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

Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

• Thirsty thunderstorms

• Tough, old Plantain

• What’s the difference

• What we’ve been learning

🔎 Looking at the Landscape

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

As last month’s edition of the newsletter went out, we had a looming tropical cyclone sitting off the coast of south-east Queensland, and I observed some interesting events happening in our landscape.

As the storm was growing off the coast, I noticed the landscape around our area rapidly drying off and water levels in dams noticeably dropping.

What was happening?

Like any tropical low, it led to an increased evaporation rate as it took water away from the landscape and fed it to the storm. In any functional landscape, that would be okay, as the storm would eventually move inland to where it was cooler and release what it took as rain. Our problem, like what I discussed in edition #12, our problem is that with all this moisture being taken away and not having enough reserves in our soil and green growing vegetation, the storm was no longer interested in us - we were now too hot for it. So it sat and waited, and if you followed the news, you would have heard how it kept moving along the coast, unsure of where it wanted to go.

Eventually, it decided to come on land just as a tropical low instead of a cyclone - good news, the bad news is it didn’t really bring the rain to us. So we were left in a situation where we became a water donor to the storm, but with no thanks for our donation. Why did this happen?

The problem was that our landscapes were not functioning correctly, meaning we were not holding and storing the water we received in the ground, and too much was being lost to evaporation and gravity. In addition to that, a large high system was sitting to the west, and we had another situation, much like Townsville, which we discussed in edition #12.

When the system came along and started taking water away to feed it, that water was being lost from the landscape, with nothing in storage to replenish it. As a result, the landscape started to heat up, and more water was lost. It also created an environment that no longer attracted the storm; it was not cool and wet but hot and dry. So when the storm reached land, it stuck close to the coast and didn’t return the moisture it took from us.

How can we better manage against this?

We need to look to better manage our water and hold more of it, especially in the ground, where it is better protected against evaporation. We also need to maintain better ground cover and green surface area so we can ensure our water cycle continues operating.

I found that the level of our dam dropped less - now, of course, that could have been something else, but I think because our landscape above the dam held a reserve of water in the ground, it meant that even though we were losing water to evaporation, the landscape was slowly replenishing that level. Additionally, we still had adequate levels of green, growing vegetation so that our small water cycle continued operating and kept moisture in the system.

🌳 Learning from Plants

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

Plantain

Common Names: Ribwort, Lamb’s Tongue, Ribgrass

Scientific Name: Plantago species

Where in the Succession: Late Succession Accumulator

Plantain is a perennial herbaceous species native to Europe and Asia, but now found across many parts of the world. Known by its distinct, long, narrow leaves and tall flower spikes rising from the base of the plant.

The proliferation of common Plantain is so closely linked to the spread of agriculture that archaeologists often look for its pollen to estimate the expansion of agriculture. In the Americas, it followed the Europeans so closely that indigenous peoples labelled it ‘white man’s footprints’.¹  

What is it telling me about my landscape?

Plantain is a late succession accumulator species

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

As the name “white man’s footsteps” suggests, the presence of Plantain is directly related to the movement of agriculture around the world, thanks to its ability for every plant to produce up to 20,000 seeds¹ and its preference for the conditions created in many of these environments, like cleared forests and disturbed soils.

Today, you will find it growing across a range of environments, from your lawn to cultivated cropping land to diverse pastures and even in the cracks of the footpath.

Because of this, the role that Plantain is playing will depend on the environment that it is found in, as it will happily play a role in a diverse pasture mix, but in the case when it is becoming the dominant species, then we often expect to see some of the following characteristics;

• Hard, compacted ground or a shallow hard pan

• Low organic matter

• Low soil life

• Overgrazed areas

• Paddocks lacking ground cover or in fallow

How can we manage Plantain?

💦 Improve your landscape’s hydrology. In landscapes where Plantain is growing due to its hardiness to dry conditions, we can look to change that through our management. Start to focus on increasing our soil moisture levels and holding more water in the landscape. This can be done by increasing ground cover and organic matter to hold the rain that falls for longer and level contours, to slow, spread and hold the water in your landscape instead of letting it be lost.

👨‍🌾 Change our management practices. If we find Plantain becoming a growing issue, look to the cause and how we can change our management to fix the problem. Are we lacking ground cover? Do we need to change our grazing practices? These are some of the questions that we need to ask ourselves.

⬆️ Increase your organic matter. Plantain will happily grow in poor quality soil - the side of the road, between cracks in the concrete, and if we create more conditions like this, it will continue to manage that. We need to look to change that and increase our organic matter levels, improve our soil fertility and increase the soil life present. We can look to bring in sources of fertility like mulch, compost, straw, and create an environment that our soil life and plants like.

🌻 Incorporate other plant species. Growing cover crops in these areas is always a way of starting to change the plant succession - look to build a cover crop around hardy species that will be able to grow in those conditions and incorporate future perennial pasture species at the same time where they can get a start protected by the annual species. Our aim is to a future milestone whereby Plantain forms part of the greater mix of plant species in your pastures and not the sole species looking to manage a bigger problem at play.

How to make the most of your Plantain

🪨 As a Soil Indicator: Low Phosphorus, high Potassium, Magnesium and Calcium, Low soil humus and fertility will happily grow in compacted soils with hardpans. Low moisture and soil with low bacterial life.

🐮 Livestock: Plantain has good digestability for livestock, and with protein levels in one study coming in at around 16%², it makes it a nutritional choice for livestock. Add to that the seed head, which records levels higher again, with excellent fat content³ as well.

It is a well-regarded species that should be included in pasture mixes for livestock. One trial in Lincoln, New Zealand, found growth rates of lambs on Plantain to be greater than Ryegrass⁴ . It was noted that conditions needed to be right, and the plant’s ability to hold on through the season was limited. In this case, having it as part of a larger species mix is always better. Interestingly, the trial also found that ewes grazing Plantain produced much lower faecal egg counts than those grazing ryegrass, up to one-third less.

The mineral content of Plantain is also as high as that of perennial pasture species and usually higher, according to studies looking at its levels of calcium, magnesium, sodium, phosphorus, zinc, copper, and cobalt⁵ .

💊 Medicinal: The seed husks are abundant in soluble fibre and are often used to make Psyllium powder⁶ and commercial preparations like Metamucil.

It is an effective treatment for bleeding, with an excellent ability to stop blood flow and encourage tissue repair. It has received the name “ointment weed” for its use as a poultice directly on wounds, sores and ulcers, with research finding that it inhibits bacterial action and has anti-inflammatory properties. Additionally, it can relieve stings and bites⁷ .

One of its main uses is for the respiratory system. It has long been used to help dry and nervous coughs, mild bronchitis, whooping cough, bronchial asthma, excessive phlegm, hayfever and sore throats. Diego Bonetto even has a recipe for making a cough syrup from Plantain.

For your eyes, it can be used as an eyewash for conjunctivitis and inflammation.

For your digestive system, it helps with hemorrhoids, diarrhea and constipation.

🍽️ Consumption: The leaves of the plant are edible, the most common varieties having a stronger bitter flavour. It is best to choose the youngest leaves and use them in dishes like salads, soups, stews, stir-fries or smoothies unless you have the buckshorn variety, which is actually cultivated in Italy for its flavour⁸ .

And of course, you can add the seeds to your morning bowl of breakfast cereal to help get things moving.

🙋 Answering your Questions

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

💬 John Asks:

What is the difference between the Soil Conservation contours seen across many properties and your contours?

🎙️ Hamish’s Answer:

Most of the contours that you see across our landscape are actually drains built by organisations like Soil Conservation.

They don’t follow a level line across the landscape and instead have the task of collecting water at one site and moving it away to the gully not to overwet the paddock.

These were often initially built in cropping operations to control the water they received when it rained, and interestingly, some of the first ones built seemed to be level or at least very close to level.

The problem is that once you start draining water away, managing the energy that the water accumulates as it moves becomes difficult. As a result, many of these banks have since failed and created headwall erosion cuts leading from the gully back up the drain.

The contours that we construct are always level and can spread water across the entire landscape and not just direct it into one place.

📚 What We’ve Been Learning

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

#922 - Naval Ravikant - 44 Harsh Truths About Human Nature: An excellent podcast discussing what it truly means to live well and a plethora of great insights. Full of gems and worth listening to a few times, especially when there is so much to hear.

Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World: I finished this book last month, and it was an excellent read. It looks to change our mindset around the traditional approach of goals and instead start to set ‘tiny experiments’ for yourself with a focus on shifting away from the outcome and instead focusing on the process. Turning the process into a journey, being prepared to adjust and change, whilst sharing it with your community and learning in public.

Coffee's Self-Inflicted Climate Crisis: An interesting piece from Sam about the position that the coffee industry has found itself in, with some staggering figures on the current system's degradation and a look at some of the options that can be taken going forward. 

Peter Andrews was dismissed as 'a lunatic', but now his son's family farm is proof of his vision: Landline did a feature on Forage Farms and Tarwyn Park Training on Sunday looking at how our farm was setup and the results we’ve been seeing running a stacked multi-species operation with a farm setup on Natural Sequence Farming principles.

1  Common Plantain

2  Effect of herbal supplementation on growth, immunity, rumenhistology, serum antioxidants and meat quality of sheep

3  The composition of Australian Plantago seeds highlights their potential as nutritionally-rich functional food ingredients

4  Future Forage Systems Project: Plantain – A brief literature review

5  Plantain (Plantago lanceolata) – a potential pasture species

6  Psyllium

7  The Wondrous World of Weeds by Pat Collins

8  The Weed Forager’s Handbook by Adam Grubb & Annie Raser-Rowland

9  Australia Average Precipitation