Natural Succession of Species
Together groups of plants create one Macro-organism. Within these macro-organism there exists an organized succession of individuals, coming into their role at the indicated moment, and creating favorable conditions for the next group of plants to establish. In this way one consortium of plants will always give birth to the next and contribute to the overall increase of natural resources and available natural capital on the site.
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To make better use of natures concepts and employ them in his agriculture, Ernst Götsch created an organized framework for the understanding of nature. One of these frameworks is regarding the natural succession of species, which he organized into three different aspects: Lifecycles of plant consortiums, Respiration cycles of the eco-system and Successional systems. These are explained below.
Life cycles of plant consortiums
Natural succession is in part defined by the dynamic that exists between different plant consortiums consolidated on the same site, that take their turn one after the other in being the 'dominant' consortium. The first one to 'dominate' the areas is evidently composed of fast growing plants that are typically of a short lifecycle. The name that is given to this first consortium is Placenta 1, as it creates the first nursery for all the succeeding plants. The Placenta 1 stage usually lasts up until a maximum of 6 months. Once these plants have accomplished their lifecycle the following plant consortium, in this case Placenta 2, will be fully established, and once the plants of Placenta are removed, individuals belonging to the Placenta 2 will step into their full capacity. This relationship of creator and created continues on for the following lifecycles. The table to the left shows all the different lifecycles and gives examples of which plants make part of this stage of the ecosystem in a Mediterranean context.
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*Note: At the beginning of the plantation all lifecycles are planted together in the same moment (this is very important). For each lifecycle all vegetative strata should be filled. Timely management is crucial and will play a huge role in catalyzing this process. If both of these points are not well respected, an individual lifecycle may take much longer to fulfill its cycle (why there exists a big time difference in how long lifecycles may last in the table)
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The image below shows a consortium in the Placenta 1 stage where one can see the Fava bean (emergent stratus) growing together with white Lupins (canopy stratus), beet root (medium stratus), and radishes (low stratus). In the shade of the Fava bean one can already see a seeded pine tree sprouting out of the soil and growing in the protected environment of the Placenta 1 consortium.
Respiration cycles of the eco-system
The completion of all lifecycles described above happens in a cyclical manner on a continuous basis within a natural ecosystem. Once the transition forest has become established the ecosystem is eventually submitted to a disturbance by the natural forces (2000-3000 year cycle) and begins at the Placenta 1 again but with a higher degree of available resources. In this way the ecosystem continues to grow and evolve and change. This why in Syntropic farming we do not consider the eco-system to ever reach a climax stage (since it will always be submitted to dynamic change inherent to all living systems). The figure below shows an interpretation of one of the figures developed by Ernst Götsch and demonstrates how the consortiums of the different lifecycles begin all at the same moment and progressively give rise to one another. One entire respiration cycle is from Placenta 1 until the transitional forest.
Successional systems
Within the framework for natural succession of species there exist three distinct systems in Syntropic farming. These are the Colonization, Accumulation, and Abundance systems. Their roles and characteristics are described in the figure below. The figure was developed by Ernst Götsch and shows different aspects of how the lifecycles tie in with the three different systems mentioned above.
