Topic Five: Conservation Farming 🌾

Organic Farming 🌿

Definition: Organic farming is a method of agriculture that avoids the use of industrially produced fertilizers. Instead, it employs organic manures to maintain soil fertility and enhance productivity. 🌍

Role of Organic Farming in Soil Fertility 🌱:

• Increases the activity of soil organisms which help break down organic materials and release nutrients. 🐛
• Promotes soil structure through the release of chemicals that bind soil particles into aggregates. 🏗️
• Enhances soil organic matter content. 🌾
• Improves soil tilth as microbial activity increases. 🌼

Importance of Organic Matter 🌍

Definition: Organic matter consists of decaying plant and animal materials including fallen leaves 🍂, remains of plants and animals, and animal waste. 🐄

Importance of Maintaining or Increasing Organic Matter for Crops 🌱:

• Preserves humus in the soil. 🌿
• Serves as a source of essential plant nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur) after decomposition. 🌾

Conventional Farming Methods 🚜

Conventional farming involves clearing vegetation, allowing it to decompose, and incorporating it into the soil to increase organic matter. 🌱

Conservation Farming 🌾

Definition: Conservation farming is a practice aimed at conserving soil and water by using surface cover to minimize water runoff and erosion. 💧

Benefits of Conservation Farming Methods 🌱:

• Reduces soil erosion. 🌊
• Enhances soil structure by protecting it with mulch and employing minimum or no-tillage techniques. 🏞️

Crop Rotation 🔄

Definition: Crop rotation is the practice of growing different crops in a planned sequence on the same piece of land across multiple seasons. 🌾

Importance of Crop Rotation 🌱:

• Reduces crop pests and diseases. 🐛
• Increases soil fertility and improves soil structure during resting periods. 🌍
• Facilitates better nutrient use by crops. 🌱
• Increases overall crop yields. 📈

Importance of Legumes in Crop Rotation 🌱:

• Legumes have root nodules that fix nitrogen in the soil. 🌿
• They help protect against soil erosion. 🌊
• Their fallen leaves contribute humus to the soil. 🍂

Intercropping 🌱

Definition: Intercropping is the practice of planting another crop between the rows of a widely spaced main crop, such as growing beans between maize plants. 🌽

Importance of Intercropping 🌱:

• Controls soil erosion. 🌊
• Enhances the utilization of soil mineral salts. 💧
• Legumes in the system fix nitrates in root nodules enriching the soil. 🌿
• Allows farmers to harvest various crops from the same field. 🌾

Considerations for Intercropping 🌱:

• Spatial Arrangement: Growing two or more crops simultaneously with at least one planted in rows. 🌱
• Plant Density: Adjusting the seeding rate of each crop in the mixture to prevent overcrowding. 🌾
• Maturity Date: Planting crops with different maturity periods to optimize resource demand for nutrients, water, and sunlight. ☀️
• Plant Arrangement: Ensuring that one crop captures sunlight unavailable to others. 🌞

Examples of Intercropping Combinations 🌱:

• Bananas/beans 🍌🌱
• Cassava/groundnuts 🌾🥜
• Bananas/coffee 🍌☕
• Maize/beans 🌽🌱
• Cassava/beans 🌾🌱
• Potatoes/maize/beans 🥔🌽🌱
• Sunflower/beans 🌻🌱
• Maize/millet 🌽🌾
• Maize/sorghum/beans 🌽🌾🌱

Conservation Tillage 🌱

Definition: Conservation tillage involves minimal soil disturbance where only herbicides are applied to prepare the land, thus conserving soil and water. 💧

Benefits of No Tillage or Conservation Tillage 🌱:

• Reduces soil erosion by leaving the soil undisturbed. 🌊
• Maintains stable soil structure due to undisturbed mulch. 🏞️
• Eliminates costs related to labor, ploughing, and harrowing. 💰
• Leads to higher profits due to lower initial costs. 📈
• Improves nutrient retention due to reduced cultivation and maintenance of soil surface cover. 🌱

Green Manure 🌱

Definition: Green manure refers to crops grown specifically to be ploughed back into the soil while still green to improve fertility. Legumes are commonly used as green manure crops. 🌿

Importance of Green Manure Crops 🌱:

• Adds organic matter to the soil upon decomposition. 🍂
• Provides essential nutrients, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus. 🌱
• Improves soil aeration and water retention capacity. 💧
• Darkens soil color aiding in heat absorption for seed germination. ☀️

Using Green Manure to Grow Crops 🌱:

• Ideally, use leguminous crops to provide nitrogen. 🌿
• Plough or dig into the soil and cover completely at the flowering stage when nitrogen content is sufficient. 🌼
• Allow a good period of time between incorporating green manure into the soil and planting subsequent crops. ⏳

Questions ❓

• (a) Describe the following terms in agriculture:
  • Mixed Farming: A type of farming that involves growing crops and raising livestock. 🐄🌾
  • Intercropping: The practice of growing crops in proximity to one another. 🌱
  • Conservation Farming: A system that conserves soil and water by using surface cover to minimize water runoff and soil erosion improving growth rates. 💧🌱
  • Monoculture: The practice of growing one type of crop on a piece of land year after year. 🌾
• (b) Explain two advantages of crop rotation:
  • Reduces the incidence of crop pests and diseases. 🐛
  • Increases soil fertility and promotes better utilization of soil nutrients, leading to improved soil structure. 🌍