Permaculture and aquaponics in Northern Taiwan

[meyers66]

Hi,
I'm an American expat looking for information on permaculture in Taiwan. We are planning our land in Hsinchu County and could use some examples, ideas, and contacts. Here are some specific issues and topics I'm thinking of:
1. farming on old rice fields, will drainage be a problem?
2. rice pesticides in water.
3. plant communities or guilds
4. food forest
5. aquaponics/aquaculture

Currently reading "Gaia's Garden". Read "Intro to Permaculture" by Mollison and others. BTW my wife is Taiwanese.
TIA

[Purehydro]

1. Shouldn't be a problem as Hsinchu has occasional water shortages
2. Have the local Council of Agriculture test it for you, they do it for free.
3. Not sure as most of what I have seen has been one crop per field and no companion planting. They do like to use ducks as pest control till the grain starts coming in.
4. Don't know
5. I've never seen it. I'd imagine that it would be hard as water is scarce lending to the pumping of groundwater which leads to the land subsiding.

I'd do a search on what Hsinchu County actually grows. I can't think of much as the water is needed for the industrial park. Taiwan's COA is on a crusade to grow organically. They offer free courses in Chinese. I'd suggest you look into mushrooms too as they are great sellers in Taiwan and Hsinchu County has a lot of forest.

[meyers66]

Thanks for the tips and ideas.
We have water access from rice fields and a relative with a spring nearby who is willing to share with us.
I see mushroom plots on my bike rides in the hills around 118 and 30-1. Cheers.

[Purehydro]

I think for what you want mushrooms would be a nicer fix. I would buy Paul Stamets's 2 books on the subject and I believe he had to drop the magic mushroom emphasis that was basically what all his earlier versions were about.

www.agaric.com.tw can sell you the spawn to start, then you would need a glovebox or flowhood, pressure cooker, agar, and some petri dishes and you're set. Bring your own HEPA filter for a flowhood and I would suggest these guys: http://www.filtera-b2b.com/businessfilters/hepa.htm#99.99wood

The mushroom substrate can then be reused for compost. The large mushroom growing farm near me gives their spent substrate away to a fertilizer company. I was kind of shocked that they didn't reuse it for oyster mushrooms. Either they don't know or it's not financially viable.

This is probably the company I will be selling to: http://www.tw-mushroom.com.tw/index.php

[sunnyarky]

You may visit http://twaquaponics.blogspot.com to ask more info.
They do a lot of sucessful stories at Taiwan Aquaponics.

[dyllos]

Hi there meyers66

How is the permaculture farm going? Interested to hear. Have you got a blog or website or something?

Cheers
D