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General Farming Tips
Kitchen smoke preserves maize: By E. James Kalikwani; Director Variety Farmers; Jinja, Uganda When maize has dried in the field and is ready to harvest, select the healthy cobs that you want to keep. Cut off the stalks and the cobs with a sharp knife and tie them up in a bundle. Hang them near…
Good Soil Management Increases Harvests
Content: Take care of your soil. Use crop rotation, mulching and proper soil water management. A few simple steps can help increase crop yields. Let us think for a few minutes about how farmers should manage their soil to get better crop yields. Modern farmers Modern farmers know how to look after the soil. They…
Green Manure and Rice: Get Higher Rice Yields with Green Manure Crops
Every farmer must think about how to get good yields, not only this season but year after year. As rice grows, it takes nutrients out of the soil. The crop uses about 20 kg nitrogen, 5 kg phosphorus, and 44 kg potassium to produce one ton of rice grain! When no fertilizer is added and…
Comfrey Leaves as Potato Fertilizer
Content: A man in South Africa has learned from a village elder that comfrey leaves are good fertilizer for his potatoes. One day Tabo was out in his garden working. He was planting potatoes. He was planting them different ways to see which would grow the best. Next to his animals, Tabo loved nothing more…
Grow Your Own Fertilizer -Plant Cover Crops with Maize
Many farmers in different parts of the world are growing their own fertilizers. Commercial fertilizers are becoming more and more expensive and they often fail to keep the soil fertile. So farmers are growing cover crops which are available, inexpensive, and help to keep the soil fertile for many years. Cover crops protect the soil…
Soil Conservation on Don Maximo Escobar’s Farm
Two years ago Don Maximo Escobar, a farmer from Pata Galana, Guatemala, began to farm an abandoned plot of land on a very steep hillside. He had several goals. He hoped to farm the land using almost no dangerous chemical fertilizers or pesticides. He wanted to prevent or limit soil erosion but he knew that…
How Trees Help Crops
Perhaps you or other farmers in your region practice a type of farming called slash and burn (shifting cultivation). This is done by cutting down the forest, burning the trees, and planting crops on the land the trees were on. After a few growing seasons, shrubs and trees are allowed to grow again while another…
A few farming hints
Save and edit this resource as a Word document. A. Snails as fish feed and fertilizer Lung Chieng is a farmer in northeastern Thailand. He has fishponds on his farm and grows fruit trees on the bunds that separate the ponds. Many snails live beside the ponds in the moist areas under the fruit trees….
Make compost in small pits in the garden
Save and edit this resource as a Word document. Make compost in small pits in your garden. Put fresh or decomposed kitchen and garden wastes and manure directly in these pits. The materials rot and add nutrients to the soil as your garden plants are growing. This is called basket composting in the Philippines. HOST:…
Use Bones to Make Fertilizer
When you cook chicken or other meat, you often have bones left over. You can use these bones to make good fertilizer for your garden. It’s easy and doesn’t cost any money. All you have to do is boil the bones in a pot of water, dry them, and crush them. First collect the bones. …