Restoring the Soil - Canadian Foodgrains Bank

Decision Tree Guide53each metre in hedgerows 8 to 12 m apart. Soil improvement using nyama willbe a slower process than with jackbeans, because the nyama grows much moreslowly. However, this technology could be used in areas where it is so dry that theanimals are eating the jackbean. There is also a tremendous advantage in having apermanent gm/cc, rather than one that has to be planted every few years, like thejackbean. When nyama is planted in maize, sorghum or millet fields, it does notneed to be pruned at all during the wet season, which is a major advantage overalley cropping systems.For examples of other hedgerow technologies, consider S21, S25, S58 or S82,and then go to #5. Recently, mother of cacao hedgerows have been gainingpopularity in Haiti, Indonesia and the Philippines. However, they had not beenused long enough when I saw them to justify being included in the list of successfulgm/ccs below.46. Gm/ccs for rice. The search for gm/cc systems that work well with rice, whetherupland rice or paddy rice, has been a frustrating endeavor. Rice is such a shortstaturecrop that it is difficult to find anything that can be intercropped with it.Besides, very few legumes can survive for long in standing water. Luckily, thereis not too much pressure to find gm/ccs for rice. For one thing, the System ofRice Intensification (SRI) is raising rice yields dramatically around the worldwithout gm/ccs, and many rice farmers are busy learning about and refining theiruse of SRI. [For information about SRI, see http://sri.ciifad.cornell.edu/index.html]. Secondly, rice has such a good international price that farmers can easilyuse chemical fertilizer, gather organic matter from other fields or apply compostwithout losing money. Both these factors reduce the urgency of finding gm/ccsfor rice. Even so, there are a limited number of options for using gm/ccs withrice.If the dominant system is upland rice, go to #47. If it is paddy rice, go to #48.47. Upland rice. In northern Laos, pigeon peas and a crawling variety of cowpea (alsofound in certain areas of Africa, including parts of the Sahel) are intercropped insome upland rice fields. Choose S72 or S73, then go to #5.48. Paddy rice. If development workers and the farmers are interested in using atraditional green manure system, see S76 and then #5. If a system with a rotatedor relayed gm/cc sounds more interesting, see S74, S78, S79 and S80. Afterwards,go to #5. If people are interested in using azolla, an algae that grows inpaddy water and fixes nitrogen, go to S81.49. Many of the fields are not intercropped. By and large, maize fields that have noother crops growing in them can be intercropped with any one of a large numberof leguminous gm/ccs. In high-rainfall areas, mucuna can be intercropped withmaize. Plant it at least 30 to 40 days after the maize, and allow the mucuna togrow until the next crop of maize is planted. The mucuna may need to be pruned