Farming in Zambia: How We Mulched Our Maize and Soya Beans Crops to Preserve Soil Moisture
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ส.ค. 2024
- Mulching is an important agricultural practice that helps farmers and gardeners conserve soil moisture. As we continued to struggle with a long dry spell in Feb 2024, during one of the most difficult rain seasons we have ever faced, we came across a viral video that showed us how to easily mulch our field crops with organic material.
This video shares a quick look at how we tried out mulching for ourselves on a crop of soya beans at Winterthorn and started to see the benefits.
Sorry about the lack of sound when we tried to upload this video earlier.
Great work and always learning from you
Glad to hear. All the best.
Great video as always. I’m looking forward to putting your techniques into practice. I’m starting a market garden in Western Australia and we look to suffer from the same conditions as yourselves.
Thanks. All the best.
Very informative video, thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
All farm soils should be covered with plastic sheeting, or better still, with wood shavings, as wood is the soil's favorite food ... Indeed, the main drivers of soil fertility are, in order: water (H20), Carbon (C) from wood, Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K) and Sulfur (S) ....... When a soil has degraded 4 cm of shredded wood, it will have gained 1% organic matter... If you put straw on your flight, it will take several meters of straw to make your soil gain 1% organic matter ... Shredded wood is better than straw, because it decomposes less quickly and feeds the soil better.
The thing you're forgetting is that decomposing wood (or straw) will help the soil develop its mycelial network. So, your soil will be full of fungi that will gorge themselves with water when it rains and bring this water to the plants in exchange for plant nutrients... Soil fungi will increase your soil's water retention ... but don't plough any more, or you'll destroy the soil's fungal network ...
In French :
Tous les sols de la ferme devraient être recouvert avec une bâche en plastique, ou mieux encore, avec du broyat de bois car le bois est la nourriture préférée du sol ... En effet, les principaux moteurs de la fertilité des sols, dans l'ordre : l'eau (H20), le Carbone (C) du bois, l'Azote (N), le phosphore (P), le potassium (K) et le souffre (S) ....... Quand un sol aura dégradé 4 cm de bois broyé, le sol aura gagné 1% de matière organique ... Si vous mettez de la paille sur votre vol, il faudra plusieurs mètres de paille pour faire gagner 1% de matière organique à votre sol ... Le bois broyé est mieux que la paille, car il se décompose moins vite et il nourrit mieux le sol.
La chose que tu oublies est que la décomposition du bois (ou paille) va aider le sol à développer son réseaux mycéllien. Ainsi, ton sol sera remplit de champignons qui vont se gorger d'eau lors des pluies et ils vont apporter aux plantes cette eau contre des nutriments de la plante ... Les champignons du sol vont augmenter la rétention d'eau de ton sol ... mais attention, il ne faut plus labourer sinon tu détruira le réseaux de champignons dans le sol ...
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Is mulching with plastics not rising the risk of being over heating the crops,bearing in mind that plastics are good conductors of heat?
I have yet seen the kind of plastic that is used for mulching in person, except for in videos.
But my immediate thought is that it is something that is specially designed and manufactured for that purpose. Or else millions of farmers around the world would not use it.
I'm sure we will get our hands on some and try it in the future.
I one saw a video of a local farmer trying to mulch with normal plastic, and it didn't work.
Great video. Sir, do you know any company selling plastic mulch with punched holes of 60 cm
Sorry, this is our first experience with mulching as shared in the video.
Pls check with agro supply outlets in your area.
Does the "fall armyworm" bring you much suffering?
Indeed, it does. After spreading from South America, Fall Army Worm continues to wreak havoc around the globe.
We did a video on it last year
th-cam.com/video/msemvWxmRP4/w-d-xo.html
What are the materials we can use for mulching apart from nylon?
Dried grass .
Sorry, Mr Sunday. I've only just started getting experience with mulching, as you saw in the video.
As far as I know, plastic mulch isn't used very much in Zambia yet, so we use vegetative material like we did in the video.