wind breaks

At a recent planting conference I attended it was suggested that planting windbreaks was something of a waste of effort especially in trying to plant larger bare areas. We were told that for smaller blocks, and where it was economically practical, temporary screens and fences were better than trying to put a ring of vegetation around an area to be planted in the future.
 
For larger areas, where screens and fences were not practical, planting in blocks gave a better survival rate and a quicker cover of the intended area. A panel of people who had succeeded with this practice ( well, they never bring along those who have failed do they?) said, among other things that they stopped thinking of planting in rows - as for windbreaks - and now thought in terms of areas. One person had managed to achieve, in five years, in drought mind you, the  covering of three times the area we have been struggling to cover in many, many more years. They had planted the area as a series of chess boards, putting down a few squares each year, beginning in the center of each 'white' square and planting in spirals out from this center. After a couple of years they planted the 'red' squares, which grew more quickly, benefiting from the protection, however minimal, of the first plantings.
 
All the panelists said they had doubled and trippled survival rates. They said that they had planted no closer than usual and had given no special treatment to the plants once in the ground. They had also done minimal ground preparation merely mowing the 'spiral' (and other shape) rows along which they had planted and leaving grass and even weeds in between. There was no ripping of the ground or spraying of areas undertaken. Most of them tried the method because they were asked by a researcher and they said they tried without any hope that these plantings would be any more successful than those they had undertaken in the past. One person said it seemed like starting in the middle and pushing the 'wind break' out from a center, in a series of waves.
 
As we will try anything once we will try some of this method in our planting but I am wondering if anyone has heard of this style, or approach, being tried anywhere and especially if anyone has any information from those who have failed to improve survival rates with planting this way.
 
M.Healey
Victoria
Australia
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