Leaky Weirs - Bringing a Creek Back to Life with Natural Sequence Farming.
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- Опубликовано: 7 фев 2025
- Using the excess rocks from paddock clearing, we decided to look further into the idea of bringing a dry creek bed back to life. Using the rocks to hold up water and hydrate the surrounding soil in the flood plain. With the seasons passing the water hydrated the flood plain and turn a baron area into a high functioning natural ecosystem.
Keep up the good work. I also farmed in Tatong leaving in 2019 and know your farm quite well. The leaky weirs we put in worked a treat hydrating the surrounding landscape. We farmed using regenerative principles conserving water and nutrients in the landscape.So once again keep up the good work.
Thanks Clare - we arrived here in 2020. Cheers Pedder
Good work! It amazes me that more people just won't build the weirs even when they can see that it works. Here in the States, I recommend them all the time, along with Beaver Dam Analogs, and the pushback is amazing.
Because it sounds too much like greenie talk and greens have such bad press with farmers that they would rather have their farm turn into a desert than to seem like a greenie. Just another flaw in how the human brain works…. Or doesn’t work.
There's this two year old USGS video called "Can rock dams reverse climate change?" that really hit home for a lot of people, with an adjacent reference valley without rock structures. I've changed a number of minds with that one.
@@mathiasfriman8927 I remember that video. It was a night-n-day difference between the two valleys even though they were right next door to each other. And all these years later..... the government agencies are still moving at a glacial pace.
Many farmers still remove beaver dams because of the loss a fields/pasture from flooding. They also then use their irrigators to keep their fields watered.
Its amazing to me that you have this much improvement in only 18 months. Awesome.
What is even better than the localized percolation of water is the fact that a small percentage of that water Will eventually percolate all the way down to the deep aquifers.
Peter Andrews is an original genius.
His work just makes sense.
Good on you for adopting his simple and effective methods of land restoration.
Thank you for posting.
Peter certainly opened our eyes. There are many concepts out there and once you see them clearly taking the best from all will certainly make a difference overall.
It’s been a dream of mine for many years to bust a heavily degraded and erosion gully ridden property and restore it in exactly this method. Returning some of the natural ecosystem to the land is a massive challenge. But when you couple it with regenerative grazing practices, it can double or triple the rate of recovery.
Incredible the diversity of aquatic plants you’ve had spring up out of a former dry gully.
Hi there, the diversity blew my mind. From the aquatic plants that started to grow and then came the animals. Just goes to show that every environment came be brought back from such a simple method.
This is a brilliant example of the concept of leaky weirs. Thanks for uploading.
Thanks - cheers Pedder
Thank you for the video! The simple truth that you can literally dump your picked stones at roughly strategic points in a gully cannot be said loud enough. I hope many, many people see this and other proof like it.
Your spot on, in Australia we have become the best at land water drainage. The time has come to start reversing all those theories and start establishing ponds and billabongs again.
Slowing down water is the answer to almost every question in land management.
CCTs and leaky weirs can save this planet.
That and about 200 million more beavers. :)
totally agree!
Hello from Southern Oregon, fairly dry here for months at a time. We are doing this in some ditches on our property, quite excited to see what happens. 😊
It sounds like we are on the journey, good luck cheers.
"The Leaky Weir" would be a great name for a little pub. Yes?
Sounds like something an old fella would call his little chap.
I am really interested in Peter’s work. It’s great to see you using he’s method also👍👍. Chris
Thanks for doing the work and sharing that some simple things can work and help our farms/landscapes by restoring soil hydration and reducing erosion.
Hey Mike, thanks for the kind words. Hopefully in the short future we will be conducting an open farm and discuss the simple methods of restoring farmland without braking the bank. Cheers
Well done with what you've achieved so far. Add more of these water retention structures and as time goes by your land will become more resilient to both the drought and flood events - that climate change is only exacerbating. Hold back as much as you can and your water table will inevitably rise giving you a more sustainable farm overall. It saddened me greatly to watch news footage of Oz farmers and their livestock suffering from drought. Best of luck
Hey Richard, thanks for the advice, this winter if the rains come we will certainly be adding more rocks and raising to the high bank mark. It is such a shame about the inland cattle, sheep and most of animals. Its cheaper to put down rather than transport to eastern farms to handle. Take care
You could greatly expand that by digging channels extending from the stream farther out into your meadows. I am a big believer in swales too.
Frogs = healthy ecosystem 👍🏽 Peter Andrews is a legend.
Hey Roman, Peter is certainly a legend - check out PA Yeoman he's also up there. Cheers
@@FatCowFarmTatong Will do, keep up the good work! Just subscribed.
Excellent work, don’t have a watercourse on my farm, hell this year don’t have water in my dams :(, but do this if I see any areas where water has started to wash out, works great now just need it to rain again.
Great job !! I would recommend to fence that area from stock, seeing they have troughs for water, saving trampling,pugging the soil & eating the regrowth.
As time and money presents its self this area will certainly be isolated from the cattle like the swales we are protecting. Thanks for watching and the ideas. Cheers
It’s a bit rough that it’s actually illegal to put a leaky weir in a watercourse. My local council put a bunch of stones in the creek in my backyard to make mowing easier. The creek would dry out every year and the water would rise rapidly during rain. Since the stones were added, the creek has water all year round and the impacts of flash flooding are lessened. Bloody oath!
great work peter andrews for sharing
Love it. Just checked out some other vids. Youve earbed yourself another sub. Looking forward to watching the progress.
I am a strong believer in using ponds to create healthy systems, the sedges and reeds do a great job of filtering the water, slowing the flow and even for a dam, having water filter through them only benefits everything, just look how important beaver dams are to Nth American waterways
Hey Mark that's great, I'm glad you enjoy the videos. Take care.
Lomandra longifolia, great riparian zone sedge/bush that gets deep roots and stops erosion
So sick to see all the life supported by the water now, a few nice trees to sit under and it would be lovely to sit out there
Brilliant effort. Keep up the great work
Thanks Graham much appreciated. Cheers
Nice
If you don't have beavers, be the beaver.
So you have a dry creek. Throw rocks in and logs, wait for the rain to come and you'll get water flowing again. If you've got the materials at hand, it's a no brainer.
Do you have any photos of the area before the changes?
Hi Andrew, no sorry I don't have photos. This creek bed was just an eroded creek. Very little growing around the area. We noticed the biggest change after a massive rain where the water was caught behind the rock walls. After time the debris filled the gaps and allowed the water to be absorbed sideways. What amazed me was the life that came shortly after. We still have flow and deep pools behind the rock weirs, the water is leaving the landscape and entering the system. And to think this is not mandatory on all dry creek systems. If you need any more information call out. Cheers Pedder.
Legends
So easy to do. There's no excuse now 🙂
LOVE
The proof o the pudding is in the eating!
It’s called a beaver dam in Canada
We call them "rock riffles" in Western Australia. The main purpose, (as promoted by Landcare groups in the 1990s), was to improve "disolved oxygen" fed into the stream flow.. But the effect of slowing down velocity, improving bank absortion, slowing down erosion and better silt travel is showing big benefits. Just shows the value that "citizen science" is doing to our river health. Keep it up!
Pretty much doing what Beavers do in northern hemisphere watercourses
I'd probably fence it off, the cows will ruin it.
Did peter andrews not tell you its illegal to alter or restrict water flow, those downstream if they are affected they could sue you and own your paddock, house, land. creek, causeway, river cannot have its water flow altered.
Rubbish, we altered it , and damaged it in the bloody first place, this is restoring, not "altering".... It's people like you that cause the problems with your ingrained ignorance....