In the last few years, we have observed that the consumption of Auroville vegetables is going down within Auroville. The five most consumed vegetables in Auroville- Potato, Tomato, Onion, Cauliflower and Carrot don’t grow here locally. The demand for locally grown vegetables is low in our international city and even then, we are competing with produce available in Pondicherry and around at very low prices. Considering all this, we have consciously decided to grow more fruits as there is a lot that we can grow and that is still is being bought from outside- Papaya, Banana, Pineapple, Chikoo, Guava, Citrus, Coconut, Jackfruit, Custard apple, Ramphal, Avocado, and so forth.
In the last few years, we have observed that the consumption of Auroville vegetables is going down within Auroville. The five most consumed vegetables in Auroville- Potato, Tomato, Onion, Cauliflower and Carrot don’t grow here locally. The demand for locally grown vegetables is low in our international city and even then, we are competing with produce available in Pondicherry and around at very low prices. Considering all this, we have consciously decided to grow more fruits as there is a lot that we can grow and that is still is being bought from outside- Papaya, Banana, Pineapple, Chikoo, Guava, Citrus, Coconut, Jackfruit, Custard apple, Ramphal, Avocado, and so forth.
We are now either densifying the existing orchards or reorganizing some orchards towards more efficient and productive plantations.
Main design objectives:
Using compost tea is a permaculture practice that respects the life in the soil, understands how important it is, helps it grow without harming it while still allowing farming to continue. The main intention is important : to make all systems more efficient, in other words an healthy system which works on its own and not with the aim of exploiting the soil.
Compost tea can be poured to the roots of the plant to enrich microbial life of the soil as we just explained or it can be applied as a foliar spray by sprinkling it on the leaves to strengthen and protect them. More precisely, compost tea protects the pores on the leaves (called stomata). Because they are open areas, bacteria can deposit there. In general, good bacteria in the compost tea can live on the stomata protecting them from bad bacteria.
The idea of entropy originated in the late 19th century in thermodynamic studies. Entropy is the measure of disorderness of a system, a measure of its chaos (Clausius, 1865). The conventional understanding suggests whenever a system goes through any transformation, the entropy of the system increases, giving us the famous axiom that the universe is increasingly moving towards chaos.
While this may be true for theoretical models and isolated systems, we, in fact, observe a completely opposite phenomenon in living systems that are transforming all the time. Later scientists observed that what we see as chaos in living systems over time, is in fact, higher forms of natural order, spontaneous configurations that make the system more and more stable. A seed releases its energy to germinate, to grow as a plant, as a tree towards higher complexities of life and order. Human beings learn over time to develop a more and more complex consciousness.
This leads us to the idea of a decreasing entropy of systems, a negative entropy, or negentropy (Schrödinger, 1944). While negentropy gives us a new perspective of what is happening in nature, it still doesn’t tell us why it is happening-why is disorder moving to more order. Syntropy fills this gap. It adds a teleological aspect to the transformation of systems. Syntropy suggests that we become what we become not only because of what we were, but also because of what we could be. A tree unfolds from a seed not only because of the nature of the seed, but the potential of becoming a tree that is inherent in it. This understanding highlights a goal, a pull from the future towards higher orders, as much as a push from the past foundations.
We can also relate this idea to Yoga, a movement towards a complete union, a path of progress, development and unfolding of a harmony in greater complexities.
The concept of Syntropic farming method was developed by Swiss farmer and researcher Ernst Götsch, who settled in Brazil in the 1980s. Originally trained as a geneticist and plant breeder, Götsch became disillusioned with conventional agriculture and began experimenting with natural regeneration processes in tropical ecosystems. His approach, outlined in his influential paper “Breakthrough in Agriculture”, proposes that human cultivation can regenerate rather than deplete ecosystems.
At its core, syntropic farming is based on ecological succession and stratification, mimicking the structure and dynamics of natural forests. Instead of combating nature, it works in harmony with it by planting a consortium of species—pioneer, secondary, and climax—across different light strata and life cycles. This method emphasizes high biodiversity, minimal external inputs, and a continuous process of pruning and biomass management to accelerate soil fertility and system evolution.
It is important to make this distinction as a syntropic forest is significantly different from a food forest. Firstly, the goal of a syntropic forest is ecological restoration and not necessarily to provide food. It works on the principle of ecological succession and stratas which translates to light requirements and life cycles. In a food forest, however, the goal is to fit as many edible species into one consortium based on vertical spacing/layering as possible. There is emphasis on ‘support species’ in Syntropic farming to support soil fertility and main crop. In a food forest, edible crops are privileged over other crops.
Also, syntropic systems are way more dynamic than a food forest. A syntropic system changes form with the completion of the life cycle of each plant. On the other hand, the idea in a food forest is to put together a system that will stay in the same consortium for as long as possible.
In a syntropic system, Papaya may be grown as an initial species to use light and will be cut down after a couple of years to allow the main fruit crop under it to grow further. The goal in the food forest, on the other side, will be to preserve the Papaya and perhaps increase the spacing within the main fruit crop to allow for Papaya to continue growing. We will talk about the benefits of the syntropic approach over food forest in the following sections.
We started the first trial on a quarter-acre plot (1000 sq. m.) where vegetables like Beans, Brinjal, Pumpkin, Cucumber have been cultivated for more than 10 years. The soil here is already quite rich due to rotation of vegetable crops with Sunnhemp and regular composting. We decided the orientation of the rows based on the existing path, making them perpendicular to the path and close to the North-South direction. Each row is of the same length of about 35 meters. Each row also has access to irrigation and the current orientation also makes that easy.
We started by creating an extensive plant list (available on request) and detailing out their features as per the syntropic design method. From this, we created multiple plant consortia which can fit our needs. The following is the plant consortium that we used for this plot. The goal of this consortium is to develop an Avocado orchard.
The Placenta species are the group of plants that create the first conditions for future plants. These are plants that need full sun, have a short life cycle and can help in creating some biomass. The next stage is the Secondary species are higher order plants which can intensify biomass production and add more shade to the soil through a longer life cycle. They are a bridge between the Placenta and the Climax species. The Climax species are the final species of the system and would typically have a long life cycle.
We want this system to be self-sufficient for its biomass needs. Therefore enough space is being given for biomass crops like grass, castor, mexican sunflower, moringa etc. These can also be called support species. Climax species- Avocado is in Row A. The rest are short term crops along with support species. Tree Row B will completely go out once the Avocado needs more space.
The whole area was broadcasted with moth beans before planting. So it covered the soil completely. This moth bean was then cut and we put Sunnhemp next. Once the Sunnhemp came to flower, it was also cut leaving a thick biomass on the ground. We then started planting as per this planting block.
We started by planting Papaya, Drumstick, Acacia, Melia Dubia and Albizia lebbeck. In the next couple of months, we planted corn and pumpkin. The grass started yielding in a few months which then helped in producing some biomass and mulch. Once the Papayas came up a bit, we planted Avocado. The Avocado flourished in the shade of the Papaya and other support species. We also planted some sweet potatoes as a cover crop. Within 6 months, the Papayas started giving fruit and the acacia and dubia were ready for the first pruning. This also gave a boost to the Papayas and created a good amount of biomass for 2-3 years.
All the plants were prepared on the farm through seeds or cuttings. No planting material was bought from outside.
The implementation is labour intensive as all the plants need to go into the field at the same time. It was quite joyful as we did this during the monsoon. The soil was soft and covered by thick mulch and we encountered many earthworms during planting.
The major maintenance is such a system is pruning. We have already done at least 4 big pruning cycles in the system in about 8 months of its life. This is about one pruning every couple of months. This pruning helps to add biomass to the soil, adding energy and vitality to the soil to support the growth of all the species. At the same time, it stimulates the growth of the plants being pruned by keeping them young. This also has an effect on other plants in their vicinity making the entire system grow faster. Pruning is thus a way of maintaining the vitality of the system and managing sunlight so that our climax crops also receive the required sunlight.
In eight months since the planting was done, the system has grown lush and at an extraordinary speed. We can also see that all the plants have grown with good health. The soil is now fully shaded and therefore stays moist even after irrigating only once in 2-3 days (compared to a similar plantation without this density and consortium which needs water at least once daily). The quality of the Avocado plants is exceptionally great. This has been so far the best plantation of Avocado in terms of rate of growth, the number of leaves and the size and form of the plant. The entire system feels happy together.
In the coming months, we will continue to prune the system and add more biomass. We are also adding some mulch like coconut shells which take long to decompose and will eventually add micro irrigation. It will be interesting to observe the quality of Papaya fruit that comes from this plantation. The next planting of some citrus and coffee will also be done in the coming months during monsoon. At this time, we may have to cut down some support species completely to create space.
This is a highly dynamic system and has proven to be very productive. In our tropical climate, it is even more interesting because of the diversity and rate of growth that we can achieve in a short space and time. It has the potential to be a very successful way of starting orchards on existing or new farmlands. Our next experiments will be with consortia where climax species are Jackfruit, Mango and Lemon.
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AuroOrchard is certified organic by the Tamil Nadu Organic Certification (ORG/SC/1906/001683) Department accredited by APEDA (Agricultural and Processed Food Products Exports Development Authority), New Delhi, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India.
