lunes, 23 de septiembre de 2013
10 estrategias de manipulación según Chomsky
Chomsky, diez estrategias de manipulación mediática, social y económica.
1. La estrategia de la distracción
El elemento primordial del control social es la estrategia de la distracción que consiste en desviar la atención del público de los problemas importantes y de los cambios decididos por las élites políticas y económicas, mediante la técnica del diluvio o inundación de continuas distracciones y de informaciones sin importancia.
La estrategia de la distracción es igualmente indispensable para impedir al público interesarse por los conocimientos esenciales, en el área de la ciencia, la economía, la psicología, la neurobiología y la cibernética. "Mantener la Atención del público distraída, lejos de los verdaderos problemas sociales, cautivada por temas sin importancia real. Mantener al público ocupado, ocupado, ocupado, sin ningún tiempo para pensar; (cita del texto "Armas silenciosas para guerras tranquilas")
2. Crear problemas y después ofrecer soluciones.
Este método también es llamado: "problema--> reacción--> solución".
Se crea un problema, una "situación" prevista para causar cierta reacción en el público, a fin de que éste sea el demandante de las medidas que se desea hacer aceptar. Por ejemplo: dejar que se desenvuelva o se intensifique la violencia urbana, u organizar atentados sangrientos, a fin de que el público sea el demandante de leyes de seguridad y políticas en perjuicio de la libertad.
O también: crear una crisis económica para hacer aceptar como un mal necesario el retroceso de los derechos sociales y el desmantelamiento de los servicios públicos.
3. La estrategia de la gradualidad.
Para hacer que se acepte una medida inaceptable, basta aplicarla gradualmente, a cuentagotas, por años consecutivos. Es de esa manera que condiciones socioeconómicas radicalmente nuevas (neoliberalismo) fueron impuestas durante las décadas de 1980 y 1990.
Estado mínimo, privatizaciones, precariedad, flexibilidad laboral, desempleo en masa, salarios que ya no aseguran ingresos decentes. Nos suena, ¿verdad?, tantos cambios hubieran provocado una revolución si hubiesen sido aplicados de una sola vez y no de forma gradual como se ha hecho.
4. La estrategia de diferir.
Otra manera de hacer aceptar una decisión impopular es la de presentarla como "dolorosa y necesaria", obteniendo la aceptación pública, en el momento, para una aplicación futura. Es más fácil aceptar un sacrificio futuro que un sacrificio inmediato.
- Primero, porque el esfuerzo no es empleado inmediatamente.
- Segundo, porque el público, la masa, tiene siempre la tendencia a esperar ingenuamente que "todo irá a mejorar mañana" y que el sacrificio exigido podrá ser evitado.
Esto da más tiempo al ciudadano para acostumbrarse a la idea del cambio y de aceptarla con resignación cuando llegue el momento.
5. Dirigirse al público como criaturas de poca edad.
La mayoría de la publicidad dirigida al gran público utiliza discurso, argumentos, personajes y entonación particularmente infantiles, muchas veces próximos a la debilidad, como si el espectador fuese una criatura de poca edad o un deficiente mental.
Cuanto más se intente buscar engañar al espectador, más se tiende a adoptar un tono infantil. ¿Por qué? -"Si uno se dirige a una persona como si ella tuviese 12 años o menos, entonces, en razón de la sugestionabilidad, ella tenderá, con cierta probabilidad, a una respuesta o reacción más infantil y desprovista del sentido crítico de un adulto.
6. Utilizar el aspecto emocional mucho más que la reflexión.
Hacer uso del aspecto emocional es una técnica clásica para causar un cortocircuito en el análisis racional, y finalmente neutralizar el sentido crítico de los individuos.
Por otra parte, la utilización del registro emocional permite abrir la puerta de acceso al inconsciente para implantar o injertar ideas, deseos, miedos y temores, compulsiones, o a inducir determinados comportamientos.
7. Mantener al pueblo en la ignorancia y la mediocridad.
Hacer que el público sea incapaz de comprender las tecnologías y los métodos utilizados para su control y su esclavitud.
"La calidad de la Educación dada a las clases sociales inferiores debe ser la más pobre y mediocre posible, de forma que la distancia entre éstas y la Clases altas permanezca inalterable en el tiempo y sea imposible de alcanzar una auténtica igualdad de oportunidades para todos."
8. Estimular al público a ser complaciente con la mediocridad.
Promover al público a creer que es moda el hecho de ser vulgar e inculto, mal hablado, admirador de gentes sin talento alguno, a despreciar lo intelectual, exagerar el valor del culto al cuerpo y el desprecio por el espíritu...
9. Reforzar la autoculpabilidad.
Hacer creer al individuo que solamente él es culpable de su propia desgracia, por causa de la insuficiencia de su inteligencia, de sus capacidades, o de sus esfuerzos.
Así, en lugar de rebelarse contra el sistema económico y social, el individuo se autoevalúa, se autoinculpa, lo que genera un estado depresivo, uno de cuyos efectos es la inhibición de su acción.
10. Conocer a los individuos mejor de lo que ellos mismos se conocen.
En el transcurso de los últimos 50 años, los avances acelerados de la ciencia han generado una creciente brecha entre los conocimientos del público y los conocimientos poseídos y utilizados por las élites dominantes.
Gracias a la biología, la neurobiología y la psicología aplicada, el "sistema" ha disfrutado de un conocimiento avanzado del ser humano, tanto de forma física como psicológicamente.
El "sistema" ha conseguido conocer mejor al individuo común de lo que él se conoce a sí mismo.
Esto significa que, en la mayoría de los casos, el sistema ejerce un control mayor y un gran poder sobre los individuos, mayor que el de los individuos sobre sí mismos.
Noam Chomsky - Visiones Alternativas
lunes, 16 de septiembre de 2013
Universidad e investigación, ¿un deterioro global?
Acabo de ver la carta que un investigador de una universidad Suiza ha enviado a la dirección de su universidad para despedirse. Es una carta llena de auténticas verdades, no se puede decir que lo que la carta denuncia ocurra en el 100% de los casos, pero el porcentaje de verdad que cubre es muy alto de cualquier forma. En resumen, la Universidad, y otros centros de investigación, no se está dedicando a hacer verdadera ciencia, sino a mantener los egos y las demandas de un sistema en el que solo prima el interés económico y otros aspectos muy alejados de la investigación
Tan interesante como la carta es también las contestaciones a la misma, podéis ver toda la relación epistolar en esta dirección:
Dear EPFL,
(or any other academia)
I am writing to state that, after four years of hard but enjoyable PhD
work at this school, I am planning to quit my thesis in January, just
a few months shy of completion. Originally, this was a letter that was
intended only for my advisors. However, as I prepared to write it I
realized that the message here may be pertinent to anyone involved in
research across the entire EPFL, and so have extended its range just a
bit. Specifically, this is intended for graduate students, postdocs,
senior researchers, and professors, as well as for the people at the
highest tiers of the school’s management. To those who have gotten
this and are not in those groups, I apologize for the spam.
While I could give a multitude of reasons for leaving my studies –
some more concrete, others more abstract – the essential motivation
stems from my personal conclusion that I’ve lost faith in today’s
academia as being something that brings a positive benefit to the
world/societies we live in. Rather, I’m starting to think of it as a
big money vacuum that takes in grants and spits out nebulous results,
fueled by people whose main concerns are not to advance knowledge and
to effect positive change, though they may talk of such things, but to
build their CVs and to propel/maintain their careers. But more on that
later.
Before continuing, I want to be very clear about two things. First,
not everything that I will say here is from my personal firsthand
experience. Much is also based on conversations I’ve had with my
peers, outside the EPFL and in, and reflects their experiences in
addition to my own. Second, any negative statements that I make in
this letter should not be taken to heart by all of its readers. It is
not my intention to demonize anyone, nor to target specific
individuals. I will add that, both here and elsewhere, I have met some
excellent people and would not – not in a hundred years – dare accuse
them of what I wrote in the previous paragraph. However, my fear and
suspicion is that these people are few, and that all but the most
successful ones are being marginalized by a system that, feeding on
our innate human weaknesses, is quickly getting out of control.
I don’t know how many of the PhD students reading this entered their
PhD programs with the desire to actually *learn* and to somehow
contribute to science in a positive manner. Personally, I did. If you
did, too, then you’ve probably shared at least some of the
frustrations that I’m going to describe next.
(1) Academia: It’s Not Science, It’s Business
I’m going to start with the supposition that the goal of “science” is
to search for truth, to improve our understanding of the universe
around us, and to somehow use this understanding to move the world
towards a better tomorrow. At least, this is the propaganda that we’ve
often been fed while still young, and this is generally the propaganda
that universities that do research use to put themselves on lofty
moral ground, to decorate their websites, and to recruit naïve
youngsters like myself.
I’m also going to suppose that in order to find truth, the basic
prerequisite is that you, as a researcher, have to be brutally honest
– first and foremost, with yourself and about the quality of your own
work. Here one immediately encounters a contradiction, as such honesty
appears to have a very minor role in many people’s agendas. Very
quickly after your initiation in the academic world, you learn that
being “too honest” about your work is a bad thing and that stating
your research’s shortcomings “too openly” is a big faux pas. Instead,
you are taught to “sell” your work, to worry about your “image”, and
to be strategic in your vocabulary and where you use it. Preference is
given to good presentation over good content – a priority that, though
understandable at times, has now gone overboard. The “evil” kind of
networking (see,
e.g.,http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/networking-good-vs-evil/) seems to
be openly encouraged. With so many business-esque things to worry
about, it’s actually surprising that *any* scientific research still
gets done these days. Or perhaps not, since it’s precisely the naïve
PhDs, still new to the ropes, who do almost all of it.
(2) Academia: Work Hard, Young Padawan, So That One Day You Too May Manage!
I sometimes find it both funny and frightening that the majority of
the world’s academic research is actually being done by people like
me, who don’t even have a PhD degree. Many advisors, whom you would
expect to truly be pushing science forward with their decades of
experience, do surprisingly little and only appear to manage the PhD
students, who slave away on papers that their advisors then put their
names on as a sort of “fee” for having taken the time to read the
document (sometimes, in particularly desperate cases, they may even
try to steal first authorship). Rarely do I hear of advisors who
actually go through their students’ work in full rigor and detail,
with many apparently having adopted the “if it looks fine, we can
submit it for publication” approach.
Apart from feeling the gross unfairness of the whole thing – the
students, who do the real work, are paid/rewarded amazingly little,
while those who manage it, however superficially, are paid/rewarded
amazingly much – the PhD student is often left wondering if they are
only doing science now so that they may themselves manage later. The
worst is when a PhD who wants to stay in academia accepts this and
begins to play on the other side of the table. Every PhD student
reading this will inevitably know someone unlucky enough to have
fallen upon an advisor who has accepted this sort of management and is
now inflicting it on their own students – forcing them to write paper
after paper and to work ridiculous hours so that the advisor may
advance his/her career or, as if often the case, obtain tenure. This
is unacceptable and needs to stop. And yet as I write this I am
reminded of how EPFL has instituted its own tenure-track system not
too long ago.
(3) Academia: The Backwards Mentality
A very saddening aspect of the whole academic system is the amount of
self-deception that goes on, which is a “skill” that many new recruits
are forced to master early on… or perish. As many PhD students don’t
truly get to choose their research topic, they are forced to adopt
what their advisors do and to do “something original” on it that could
one day be turned into a thesis. This is all fine and good when the
topic is genuinely interesting and carries a lot of potential.
Personally, I was lucky to have this be the case for me, but I also
know enough people who, after being given their topic, realized that
the research direction was of marginal importance and not as
interesting as it was hyped up by their advisor to be.
This seems to leave the student with a nasty ultimatum. Clearly,
simply telling the advisor that the research is not promising/original
does not work – the advisor has already invested too much of his time,
reputation, and career into the topic and will not be convinced by
someone half his age that he’s made a mistake. If the student insists,
he/she will be labeled as “stubborn” and, if the insisting is too
strong, may not be able to obtain the PhD. The alternative, however
unpleasant, is to lie to yourself and to find arguments that you’re
morally comfortable with that somehow convince you that what you’re
doing has important scientific value. For those for whom obtaining a
PhD is a *must* (usually for financial reasons), the choice, however
tragic, is obvious.
The real problem is that this habit can easily carry over into one’s
postgraduate studies, until the student themselves becomes like the
professor, with the backwards mentality of “it is important because
I’ve spent too many years working on it”.
(4) Academia: Where Originality Will Hurt You
The good, healthy mentality would naturally be to work on research
that we believe is important. Unfortunately, most such research is
challenging and difficult to publish, and the current
publish-or-perish system makes it difficult to put bread on the table
while working on problems that require at least ten years of labor
before you can report even the most preliminary results. Worse yet,
the results may not be understood, which, in some cases, is tantamount
to them being rejected by the academic community. I acknowledge that
this is difficult, and ultimately cannot criticize the people who
choose not to pursue such “risky” problems.
Ideally, the academic system would encourage those people who are
already well established and trusted to pursue these challenges, and
I’m sure that some already do. However, I cannot help but get the
impression that the majority of us are avoiding the real issues and
pursuing minor, easy problems that we know can be solved and
published. The result is a gigantic literature full of
marginal/repetitive contributions. This, however, is not necessarily a
bad thing if it’s a good CV that you’re after.
(5) Academia: The Black Hole of Bandwagon Research
Indeed, writing lots of papers of questionable value about a given
popular topic seems to be a very good way to advance your academic
career these days. The advantages are clear: there is no need to
convince anyone that the topic is pertinent and you are very likely to
be cited more since more people are likely to work on similar things.
This will, in turn, raise your impact factor and will help to
establish you as a credible researcher, regardless of whether your
work is actually good/important or not. It also establishes a sort of
stable network, where you pat other (equally opportunistic)
researchers on the back while they pat away at yours.
Unfortunately, not only does this lead to quantity over quality, but
many researchers, having grown dependent on the bandwagon, then need
to find ways to keep it alive even when the field begins to stagnate.
The results are usually disastrous. Either the researchers begin to
think up of creative but completely absurd extensions of their methods
to applications for which they are not appropriate, or they attempt to
suppress other researchers who propose more original alternatives
(usually, they do both). This, in turn, discourages new researchers
from pursuing original alternatives and encourages them to join the
bandwagon, which, though founded on a good idea, has now stagnated and
is maintained by nothing but the pure will of the community that has
become dependent on it. It becomes a giant, money-wasting mess.
(6) Academia: Statistics Galore!
“Professors with papers are like children,” a professor once told me.
And, indeed, there seems to exist an unhealthy obsession among
academics regarding their numbers of citations, impact factors, and
numbers of publications. This leads to all sorts of nonsense, such as
academics making “strategic citations”, writing “anonymous” peer
reviews where they encourage the authors of the reviewed paper to cite
their work, and gently trying to tell their colleagues about their
recent work at conferences or other networking events or sometimes
even trying to slip each other their papers with a
“I’ll-read-yours-if-you-read-mine” wink and nod. No one, when asked if
they care about their citations, will ever admit to it, and yet these
same people will still know the numbers by heart. I admit that I’ve
been there before, and hate myself for it.
At the EPFL, the dean sends us an e-mail every year saying how the
school is doing in the rankings, and we are usually told that we are
doing well. I always ask myself what the point of these e-mails is.
Why should it matter to a scientist if his institution is ranked tenth
or eleventh by such and such committee? Is it to boost our already
overblown egos? Wouldn’t it be nicer for the dean to send us an annual
report showing how EPFL’s work is affecting the world, or how it has
contributed to resolving certain important problems? Instead, we get
these stupid numbers that tell us what universities we can look down
on and what universities we need to surpass.
(7) Academia: The Violent Land of Giant Egos
I often wonder if many people in academia come from insecure
childhoods where they were never the strongest or the most popular
among their peers, and, having studied more than their peers, are now
out for revenge. I suspect that yes, since it is the only explanation
I can give to explain why certain researchers attack, in the bad way,
other researchers’ work. Perhaps the most common manifestation of this
is via peer reviews, where these people abuse their anonymity to tell
you, in no ambiguous terms, that you are an idiot and that your work
isn’t worth a pile of dung. Occasionally, some have the gall to do the
same during conferences, though I’ve yet to witness this latter
manifestation personally.
More than once I’ve heard leading researchers in different fields
refer to other methods with such beautiful descriptions as “garbage”
or “trash”, sometimes even extending these qualifiers to pioneering
methods whose only crime is that they are several decades old and
which, as scientists, we ought to respect as a man respects his
elders. Sometimes, these people will take a break from saying bad
things about people in their own fields and turn their attention to
other domains – engineering academics, for example, will sometimes
make fun of the research done in the humanities, ridiculing it as
ludicrous and inconsequential, as if what they did was more important.
(8) Academia: The Greatest Trick It Ever Pulled was Convincing the
World That It was Necessary
Perhaps the most crucial, piercing question that the people in
academia should ask themselves is this: “Are we really needed?” Year
after year, the system takes in tons of money via all sorts of grants.
Much of this money then goes to pay underpaid and underappreciated PhD
students who, with or without the help of their advisors, produce some
results. In many cases, these results are incomprehensible to all
except a small circle, which makes their value difficult to evaluate
in any sort of objective manner. In some rare cases, the
incomprehensibility is actually justified – the result may be very
powerful but may, for example, require a lot of mathematical
development that you really do need a PhD to understand. In many
cases, however, the result, though requiring a lot of very cool math,
is close to useless in application.
This is fine, because real progress is slow. What’s bothersome,
however, is how long a purely theoretical result can be milked for
grants before the researchers decide to produce something practically
useful. Worse yet, there often does not appear to be a strong urge for
people in academia to go and apply their result, even when this
becomes possible, which most likely stems from the fear of failure –
you are morally comfortable researching your method as long as it
works in theory, but nothing would hurt more than to try to apply it
and to learn that it doesn’t work in reality. No one likes to publish
papers which show how their method fails (although, from a scientific
perspective, they’re obliged to).
These are just some examples of things that, from my humble
perspective, are “wrong” with academia. Other people could probably
add others, and we could go and write a book about it. The problem, as
I see it, is that we are not doing very much to remedy these issues,
and that a lot of people have already accepted that “true science” is
simply an ideal that will inevitably disappear with the current system
proceeding along as it is. As such, why risk our careers and
reputations to fight for some noble cause that most of academia won’t
really appreciate anyway?
I’m going to conclude this letter by saying that I don’t have a
solution to these things. Leaving my PhD is certainly not a solution –
it is merely a personal decision – and I don’t encourage other people
to do anything of the sort. What I do encourage is some sort of
awareness and responsibility. I think that there are many of us,
certainly in my generation, who would like to see “academia” be
synonymous with “science”. I know I would, but I’ve given up on this
happening and so will pursue true science by some other path.
While there was a time when I thought that I would be proud to have
the letters “PhD” after my name, this is unfortunately no longer the
case. However, nothing can take away the knowledge that I’ve gained
during these four years, and for that, EPFL, I remain eternally
grateful.
My sincerest thanks for reading this far
chapeau!!
miércoles, 31 de julio de 2013
In search of Chara connivens
A XXI century weekend expedition in wild and dangerous León ponds
My friend Kaire, one of the most important specialists in characeans in Estonia, asked me some time ago to help her in a Project to study the populations of Chara connivens through Europe. The objective of my help would be as simple as taking samples from our lakes and send her for a detailed genetic analysis.
Chara connivens is not very abundant in our región (Castilla-Leon) but has been commonly found in several shallow lakes and ponds in the León province, being the Velaza pond one of them.
AREA OF STUDY
Several small ponds in the vicinity of the Villamuñio village (León, Spain) were surveyed. This area is of special conservation interest for flora and fauna due to the presence of several endangered species from temporary ponds. Isolated ponds work like small islands of populations only connected by birds transport (zoochoria).
MATERIAL & METHODS
1- Bibliography: This is the basic bibliograpy you need to determine characeans in Spain
the book on Characeae can be found in the web.
2- Field technician
3- High-tech materials
THE VELAZA POND
Small pond of 1.18 Ha
THE SURCO POND
Small pond (0.2 Ha), with 62 ugTP/L, 0.32 mgN-NO3/L. Covered by Chara globularis, Myriophyllum alterniflorum, Potamogeton trichoides.
THE ESTORRUBIO POND
Small pond of 0.83 Ha, and 1.5 m máximum depth. 281 ugTP/L, 0,57 mgN-NO3/L.
Vegetation: Chara globularis, Nitella spp., Eleochris palustris, Scirpus lacustris, Typha angustifolia.
THE MAYOR. TEMPORARY POND
A temporary pond of about 3.13 Ha, with 190 ugTP/L and 0.233 ugN-NO3/L, 3.6NTU turbidity.
Vegetation: Myriophyllum alterniflorum, Eleocharis palustris, Antinoria agrostidea, Mentha cervina, Alopecurus geniculatus, Iittorella uniflora, Isoetes velata.
Anostracea (probably Triops spp.) were very abundant many years ago.
THE VILLAMUÑIO POND
My friend Kaire, one of the most important specialists in characeans in Estonia, asked me some time ago to help her in a Project to study the populations of Chara connivens through Europe. The objective of my help would be as simple as taking samples from our lakes and send her for a detailed genetic analysis.
Chara connivens is not very abundant in our región (Castilla-Leon) but has been commonly found in several shallow lakes and ponds in the León province, being the Velaza pond one of them.
C. connivens: female (left) and male (right) stands
C. connivens: figures e) to i).
From Cirujano et al. 2008. Flora Iberica. Aguas continentales. Carófitos. Real Jardín Botánico. Madrid
AREA OF STUDY
Several small ponds in the vicinity of the Villamuñio village (León, Spain) were surveyed. This area is of special conservation interest for flora and fauna due to the presence of several endangered species from temporary ponds. Isolated ponds work like small islands of populations only connected by birds transport (zoochoria).
MATERIAL & METHODS
1- Bibliography: This is the basic bibliograpy you need to determine characeans in Spain
the book on Characeae can be found in the web.
2- Field technician
3- High-tech materials
THE VELAZA POND
Small pond of 1.18 Ha
Potamogeton gramineus |
Callitriche sp. |
Antinoria agrostidea AND Eleocharis palustris |
Videos on the Velaza pond:
THE SURCO POND
Small pond (0.2 Ha), with 62 ugTP/L, 0.32 mgN-NO3/L. Covered by Chara globularis, Myriophyllum alterniflorum, Potamogeton trichoides.
THE ESTORRUBIO POND
Small pond of 0.83 Ha, and 1.5 m máximum depth. 281 ugTP/L, 0,57 mgN-NO3/L.
Vegetation: Chara globularis, Nitella spp., Eleochris palustris, Scirpus lacustris, Typha angustifolia.
THE MAYOR. TEMPORARY POND
A temporary pond of about 3.13 Ha, with 190 ugTP/L and 0.233 ugN-NO3/L, 3.6NTU turbidity.
Vegetation: Myriophyllum alterniflorum, Eleocharis palustris, Antinoria agrostidea, Mentha cervina, Alopecurus geniculatus, Iittorella uniflora, Isoetes velata.
Anostracea (probably Triops spp.) were very abundant many years ago.
THE VILLAMUÑIO POND
Briozoa on a plastic bottle in the El Terral (Villamuñio) pond |
miércoles, 22 de mayo de 2013
Curso de setos de mimbre con Carlos Fontales
Fontanos, León, abril 2013
Blog de Carlos Fontales
Como obtener varas de mimbres de producción propia.
Se podan las ramas de las mimbreras al nivel del fuste y se
estaquillan en trozos de 20-30 cms procurando que queden al menos 2-3 yemas en
cada estaca. Se planta en invierno y al
cabo de 2-3 años se empiezan a podar. Se deben podar en enero-febrero y en luna
menguante. El terreno debe ser húmedo pero no encharcado ya que sino se pierde
calidad en el mimbre. El mimbre tampoco necesita un suelo de muy buena calidad
ya que en este caso desarrolla mucha madera y se vuelve quebradizo para su trabajo, el suelo
debe ser sabrego (pobre).
Las varas se cortan cuando tengan 2-3 m y se seleccionan por
tamaños. Se atan y se dejan secar si se trabajan para cestería. Si se utilizan
para mimbre vivo debe procurarse tenerlas en agua hasta que se utilicen no más
de una semana.
Variedades de mimbre:
Salix americana (el más utilizado en mimbre vivo)
Es una especie procedente de norteamérica muy utilizada en Europa por su gran productividad, la flexibilidad de su madera y la capacidad para crecer en todo tipo de suelo. Sin embargo tambien tiene una rápida decadencia de su productividad con el tiempo y al parecer es fácilmente atacado por plagas.
Otras especies: Salix alba, S. fragilis, S. triandra, S. purpurea.
Todas las especies de Salix que hay en España las podeis ver aqui:
ACTIVIDADES
Se creó un círculo en el que se distribuyeron diferentes
proyectos.
Vallas de mimbre vivo
Hacer una zanja de unos 30 cms de ancho y 30 cms de
profundidad de longitud igual a la de la valla que se quiera construir. Extraer
la tierra y volverla a meter dentro de la zanja. El objetivo es esponjar la
tierra para favorecer el enraizamiento y el clavado de las varas. Los británicos ponen un plástico para evitar que otras plantas compitan con el mimbre en su enraizamiento inicial, en nuestro caso la zona de plantación se cubrió con arena.
Una vez rellenada la zanja se clavan las estacas separadas
2-3 m entre si. Las estacas deben ser de pino tratado o de castaño y de aprox
1,70 m de longitud, aunque obviamente
esta dependerá de la longitud de las varas. Los postes de los extremos
deben tener otros trozos de poste que
sirvan de contrafuerte ya que deben
soportar la tensión de los alambres que servirán de apoyo a las varas. Entre
los postes se colocan dos líneas de alambre o cuerda a dos alturas, un poco por
debajo de la mitad y del extremo superior.
Se utilizan varas compradas de unos 2 m de longitud. Las
varas deben haber estado en agua unos días antes de la plantación. Cortar el
extremo distal en bisel unos 4 cms antes del final. Es muy importante eliminar
las varas que tengan algún raspón o arañazo ya que probablemente no crecerán.
Las varas se plantan de dos en dos, muy próximas entre si
(unos 2-3 cms) y en sentido longitudinal. Una vez se haya plantado una línea de
varas, se planta una segunda línea justo en frente de la línea anterior y a
poca distancia (unos 2-3 cms). Cada una de las líneas de varas puede tener una
dirección diferente.
En nuestro ejercicio ensayamos dos tipos de entretejido, en
un tramo se colocaron las varas en direcciones opuestas (en la línea posterior de plantación todas las varas se plantaron hacia la dcha, inclinadas unos 60º y en la segunda línea, la
delantera, todas las varas se orientaron hacia la Izqda otros 60º), y en otro
tramo la línea trasera de varas se mantuvo vertical mientras que la delantera
se inclinó 60 º hacia la dcha.
TEJIDO 1:Una vez realizada la plantación, las varas se van entelazando con cuidado de forma que formen rombos en los que las intersecciones esten siempre formadas por la misma posición de las varas en cada nivel de intersección. Ej. en la intersección del primer rombo la vara plantada en la linea trasera siempre estará adelante y la vara plantada en la linea delantera estará detrás, en la segunda intersección ocurrirá al revés, etc. Cada vara siempre tendrá una pauta regular en las intersecciones: delante-detrás-delante-detrás, etc.
Las cuerdas entre los postes sirven para fijar el entrelazado, el vértice del primer rombo coincide con la primer cuerda, y en este punto se anudan las varas a la cuerda. Nosotros utilizamos un material plástico para hacer la unión, pero podría hacerse con nudos de varas. En los extremos de la valla las varas se pueden rematar dando la vuelta al poste y siguiendo con la pauta de entrecruzamiento.
TEJIDO 2
En otro tramo de la valla viva se realizó otro tipo de figura con las varas. Como dijimos, en este caso un par de varas se había mantenido vertical y el otro par inclinado hacia un lado. Las varas inclinadas se entrelazaron con las varas verticales de forma que en la intersección con la primer cuerda horizontal las inclinadas siempre estaban por delante de las verticales.
Luego se decidió que las varas inclinadas tomaran una forma curvada, fijándose a las guias horizontales en cada intersección, y culminando la unión con un nudo de "ojo japonés". Lo ideal hubiera sido sustituir los plásticos de unión por nudos simples hechos con las varas, como se indica debajo.
Valla de mimbre seco
Se clavan postes o estacas de pino tratado o de castaño, de 5-10 cms de diámetro, separadas unos 25 cms y de la altura que cada uno quiera según la altura de la valla.
Los setos muertos solo duran unos años, 4 o 5 según la
climatología, luego hay que reponerlos.
Hay dos operaciones que permiten mejorar la flexibilidad de
las varas para hacer los entretejidos y los dobleces. Una es la de ayudarse de
una rodilla para forzar la flexibilidad de la vara rozándola enérgicamente
contra ella. La otra es la de, pisando un extremo de la vara, girar
enérgicamente con la mano el otro extremo para que la vara se retuerza sobre si
misma, esto permite doblarla para tejerla sin que se quiebre.
Se probaron tres tejidos diferentes.TEJIDO 1 DE MIMBRE SECO:
TEJIDO 3 DE MIMBRE SECO
Columnas de mimbre vivo
Hay que hacer un agujero de unos 30-40 cms y unos 30 cms de profundidad, sacar la tierra y volver a meterla en el agujero.
Nudos
NUDO SIMPLENUDO DE OJO JAPONES
NUDO ROSA
Información complementaria
Páginas web y blogs de interés sobre el tema:
En estas páginas se pueden ver el aspecto de las vallas vivas
al cabo de unos pocos años:
Páginas con comentarios sobre la construcción de setos
vivos:
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