Can This Ancient Agriculture Technique Save The World?


By: Jose D. De Leon 

 Figure 1: Leaves of turnips and radishes placed in-between rows of destroyed corn
    near Shelby, Nebraska. Image by CropWatch via https://cropwatch.unl.edu/2017/cover-crop-management-among-nebraska-farm-group 

The concept of growing multiple crops within one region is an ancient agricultural technique that dates back to the ancient Mesoamerican cultures, namely the Mayans, who would grow corn, beans, and squash in the same area in a technique known as the Milpa. Today, the modern conception of what crops should look like typically denote wide dearths of space between growing crops, but data shows that the crops growing in rows are typically in a low-quality soil that requires constant human interference and maintenance. However, when cover crops were implemented, the overall soil quality would increase, an increased rate of nutrient cycling, a decrease in soil erosion, and a higher moisture retention in the soil. As a whole, this just means that the soil is strong, healthy, and self-sufficient, with an added bonus of also growing even more food! The only known disadvantage of cover cropping are the products of negligent crop management and improper crop rotations, which can cause the soil to deplete its stores of nitrogen. Plants require nitrogen for several life-sustaining functions, and will absorb the element from the soil. If the cover cropping process was to be perpetuated across all arable land, it could solve the food crisis while simultaneously creating a more sustainable agricultural system. 

Reference: Fageria, N. K., Baligar, V. C., & Bailey, B. A. 2005. Role of cover crops in improving soil and row crop productivity. Communications in Soil Science and Plant Analysis, 36(19-20), 2733–2757. https://doi.org/10.1080/00103620500303939






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Coral Reef Service Providers

Image
By: Luis Castillo  Image 1: A diver using an XL Catlin Seaview SVII camera allowing a panoramic 360 ° frame, allowing self navigation for virtual divers  (XL Catlin Seaview Survey, 2015). Ecosystem servicing is an analytical field of environmental science that has come a long way for habitat conservation in efforts to counter the detrimental effects of the anthropogenic era. This research calls for a comprehensive approach encompassing coral reef sustainability, specifically -the reality that social and ecological systems are symbiotic and thus: should be met with an angle that asserts both dynamics for the future existence of coral reef ecosystems. Coral reefs and its service providers, or the ecological units that comprise these ecosystem services (Woodhead et al. 2018), are minimally understood -yet the benefits of these are known to be bountiful. Solar energy dissipation, ocean water nutrient eutrophication,  fishery services, coastal protection from extreme weather e...
Read more

High amounts of atmospheric mercury pollution from artisanal gold mining are captured by amazon forests

Image
 What I found interesting within this article would be the results from burning Hg-gold amalgams. It is unknown how Hg travels across regional landscapes. The mercury was being stored and deposition in a significantly affected area of artisanal gold mining in the Peruvian amazon. The gold mining received extreme high mercury inputs and have increased levels of total mercury and methylmercury in the air canopy vegetation and soils. They noticed a minimal difference between the sites and the low hg flux while the season changed. This difference was found to have come from a higher intensity within mining and dust generation which was found during the dry season. This increased deforestation and the volume of precipitation to be low while the dry season occurs. The Hg inputs that were found in the ASGM in the Peruvian Amazon are primarily deposited to the terrestrial ecosystem. The implications that the article states is that there is a large quantities of Hg that has been stored in t...
Read more

Relative Abundance of Floating Plastic Debris and Neuston in the Eastern North Pacific Ocean

Image
Even though there are increasing research based on ocean plastic pollution over the past decade, there seems to be little that we known about our current knowledge of how floating plastic debris is accumulating in subtropical oceanic gyres and how they may harm the surface associated pelagic community that is most known as neuston. By removing the floating plastic debris from the surface, we can minimize different effects of the pollution that can occur in a neuston. The results show that the dominant species of neuston such as pteropods, isopods, heteropods, and crabs show low atmospheric attributes which can be associated with the fitness benefit such as increased surface area. The research found strategies that can help remove the floating plastic from the ocean and reducing the negative effects of the neuston population.                                        ...
Read more