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Fertilizer Tree
Fertilizer trees are used in agroforestry to improve the condition of soils used for farming. As woody legumes, they capture nitrogen from the air and put it in the soil through their roots and falling leaves. They can also bring nutrients from deep in the soil up to the surface for crops with roots that cannot reach that depth. Fertilizer trees are further useful for preventing fertilizer erosion, soil degradation and related desertification, and improving water usage for crops. ''Sesbania'', ''Gliricidia'', ''Tephrosia'', and ''Faidherbia albida'' are known as fertilizer trees. Tree lucerne or tagasaste ('' Cytisus proliferus'') is able to fix more than 587 kg. of nitrogen per hectare per year. It can increase maize (corn) yields from 1 ton per hectare per year to more than 10 tons per ha/year in areas with more than 850 mm. of rain per year or a perched water table. Tree lucerne is also used to create and maintain terra preta. Use in Africa The use of ''Faidherbia albida'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agroforestry
Agroforestry is a land use management system in which trees or shrubs are grown around or among crops or pastureland. Trees produce a wide range of useful and marketable products from fruits/nuts, medicines, wood products, etc. This intentional combination of agriculture and forestry has multiple benefits, such as greatly enhanced yields from staple food crops, enhanced farmer livelihoods from income generation, increased biodiversity, improved soil structure and health, reduced erosion, and carbon sequestration. Agroforestry practices are highly beneficial in the tropics, especially in subsistence smallholdings in sub-Saharan Africa and have been found to be beneficial in Europe and the United States. Agroforestry shares principles with intercropping but can also involve much more complex multi-strata agroforests containing hundreds of species. Agroforestry can also utilise nitrogen-fixing plants such as legumes to restore soil nitrogen fertility. The nitrogen-fixing plants can ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faidherbia Albida
''Faidherbia'' is a genus of leguminous plants containing one species, ''Faidherbia albida'', which was formerly widely included in the genus ''Acacia'' as ''Acacia albida''. The species is native to Africa and the Middle East and has also been introduced to Pakistan and India. Common names include apple-ring acacia (their circular, indehiscent seed pods resemble apple rings), and winter thorn. The South African name is ana tree. Taxonomy This species has been known as ''Acacia albida'' for a long time, and is often still known as such. Guinet (1969) in Pondicherry first proposed separating it into the genus ''Faidherbia'', a genus erected the previous century by Auguste Chevalier with this as the type species, seconded by the South African James Henderson Ross (1973) and the Senegalese legume botanist Nongonierma (1976, 1978), but authors continued to favour classification under ''Acacia'' as of 1997. Infraspecific variability According to John Patrick Micklethwait Brenan writi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Green Manure
In agriculture, a green manure is a crop specifically produced to be incorporated into the soil while still green. Typically, the green manure's biomass is incorporated with a plow or disk, as is often done with (brown) manure. The primary goal is to add organic matter to the soil for its benefits. Green manuring is often used with legume crops to add nitrogen to the soil for following crops, especially in organic farming, but is also used in conventional farming. Functions Green manures usually perform multiple functions that include soil improvement and soil protection: * Leguminous green manures such as clover and vetch contain nitrogen-fixing symbiotic bacteria in root nodules that fix atmospheric nitrogen in a form that plants can use. This performs the vital function of fertilization. :Depending on the species of cover crop grown, the amount of nitrogen released into the soil lies between 40 and 200 pounds per acre. With green manure use, the amount of nitrogen that is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ecoscaping
Ecoscaping is a spatial planning discipline that integrates landscape architecture and environmental science to create Sustainability, sustainable designs or construction. The approach of Ecoscaping is Holism, holistic and strives to respect the pre-existing materials, microenvironment (ecology), microenvironments, and structures (backyards, cities, campuses, etc.) in sustainable land use management with Ecology, ecological balance. Process Ecoscaping searches for solutions to improve the look of a property while making the smallest possible impact on the surrounding environment, protecting biodiversity and wildlife Habitat, habitats, achieving nature conservation and ecological balance. Examples of Ecoscaping techniques include: * Using natural products instead of artificial decoration * Planting trees and minimizing the use of pesticides and artificial fertilizers * Creating out-buildings, decks, trellis (architecture), trellises, etc. that work in with the land. * Rainw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agroforestry
Agroforestry is a land use management system in which trees or shrubs are grown around or among crops or pastureland. Trees produce a wide range of useful and marketable products from fruits/nuts, medicines, wood products, etc. This intentional combination of agriculture and forestry has multiple benefits, such as greatly enhanced yields from staple food crops, enhanced farmer livelihoods from income generation, increased biodiversity, improved soil structure and health, reduced erosion, and carbon sequestration. Agroforestry practices are highly beneficial in the tropics, especially in subsistence smallholdings in sub-Saharan Africa and have been found to be beneficial in Europe and the United States. Agroforestry shares principles with intercropping but can also involve much more complex multi-strata agroforests containing hundreds of species. Agroforestry can also utilise nitrogen-fixing plants such as legumes to restore soil nitrogen fertility. The nitrogen-fixing plants can ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zambia
Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most central point. Its neighbours are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the northeast, Malawi to the east, Mozambique to the southeast, Zimbabwe and Botswana to the south, Namibia to the southwest, and Angola to the west. The capital city of Zambia is Lusaka, located in the south-central part of Zambia. The nation's population of around 19.5 million is concentrated mainly around Lusaka in the south and the Copperbelt Province to the north, the core economic hubs of the country. Originally inhabited by Khoisan peoples, the region was affected by the Bantu expansion of the thirteenth century. Following the arrival of European exploration of Africa, European explorers in the eighteenth century, the British colonised the r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malawi
Malawi (; or aláwi Tumbuka: ''Malaŵi''), officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeast, and Mozambique to the east, south and southwest. Malawi spans over and has an estimated population of 19,431,566 (as of January 2021). Malawi's capital (and largest city) is Lilongwe. Its second-largest is Blantyre, its third-largest is Mzuzu and its fourth-largest is its former capital, Zomba. The name ''Malawi'' comes from the Maravi, an old name for the Chewa people who inhabit the area. The country is nicknamed "The Warm Heart of Africa" because of the friendliness of its people. The part of Africa now known as Malawi was settled around the 10th century by migrating Bantu groups . Centuries later, in 1891, the area was colonised by the British and became a protectorate of the United Kingdom known as Nyasaland. In 1953, it became ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terra Preta
''Terra preta'' (, locally , literally "black soil" in Portuguese) is a type of very dark, fertile anthropogenic soil ( anthrosol) found in the Amazon Basin. It is also known as "Amazonian dark earth" or "Indian black earth". In Portuguese its full name is or ("black soil of the Indian", "Indians' black earth"). ''Terra mulata'' ("mulatto earth") is lighter or brownish in color. ''Terra preta'' owes its characteristic black color to its weathered charcoal content, and was made by adding a mixture of charcoal, bones, broken pottery, compost and manure to the low fertility Amazonian soil. A product of indigenous soil management and slash-and-char agriculture, the charcoal is stable and remains in the soil for thousands of years, binding and retaining minerals and nutrients. ''Terra preta'' is characterized by the presence of low-temperature charcoal residues in high concentrations; of high quantities of tiny pottery shards; of organic matter such as plant residues, animal feces, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cytisus Proliferus
''Cytisus proliferus'', tagasaste or tree lucerne, is a small spreading evergreen tree that grows high. It is a well known fertilizer tree. It is a member of the Fabaceae (pea) family and is indigenous to the dry volcanic slopes of the Canary Islands, but it is now grown in Australia, New Zealand and many other parts of the world as a fodder crop. Biology Tagasaste is an evergreen shrub that has rough yellow-grey bark and velvety hairy young growth. Its leaves are composed of three greyish-green equal-sized leaflets, which are slightly paler on the underside. Its scented, creamy-white flowers form in small clusters in the leaf axils. Its flat pea-like pods are green, ripening to black. The seeds are tiny (45,000/kg), shiny and black. Tagasaste is considered to be a promiscuous legume, compatible with cowpea and Tagasaste 1502 Rhizobium. It will nodulate with a wide range of rhizobia. Tagasaste is suited to sandy, well-drained soils of pH range 4–7. On deep, freely drained so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tephrosia
''Tephrosia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the pea family, Fabaceae. It is widespread in both the Eastern and Western Hemisphere, where it is found in tropical and warm-temperate regions. The generic name is derived from the Greek word τεφρος (''tephros''), meaning "ash-colored," referring to the greyish tint given to the leaves by their dense trichomes. Hoarypea is a common name for plants in this genus, along with Goat's Rue and Devil's Shoestring. Uses Many species in the genus are poisonous, particularly to fish, for their high concentration of rotenone. The black seeds of ''Tephrosia'' species have historically been used by indigenous cultures as fish toxins.NTFlora Northern Territory Flora online:''Flora of the Darwin Region: Fabaceae.''Retrieved 10 June 2018 In the last century, several ''Tephrosia'' species have been studied in connection with the use of rotenone as an insecticide and pesticide. ''Tephrosia vogelii'' is also one of the many beneficial nitrog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soil
Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former term specifically to displaced soil. Soil consists of a solid phase of minerals and organic matter (the soil matrix), as well as a porous phase that holds gases (the soil atmosphere) and water (the soil solution). Accordingly, soil is a three-state system of solids, liquids, and gases. Soil is a product of several factors: the influence of climate, relief (elevation, orientation, and slope of terrain), organisms, and the soil's parent materials (original minerals) interacting over time. It continually undergoes development by way of numerous physical, chemical and biological processes, which include weathering with associated erosion. Given its complexity and strong internal connectedness, soil ecologists regard soil as an ecosystem. Most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gliricidia
''Gliricidia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae and tribe Robinieae. Its native range is Mexico to Peru, but ''Gliricidia sepium'' has been widely introduced to other tropical zones. The species ''G. sepium'' is a small, deciduous, ornamental tree, cultivated and used for a variety of purposes in tropical regions. The genus name ''Gliricidia'' means "mouse killer" in reference to the traditional use of the toxic seeds and bark of ''G. sepium'' as rodenticides. The tree is leafless when in flower and bears fruits during April and May in India and countries with same climate. The small flowers (barely 2 cm long) are pale pink and they are borne in dense clusters on bare twigs. Flowers fade to white or a faint purple with age. The flowers attract a lot of bees and some lycaenid butterflies—particularly the Peablue ''Lampides boeticus'' and other native birds. Species The following species are valid: *'' Gliricidia brenningii'' (Harms) Lavin *'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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