Good morning, and welcome to the 11th edition of our monthly newsletter, Reading Landscapes.

The end of the year has come around quickly, and this will be the final newsletter for this year. I thank you for reading and sharing your fantastic feedback - it is fulfilling to hear that you’re enjoying reading this newsletter monthly.

I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

While you're hopefully having a break, think about any questions you’d like answered and send them through for the newsletter next year.

Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

• Charging your landscape

• How to deal with Prickly Pear

• Leaching… how can I manage it

• What we’ve been learning

🔎 Looking at the Landscape

Like us to discuss a photo of your landscape? Share it with us here. 

Looking through photos recently, I realised that it’s been almost a year since we undertook a trial at Forage Farms to see how the impact of charging our contours in the dry season would play out when the rains arrived.

Last winter was a very tough season in the local area, with it being one of the driest years in the lead-up to summer. With little rain, I wanted to conduct a test whereby we began charging our contours to get the landscape's hydrology working and moisten the subsoil. The plan was that when the rains did arrive, water wouldn’t need to try and hydrate the soil as that was already complete. It could all go to the plant and maximise plant growth.

This would also mean that because we had already filled our soil with water when the rains arrived, the potential for our fertility to be leached away would be minimised, as the rain would fall on soils where the hydrology was already in place and prepared.

How did we do this trial? Well, we just filled the contours. We pumped water (and fertility) from the lower parts of our landscape into higher contours. We spread that water across the landscape and over the top to begin stimulating the hydrology.

Why do this:

• Stimulate your plants and prepare them for the rain that’s coming

• Keep your landscape hydrology functioning and the area hydrated to maintain production

• Bring fertility and water back to the top of the landscape for reuse rather than be lost

What were the results?

As you can see from the photos, water definitely impacts the number of green-growing plants during the dry season. However, the most significant impact was the time it took for the other plants to grow and become dominant after rain arrived. In that case, it was almost instantaneous.

However, the results are what we were after. We should have started the process earlier; the dry season had already set in by the time we started. The results would have been better if we had started earlier in the year and continued with a monthly session of charging the contours. I will try this in the future when we see another dry season coming.

🌳 Learning from Plants

Have a plant you’d like to discuss? Share it with us here.

Prickly Pear

Common Names: Common Pear, Nopales, Prickly Pear, Common Pest Pear, Australian Pest Pear, Tree Cactus, Rabbit Ears Cactus

Scientific Name: Opuntia species

Where in the Succession: Early Succession Accumulator

This month, we will be looking at Prickly Pear. A plant that is well known around the world, the term Prickly Pear is a collective name for the opuntia family, of which there are more than 150 species around the world.

Interestingly, it was first introduced to Australia and many places worldwide for the cultivation of cochineal insects, which produced a purple die for industry. It happily took up residence and led to widespread growth.

What is it telling me about my landscape?

Prickly Pear is an early succession accumulator or pioneer species tasked with building a landscape. The plant is armed with spikes and designed in a way that is not to be messed with so that it can continue growing and complete its role. It is perfectly adapted to a hot and dry climate with its large water holding capacity and its ability to close stomata during the day, unlike most other plants, and instead complete gas exchange at night - a perfect adaptation for the harsh, dry climates that it is found in¹ .

Where will I find Prickly Pear growing, and why is it growing there?

As discussed above, the Prickly Pear is perfectly adapted to harsh, dry climates, often growing in arid-like conditions. Landscapes that Prickly Pear is found growing frequently exhibit the following characteristics;

• Well-draining, low-quality soils that are sandy or gravelly

• Low soil moisture levels

• Little to no organic matter is present

• Limited to no soil life

How can we manage Prickly Pear?

As land stewards, we can begin to implement practices that shift the environment and move the succession forward by understanding the conditions in which prickly pear grows.

Some ways we can look to manage the Prickly Pear include;

🌧️ Manage your water. Prickly Pear is an excellent species for drier and more arid environments. By starting to focus on your hydrology and beginning to create systems that promote the rehydration of the landscape, we can create an environment that is more suited to higher successional species, and by managing the Prickly Pear with the steps listed below, we can make the opportunity for those other species to begin growing.

✂️ Thin out the Prickly Pear. By getting in and removing the Prickly Pear, we can open up the environment and create an opportunity for other species to germinate and begin growing. Before doing this, we must ensure the environment is ready to support the species we plan to follow.

Note that if you plan to thin by mechanical means, this must be actively monitored, as Prickly Pear pads can directly root from the pad itself and start a new plant once they have fallen on the ground. This is an extraordinary example of its hardiness, further promoting its ability to be an early successional species.

⬆️ Increase your soil fertility and organic matter. Prickly Pear will happily grow in lighter and less fertile soils, but if we step in intending to increase our organic matter and improve the soil, we can create the conditions to support higher-order species. Some ways of beginning this could be by adding organic matter like mulch, compost, manure, or a combination. This will help add fertility to support higher-order species and hold more moisture to create an environment for those plants to grow.

🌳 Incorporate more plant diversity into the landscape. Prickly Pear often grows in landscapes that once had tree cover: forests, open woodlands, and similar landscapes. In many cases, the trees and plant diversity from these landscapes were removed to make way for pasture, and the Prickly Pear happily took up residence to increase diversity and try and return the landscape to what it once was.

To manage this, we could selectively thin the Prickly Pear and leave some of it, or we could try to fulfil its role by adding trees, shrubs, and other plant species to increase the diversity again.

How to make the most of your Prickly Pear

🪨 As a Soil Indicator: Low Calcium, High Potassium, Higher Copper, Low Humus, Sandy soils, Little biology, Low moisture levels²

🐮 Livestock: Prickly Pear can provide livestock with a critical feed supply during dry periods of little growth. It has a high water content, contains essential minerals and a moderate protein content of 4 - 8%³

The edibility of the plant is an issue for livestock; a study researching the utilisation of Opuntia for livestock forage found that using fire to burn off the spines from the plant significantly increased utilisation by the livestock and created an adequate feed source for the herd during more challenging periods⁴ . Trials were also completed on cutting down cactus plants and feeding them through a chopper before being fed to livestock.

💊 Medicinal: Research has found that the Opuntia species can lower blood sugar levels, reducing levels between 17% and 46%⁵ . Further research is currently looking into its effectiveness at lowering cholesterol levels and its potential anticancer and antiviral properties for helping with autoimmune diseases.

Traditionally, the plant has also been used as a topical application for wound healing and treating burns due to its ability to act as a coagulant and treat inflammation⁶ .

🍽️ Consumption: Unlike most cacti, the entire Prickly Pear plant is edible, but care must be taken to remove the thorns on both the fruits and pads. Mexicans consider it the la planta de vida (plant of life)⁷ .

Young pads can be used in salads, or they can also be boiled or steamed to improve tenderness. That’s just the beginning; they can be grilled, pickled, or canned. The fruit can be eaten fresh or turned into juices, jams, syrups and alcoholic or fermented drinks. The possible uses of the Prickly Pear pads are nearly endless.

If you want more details on the nutritional benefits or even some recipes to start your foraging journey, check out Eating Cactus: Prickly Pear for Food by the University of Nebraska.

Interestingly, Prickly Pear is also being used for the creation of;

• Biofuel

• Bioplastics, and;

• Plant Leather

Showing further uses for the plant.

🙋 Answering your Questions

Ask the Team! Share your question here, and we’ll answer it in a future newsletter.

💬 Tom Asks:

How do you manage against the effects of leaching?

🎙️ Hamish’s Answer:

The installation of contours to manage water, increase infiltration, and build up the water table of your landscape is one way you can manage against leaching.

However, plants are more efficient at the task in many ways and offer the best prevention. The best plants at preventing leaching can go deep with their roots, bring fertility to the surface, and collect those losses. In particular, trees and coarse vegetation, like weeds, provide the best results.

By incorporating these plants across our landscapes and, in particular, our accumulation areas, we can begin to reverse leaching by the plants slowing the movement of water across a landscape whilst sending their roots down deep to return the lost minerals to the surface where they are now readily accessible to other plants.

Now that we have set up our accumulation areas with trees and some contours, we can also aid this process by recycling our fertility and returning it to the top. If we can manage against leaching whilst also bringing new fertility into the landscape, we can potentially boost that landscape’s productive capacity.

When planting these areas, we must focus on a diversity of species. If your climate suits, including a large percentage of deciduous trees, would be beneficial as they provide yet another source of fertility along with excellent resistance to fire.

📚 What We’ve Been Learning

A quick list of our favourite things we’ve been watching, reading, listening, and writing.

Mobile Milking: An interesting approach to the dairy industry. The idea of being mobile allows for the enterprise to be taken anywhere. For the landscape, the increased amount of fertility from the milking area can be moved around and spread across the property, allowing you to continuously cycle fertility without having to move it manually.

Farmer Stories with Martin Royds: Meet TPT graduate Martin Royds and look around his property, “Jillamatong”, and the works implemented to restore natural landscape function.

Huge* If True: I’ve enjoyed this YouTube series by journalist Cleo Abram, who explores interesting tech areas with detailed explanations.

Heifer USA visits Polyface Farm: Heifer USA visits Polyface Farm and tours with Daniel Salatin. Obviously, like many people, I admire Polyface, and what we do at Forage Farms is based around the Polyface model, so I always enjoy a farm tour video and see what they’ve been up to.

1  Stomatal Opening Mechanism of CAM Plants - Journal of Plant Biology

2  Weedy Wednesday – Prickly Pear

3  NUTRITIONAL VALUE OF OPUNTIA FICUS-INDICA AS A RUMINANT FEED IN ETHIOPIA

4  UTILIZATION OF OPUNTIA FOR FORAGE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

5  Prickly Pear Cactus

6  Prickly pear

7  Prickly Pear Cacti: Food, Medicine, Legend, a Symbol of Mexico and a Favorite Florida Plant | Naples Botanical Garden

8  Prickly pear and its nemesis: A plain grey-brown moth