Buxqi > writes
>
>Hmm. Well the cynical part of me says that if it produced good enough yields
>it would be more widespread but think about it. When you plant out a wheat
>field you get one layer of crop. In a forest garden you have canopy trees,
>large shrubs, shade tolerant smaller shrubs, herbs, ground cover, climbers
>and vines and root crops - that's seven layers of plants, each producing
>edible food.

Unfortunately they are all powered by sunlight and obviously a multi-
layer means they are sharing it so they grow more slowly. Worse plants
respire so the more biomass and the lower the light level the lower the
yields. True multilevel is never used to my knowledge for this reason
*ie it doesn't crop).

It IS used in some areas. For example in the sahara sparsely planted
date palms are interplanted with delicate crops and irrigated. Here the
delicate plants get the irrigation, the dates provide some shade and
cooling and any water that gets past the cropped rootzone is used by the
dates. I've seen that working. However one needs to note that the sun is
intense, water highly limiting and only the dates provide guaranteed
production.

>Apparantly the system is already commonly used in tropical zones but a
>recent inovation in temperate zones, partly because not enough light
>penetrates the canopy for most of the better known species but lesser known
>shade tolerant plants can be used instead.

Partly true. I haven't come across it in TROPICAL zones. Here I don;t
include gardens, where some apparent intercropping happens just to pack
out the plot, and its done with care to avoid excessive competition. Ie
plant density of one is reduced to favour another.

>Doesn't mean that it couldn't although in the context of reducing one's
>ecological footprint without growing one's own food if I can't locate a
>commercial forest garden, it's a bit irrelevant. Also a diet that is both
>vegan and forest garden seems a bit too restrictive. One or the other,
>maybe. Both is a step too far...

Its an illusion, plants harvest sunlight, cut the sunlight and cut the
production. Period.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.