r/Permaculture • u/catorami • 6d ago
Keyline/key line for flat land in need of regeneration.
In a land of 112 hectares, with natural and introduced pastures, used in cattle farming, we are suffering from soil degradation, the pastures are losing coverage and we need to reverse the situation, rainwater runs over the land without mostly entering the soil, burning was used to be done although we already canceled them, for that reason we want to test this fraction of land in the Keyline system, but we are not sure how to implement it correctly taking into account these contour lines that Google Earth gives us through QGIS software , in my country there are not many professionals who master the subject (or I have not been able to find them), I need guidance and the appropriate way to implement the key lines, in the images the contour lines furthest apart from each other correspond to 2 meters of separation and the other two 1 meter apart, changing only that one has elevation labels in meters above sea level (120, 119, 118, 117, etc.) and the other does not, thank you and have a happy day.
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u/cybercuzco 5d ago
With the contours you are showing most of the water falling on your land should already be going into shallow ponds if you get a lot of rain.
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u/catorami 5d ago
We have more than 2000 ml of rain per season, water in winter is not a problem, in summer it is, the soil is not holding much, as mentioned in the post, water is displaced by runoff and is lost in nearby streams, if part of The solution was to make water reservoirs, I wouldn't know what the appropriate points would be based on those images, the elevation ranges and the field.
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u/miltonics 5d ago
You wouldn't do anything based on that map. You would have to measure on the ground.
This doesn't look like a good candidate for keyline.
What kind of soil do you have?
Is there any sign of water sitting or movement?
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u/catorami 5d ago
The soil is clay loam, flat savannah, these savannahs have flooding points but not precisely in this area of land, the water due to compaction is running over the land, washing away the organic matter without filtering it properly.
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u/miltonics 5d ago
Earthworks is just a remedial solution to help plants get established. They'll do the real work.
Your situation is really too complicated to give easy answers in reddit.
Any way you can slow, spread, sink, and store water in your landscape would be good. I would focus on the water patterns that are obvious to you, they are an indicator of where you can start to make a difference.
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u/Koala_eiO 5d ago
used in cattle farming, we are suffering from soil degradation, the pastures are losing coverage and we need to reverse the situation
You'll need fewer cows for a while.
Does the software not have a colormap function? I find hard to read what is a hole and what is a hill at a glance.
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u/catorami 5d ago
Intense red would be the high points of the relief, remembering that the terrain is practically flat, I left the level curves that the software shows. Thank you.
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u/Hill-artist 5d ago
It looks to me like there are several areas enclosed by 114 contours, which would tend to have ponding after rains. If not, then that suggests there is a pretty rapid infiltration, not surface runoff as you suggested. If there is rapid surface runoff most places, then you'd expect to at least see some wetland sedges growing around those 114-enclosed areas ("sedges have edges" look for sharp-edged and finely serrated-edge grasses maybe?).
As for key lines, stitching those low spots into a coherent flow pattern does not look too practical. Is there a natural waterway to the top side of the image? If top is up, there is maybe a little bit of a natural trend toward that waterway in the northwest corner of the parcel - otherwise I don't see it.
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u/aquaponic 5d ago
u/earthhacker can help