Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

Esp good on tropical no-till

paul tradingpost@lobo.net
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from SANET-MG Archives -- January 2002 (#272)
http://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0201&L=sanet-mg&P=31107

Subject:         No-till, Rolf Derpsch, Roland Bunch's 5 Principles, MOIST
From:   Steve Diver <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To:       [log in to unmask]
Date:   Tue, 22 Jan 2002 22:58:14 -0600
Content-Type:   text/plain

Klaus Wiegand pasted the quotes from Rolf Derpsch on no-till, and
listed the @griculture Online web page that featured Derpsch as a
speaker at a no-till conference January 21-22 in Salina, Kansas.

Scientist says no-till's biggest obstacle is 'mindset'
http://email.agriculture.com/cgi-bin1/flo?y=eLcW044p60TM0FCTh0AP

I was glad to see Rolf Derpsch mentioned, because I have found his
No-Till web page to be a great place to learn about no-till and its
beneficial impact in South America.

No-Till site by Rolf Derpsch
http://www.rolf-derpsch.com/notill.htm

Here is my own no-till web collection, inspired by people adapting
no-till to small farm agriculture like Steve Groff in PA, Ron Morse
in VA, Aref Abdul-Baki in MD, Alex Hitt in NC, Doug Walton in OK,
Seth Dabney in MS, etc.

No-Till and Strip-Till Vegetable Production:   Focus on Non-Chemical
Methods of Cover Crop Suppression and Weed Control
http://ncatark.uark.edu/~steved/no-till-veggie.html

I list one no-till book, in particular, as a noteworthy addition to
The Farmer's Bookshelf:

Lamarca, Carlos Crovetto.  1996.  Stubble Over the Soil:  The
Vital Role of Plant Residue in Soil Management to Improve Soil
Quality. American Society of Agronomy, Madison, WI.  245 p.

This book is a jewel on no-till agriculture, capturing the essence of
the value and importance of conservation tillage on soil health.

Carlos Crovetto Lamarca, an agronomist with Chequen farm in Chile,
a famous site of no-till agriculture in South America, focuses on the
vital role of reduced tillage and plant residues to improve soil
quality.  Lamarca 245-page book is filled with color photos and
educational illustrations of no-till agriculture, agricultural
implements, cover crops, mulches, crop residues, and soil quality
improvements.

When I think of Rolf Depsch's work addressing no-till in Brazil and
Paraguay, I am also drawn to the work of Roland Bunch and his
Five Principles of Soil Management for the Humid Tropics.

These soil management principles -- which place critical importance
on maximizing organic matter production, keeping the soil covered
with green manures and cover crop mulches, zero tillage, maximizing
biodiversity, and feeding crops largely through mulches -- are
described in detail in his paper below.

Roland Bunch is the author of "Two Ears of Corn: A Guide to
People-Centered Agricultural Development", and for many years
he worked as Central American representative for World Neighbors.

Nutrient Quantity or Nutrient Access?:  A New Understanding of How
to Maintain Soil Fertility in the Tropics
By Roland Bunch, October 2001
HTML Gateway:
http://ppathw3.cals.cornell.edu/mba_project/moist/RolandB.html

Bunch's Paper in PDF:
http://ppathw3.cals.cornell.edu/mba_project/moist/Roland.pdf
        A 19-page PDF download

NECOFA -- Network for Ecofarming in Africa -- provides an alternate
source, where the paper is available in HTML:

Bunch's Paper in HTML:
http://www.necofa.org/activities/publications/bunch_primav.html

Bunch refers to Ana Primavesi's "earth-shaking book", The Ecological
Management of Soils, as the inspiration for his paper, but as far as
I can tell this book is available in Spanish+Portugese only.

Though, I did notice Ana Primavesi has published several articles in
English in LEISA (Low External Input Sustainable Agriculture), the
[excellent] quaterly magazine published by ILEIA in The Netherlands.

LEISA
http://www.ileia.org

Finally, the other source that comes to mind on the topic of green
manure and cover crop mulches in Latin America, Africa, and
elsewhere in the context of small farm agriculture is MOIST:

The MOIST Group at Cornell University
Management of Organic Inputs in Soils of the Tropics
http://ppathw3.cals.cornell.edu/mba_project/moist/home2.html

Steve Diver