lake where they killed those people by not allowing proper clean up of fallen fuel, the government is responsible for the death on that fact alone proper fire management is necessary in high risk areas.
All the best
BobFoolin Around
Redman Regular Member Joined: 12/06/2010 Location: AustraliaPosts: 41
Posted: 05:31am 29 Jun 2010
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Gestapo state = Anywhere but Qld, NSW and Vic?
Kinglake could have been anywhere in this country on that day. I agree councils go too far but that kind of weather even makes any major city vulnerable.
If that fire had started at Rockbank I wonder how many suburbs would have been obliterated before it was controlled. Nothing would help those living in the "green belt" of Melbournes North East. Razed I am afraid, 250,000 dead?
Winds @ 80+kl/h
Humidity below 30%
Temps exceeding 48c
With a landscape already baked to a crisp in the previous week of 5 days of 40+ degrees.
Recipe for disaster I am afraid.
Yes the state government warned people but it failed to act according on the day, thanks to top bureaucrats and their departments. Kinglake will happen again just like Canberra.
People who live in wooded areas need to be more "with it" when it comes to fires. Most of the dead could have been saved with less panic and more common sense and some preparation. Harsh but its a reality, you don't go driving in a fire storm on that scale and even a drain pipe in the ground was safer than an open field.
Councils again are dithering on "specifics" of crossed t's and dotted i's over this.
I suppose if you logged an application to build a hay bale house it would be rejected because its not "approved" materials of treated pine and CSR fibro cladding.
Hay bales are quicker to build than mud brick, have 100 times better performance in ground shake (they can withstand a force 9 earth quake which is unheard of) and are fire rated to 9000 kw m^2 for 6 hours.
Only a concrete bunker is stronger, but meh - let the politicians argue aver bolt colours while Rome is consumed by fire again.
One thing good about this is if you do live in these areas then you know what you are going to face worst case.
Hiding water with more reliable electric pumping and ground sprinklers is better insurance than insurance itself. You can use batteries, the car + inverter and genny so you have 3 options.
Building small walls with ember traps to protect the farm / house is a must. Most homes in Marysville were caught in a "river of fire" as embers scurried along the ground. (also helps reduce moisture loss on windy days and creates pockets of humid air)
A shielding spray of water saved many homes. Using hand made windows with silicone prevented glass cracking in mm prefect factory frames.
One guy saved his lot using 3 powerful sprinklers and 30,000 liters. The entire town burned down but not his house. He was the only one with brains enough to use sprinklers and soak everything?
(Flowerdale)
Rubber hoses = stupid!
Fires burn at 2000kw ^2 in the preceding 10 mins. A fire on a hill 3 kls away is capable of 3000 kwm^2
Would you stick wood and dry leaves in front of a bar heater?
When the fire arrives it shoots up to 6000 kwm^2 and sometimes exceeds that for up to 5 min.
Your roof is now a hotplate with wood under it, the wood is burning and releasing CO (synthesis gas)..tick tock...then bang..
A green roof would save you...
Why build an underground bunker when you can rebuild / redesign your current house to act like one simply by changing a few parameters.
If you can't or don't want to clear the land for whatever reason use it.
Wet leaf material is better than none as it catches embers. Long soaking wet grass is is going to catch 90% of embers. Water undergoing phase change will cool the land. Water having phase changed creates a blanket of dense humidity. It may not "stop" things burning but its going to slow it down giving you a chance to think and act accordingly. So many in that fire had neither opportunity or capacity to do either. So its not all bad.
I am not religious but let my armies be the rocks and the trees and the birds in the sky. Change the parameters and it becomes an asset.
Its easier than fighting council ignorance and what cost is 30 meters of underground poly pipe ($15) a copper riser ($4) and metal sprinkler head ($40) with a rain tank (@5000 lt metal / concrete underground = $3000) and a battery powered pump (batteries x 2 deep cycle @70 AH = $600 and a 100lt min pump = $80). get a few of these and you have every chance.
Edited by Redman 2010-06-30
VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539
Posted: 01:45pm 29 Jun 2010
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Hi Redman
I agree with your summation as I lived in Victoria for 10 years and was a volunteer fire officer in the Ovens valley for most of that time.
On the prevention as the best insurance, I had just that experience in the 70's as a fire, the worst seen in the area ran up the valley and over my house, my house and workshop survived because I had a sprinkler system set up on the roof using galvanized steel pipe, also on the roof of the workshop, powered by a 5hp diesel engine on the aforementioned dam.
However it is a waste of time to use any poly pipe as it softens and bursts even a foot below the ground. The temperatures on the fateful day at my house was over 120c.
When the fire arrived the sprinklers where making steam not water, but the water on the guttering drowned the embers, as I had blocked the down pipes with tennis balls, and as you say the water provided a humidity bubble that helped, I also had sprinklers set up at ground level around the yard and most of the plants survived, The chooks where a bit groggy for a few days but survived.
To get home I had to drive through the fire as it followed the Ovens valley highway, lucky it was well cleared of dead falls, even so the radiant heat burned the paint off the car and cracked the windscreen even the tires where heat blistered, the car was a write off. If there had of been extra fuel along the road I wouldn't of made it, as it was it was like driving through a brick kiln.
The next year we lost one of our fire trucks and crew on mount buffalo, also due to management incompetence.
I wouldn't use an electric pump and batteries as the heat will kill them at the moment they are needed the most, a diesel generator, or better still a diesel water pump, as I have seen the diesel motor still running in smoke and fire that would disable anything else, and you can have a sprinkler running over them without drowning the ignition.
There is a need for more organization if fire prevention and survival in these fire prone areas is going to be achieved. As the climate goes through its heat cycle and stupid greenies supported by stupid government make living there a health hazard.
All the best
BobFoolin Around
Redman Regular Member Joined: 12/06/2010 Location: AustraliaPosts: 41
Posted: 03:40pm 29 Jun 2010
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Hi VK
Climate change is going to get worse and make these conditions appear more often.
The reasoning for buried water supplies. It wont be affected.
Hadley cell is the main reason.
Warm tropical water rises - phase change to ice - falls as tropical storms = heat given off upon phase change to ice = heat circles back around (high pressure system is falling hot air) = hot dry air runs across the landscape (Australia in Summer) driving desiccating conditions. The warmer the water is in Bali the bigger the hot air mass in central Australia is. When it was burning in VIC we had tropical storms in Queensland, Papua New Guinea and over the Timor sea, it was the hot air from these low pressure storms that gave us Black Saturday.
RE: Ovens valley. Love it!
You have Pine plantations to deal with there. Must be lottery for you as a firey?
Have they considered Shiny gums? Nitens?
I remember that recent fire too, made it Mt Beauty IIRC and kept burning in the gully between for a week like a dragon waiting to strike. Made it to Hotham and on to Cobungra?
RE: Greenies, its "real" greenies (Of the grass roots / practical - survivalists kind) that support brush clearing, its the NIMBY crowd protecting their views and landscape (And asset value) that claim of environmental destruction and boo haa, leftist zealots that do often vote green as well and tend to push impractical unworkable solutions that work against the cause of "balance" and survival.
The same "greens" with the brand new Subaru Family 4WD that burns petrol, not diesel and have mammoth amounts of embedded energy in their sprawling homes heated by a small nuclear plant. They also drive to the CBD to work, every day...
I also could be wrong, and painted a different picture to reality. Just my experience with this lot and its "hip" guru middle class artisan city block designer class, latte sipping, Katmandu wearing, arts degree, pipe smoking, adventurous "I went to Tibet" this year on a 400 tonne airplane type.
Science degree?
I also find that selfish bargaining with tree changers are the very people preventing the right policies from taking place. If councils don't want to change the landscape then don't sell the land. If they want to sell the land then expect people to clear the land. At the very least pay an arborist a wager to come and mark those trees which are a threat and can be cleared and save some of the better ones that have seed bank importance. That way X marks the spot and the land owner cannot make mistakes. The council has saved the "right tree/s" and the landscape will be saved on grounds an arborist has done the right job. What the hell is $60k to a budget anyway?
Another pet peve with rural councils is the blatant resistance to high density multi story (2 or 3 level) apartment blocks.
A little Italy in Alexandra with wall to wall Mediterranean style high density living? Not a chance..
What the hell is this "grid" pattern to us if it makes living in a township miserable? What about taking a leaf out of Europe and land the house the way the landscape wants it too? Planning? after the fact!
Can you imagine the councils dealing with that? If you can imagine a town as picturesque as Monsalvat but in higher density, why not build it.
Standards are for pen pushers to tick boxes with. Real planning takes the landscape into account and only then is the building design considered.
AV jennings = pfft!
All this crap about building standards will come to zilch when nothing has been done to firstly address a min road verge clearing on major roads (your supply line / escape route), the supply of water in drought to people at a lower cost and the necessity that all homes be fitted with a correctly functioning and serviceable sprinkler system and that the water exists in the first place. My relatives had just 3000 liters in 30,000 liter tank left. They fled...
Are these issues even covered in the inquiry with recommendations backed by science?
If not then its going to happen all over again because its going to be guessed "best estimates" based on a narrow set of fields and criteria like "treated pine" framed houses which are standard already, not ground breaking and more costly than stuff "grass roots" bomb proof natural homes can come up with. So one gets a set of police reports and a submission from a senior bureaucrat and that is the new standard? I bet it is, I bet it is indeed.
Forget those faux Adobe mud brickers in Kinglake, I know they all burned down, I had friends in them and spent much time pondering them. Exposed timbers, no northern light in winter - they were there as "paintings" with driveway attached. Fire was always going to eat them up because they were never designed for it. They were there to look the part and nothing more. One just near Kinglake town across from the sports field had no less than 6 messmates growing near the top story windows. I know how it burned down and why, its not rocket science, the thing was a time bomb. Right concept, poor execution.
Functional underground bunkers as a last resort? Ones that people won't bake or suffocate in?
RE: Plastic pipes. I wouldn't have thought that heat would penetrate more than 300mm in soils / clays as quickly as that but there is also hot water arriving from tanks and dams too.
Just a guess - 10 min at 2000kw/^2 on a 5000 liter tank would raise its temp from ambient (22 in summer?) to nearly 40 deg assuming it was fully exposed. After an hour its ready to boil...
I guess thats another reason for cheap underground pipes as water stores. Its always going to be 17 deg (in Vic) at 1000mm. Metal fittings for fire support - plastic for everything else?
Sorry to hear of that experience, I went though the Kalorama / Sassafras fires very nearly losing the lot. After seeing that and many burnoffs after those fires I can only go by numbers to stress how dangerous the Australian bush is, never underestimate its capacity to burn, its what it wants to do, it has to for its own survival.
JUst on a side note, people were watching as spot fires touched off grass no less than 40 meters from Sassafras forest. They were watching in shorts, t shirts, one even had a bikini on. 2 people were dying while we were watching. I know why people died on black Saturday. Apart from the fire crews and tanker drivers I was one of just 5 people wearing a jumper. I was in fact ready to drive away having lost it all, the car was packed already, these people were "gawking" and I know what they would have done if the fire started marching their way, they would have panicked and made a hash of everything, I myself was already on a short fuse, I felt strong urgency already and my instincts were in total conflict, no I was not happy with it, not at all I was prepared enough to just keep my head where it should be, these people were playing games with reality! So what becomes of them when "crowd mentality" kicks in a basic survival instincts override logic? I was looking down Clark way waiting for a spark to take Sassafras out and cut us off. We all were in trouble and no one there had a clue.
Have to hand it to the CFA. We had trucks turn up from Bambala, Cooma and Tumit in just 3 hours. Did they fly in?
RE: Kerowood / Messmate / Eu Obliqua / Stringy bark = radiant candles. If you have these on your land, be ready because these trees want to kill all other trees and life so they can set seed, to do that they are designed to burn fiercely from bottom to top in rapid bursts. I have seen these things burn, they are not your friends. They behave like bar heaters that are 30 meters tall and half a meter wide. Smooth barked gums will most likely die but they also won't burn except for on the inside. Smooth barked gums shed their bark in winter so you have spring to clean it up.
Always plant smooth barked gums on your property. Never "wooly" ones.
Never ever plant conifers!
Many natives don't burn in fires or at least resist it. Even grasses like flax won't burn in a fire so easily. If its glossy and green its fire safe and clean, if its grey or brown your house will burn down..
All that land clearing in a gas digester...
1 trailer load = 1000 kw hours.
5 wooded acres = 10 trailer loads + whatever the slasher or goat / horse / mini cow reaps..
Now that I have wasted another 10 min of your life....
Edited by Redman 2010-07-01
VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539
Posted: 12:46am 30 Jun 2010
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Hi Redman
Life is wasted in larger than 10 second or minuet slices, I agree on the greenie concept that you say as the powers to be and be never take notice of the people that KNOW from experience but don't have the BS or MBS after their name.
My father used to say that idiots are self eliminating and your post proves that from the examples you gave these people where in fact mega idiots.
The climate change we are having is, I feel, a natural event that has happened many times over the previous thousands of years, but exacerpated by the world cancer of lack of intelligent planning of the human race combined with commercial greed as demonstrated in the gulf of Mexico.
As I now live in Queensland the fire side of things isn't such an issue, but still I have fire breaks around the house and workshop at least 30 meters wide and only needed them once in the last 30 years, on the western side I have a runway 65 meters wide running the full length of the property 850 meters and on the fire event 10 years ago it stopped the fire progressing further and burning more houses to the east, including mine of course. It gave the fire fighters a point to defend.
Up here the forestry department burn the deadfalls and scrub undergrowth on a regular basis.
On the poly pipes it is a combination of hot feed water lower density soil as the pipe is covered and high pressure from the pump. I have seen electric and aluminum fire fighter pumps partly melted by radiant heat, so imagine the water temp before they failed.
It makes you wonder how many tragedies are needed to get a proper plan in place to deal with fire and lack of water in the high risk areas.
All the best
Bob Foolin Around
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