I’m looking at experimenting with pigeon peas and jack beans as a gmcc in sandy soil. However, as with many places, there’s huge animal pressure. Around the end of December, the herders send in their animals. By the time the rains come in June, there is generally nothing left. I’ve seen goats, camels, and the like happily munching on neem leaves in town, and in the fields, the goats will eat Calotropis procera. Naturally, I’m concerned about what this means for my unfenced rented land. The two ideas I have are
I’d rather cut and drop the mulch in early January. While I realize that a lot of the N would be burned off by the sun by the time rainy season arrives, my hope is that the termites would help decompose a good chunk and bring it into the ground. I’ve found one study out of West Africa saying basically “manure without termites is ineffective” and I’m wondering if they help “bank” N and other nutrients in the soil.
Some thoughts from another network member are:
The question of how to safeguard OM and the associated nutrients from grazers in the Sahel is a good one. There are several options, but which one is most appropriate depends on circumstances. Fencing, chop and drop (to make less attractive to grazers and for termites to bank), intensive grazing with associated manure drop, stocking as mulch or compost, or using tall perennials/trees as a source of chop-and-drop mulch for the rainy season are a few that come to mind.
In our particular context, we’ve chosen fencing. As we don’t have livestock yet, we then trade the protected OM for manure late in the dry season, which helps out the neighbors and helps us with decomposition. It might be possible to employ a similar strategy by bringing in a large herd after the rainy season, and concentrating it in place long enough that most of the OM is turned into manure or flattened into contact with the ground for termites to access.
What do you do in your area to protect crops from roaming grazers?
I grow jackbean and pigeon pea in the wet tropics. Both are fragile and easily damaged by animals.
There are some selections of pigeon pea that will 5m tall with 50-75mm trunk (yellow flower front red back- flatish mid brown seed) and (brown speckled round beige seed)
I suggest you explore Phasey bean (Macroptilium lathyroides) Phasey bean (Macroptilium lathyroides) | Feedipedia to use as well.
How much land do you have? Fencing would be the best way to keep animals off, but that may not be feasible on a larger piece of land (or even a small one). Since you are in a free-grazing culture, that last thought might be the way to go. Aside from manure, animals will trample a good amount of organic matter into the ground. That’s less chop and drop work for you, and you get manure and urine in place of the leaf matter that the animals eat. Ideally, you could fence in your land and have control over when and for how long they graze your field.
The termites might be a good solution too, but since you’re around livestock anyway, you could make use of them and let the termites break down the manure and what’s left of the plants.
There is also the living fence options using hedge laying to get the fence established quickly. You can use a temporary fence barrier to back up the establishment of the living fence and move it to another location to expand the area protected once your living fence is established. You can use pretty much any type of torn tree but an invasive species will be problematic for everyone. You can also back up your living fence with a trained dog that drives off animals. Make sure the dog does not take food from strangers or it will be poisoned. If you are using manure you get fertilizer benefit and your manure should be more concentrated on the outside edge and be applied often. My living fence article can be found by a search in the ECHO site.
Thanks for the input, unfortunately it is rented land and people don’t think planting trees is a good idea. Partly because of birds eating millet/sorghum (pry false based on the FMNR manuel from World Vision), but mostly because cutting down trees is illegal here and one can be heavily fined/arrested for doing so. Meaning they wouldn’t be able to remove any trees I plant. Someone suggested for me to spray urine on the mulch once a month or so during dry season.
I’ve lived and worked in the Sahel where there is a grazing free for all and you can’t keep animals off your fields after harvest. I’m not sure if the areas I’ve been in are much like the one you work in but for what it’s worth, here are some socially acceptable ways to improve your field which I’ve seen used in the Sahel:
Remove every scrap of organic matter after the farming season and transport it home by the cart load. Raise animals and transport the manure back at the beginning of farming season.
Similar to number 1… except that you don’t raise the animals yourself. – You sell every scrap of organic matter after the farming season and sell it and use the money to buy manure or fertilizer.
Store and sell later - Arrange your millet stalks/ sorghum stalks etc… in circles with the roots facing out and then surround them with thorns and hope no one steals them. The forage can then be sold to herders at a later date and the money made spent on improving fertility.
Corralling - Invite a shepherd (nomad or otherwise) to make your field his base where his animals will spend the night. Their animals will graze all over the place and come back at night and pee and poo and fertilize your field. One can give them sugar or tea or half a bag of rice or be more generous and make them a little hut or some rice each month. Nomadic shepherds can be looking for places to stay where they know the landowners approve of their presence… If one does this one could stock their forage crops and surround them with thorns and then pay them with forage crops. So, the shepherd sees that there is yummy forage for his animals to eat when all the free stuff from peoples fields is gone… and the farmer gets fertility for his field… One needs to ensure they don’t just eat all the forage and move on… but yeah, hopefully you get the idea. The advantage of this last one (especially if you don’t even stock the forage and you just let them walk in) is that you don’t need to spend lots on harvesting, storage or transport of forage crops and you can spend less on transporting and applying organic matter / manure or fertilizer.
Other thoughts:
-Grow good crops … fertilize them well, weed them well, use appropriate spacing / density – in essence, do the basics right and practice good agronomy. Why? Because the bigger and better your crop is… the more the roots will develop and the greater their total biomass will be… and the biomass that can be left in the soil. This site illustrates the point I’m trying to make well:
If you don’t mind me asking, why are you doing this on rented land? Is it possible people will question why you are investing so much in someone else’s field? People will know that the farmer could just ask for it back. Why not just buy a field and then invest in fixing it up?
Also, why are you trying a gmcc? Are you thinking that it’s a more economical way for farmers to improve fertility than using wood ash, manure and or fertilizers? What is your overall goal with the field?
-Do they normally grow pigeon pea or jack beans where you are? Do they sell bundles of cowpea hay where you are? Does lablab grow? What fodder crops are marketed?
In your context I’d be tempted to grow a fodder crop people recognise, sell it and buy fertilizers, manure or wood ash. I wouldn’t spray urine or manure all over something that people might consider as valuable just to keep animals off it.
Regarding incorporating residues, if I did grow a good crop that had lots of residues… Unless I would chop it up and semi-plough it into the ground - I reckon a bunch of goats and animals would come along and eat it all anyways. Its amazing how well they can clean the soil. Also, I’d be surprised if there are no termites where you are… and I would really question the study that said that “manure without termites is ineffective”… Manure is great stuff… the more you can add the better in my opinion, termites or no termites. What is great about termites is that they can sometimes incorporate your organic matter without having to do anything (plough/cultivate). I’ve worked in places where you can spread your organic matter out and within 2 weeks it’s all covered in termite castings - just beautiful.
All the best with it Jared!
p.s. I’ve never heard of jack beans… gonna have to look them up! (I just looked them up —ohh South American… I’ve eaten them, they’re good, have you had good success growing them where you are? I’ve never tried growing them in the Sahel.)
Thanks for the lengthy response. Of the 4 ideas you mention, 3 and 4. are already in practice here and seem to be part of their traditional culture.
2 is an obvious solution, but only urea is available here in the market and the manure of poorly fed animals is, as I’ve found out poor fertilizer. I collected 800 kg of manure from a seasonal riverbed where the nomads water their cattle. I did so in March and tried to only collect the freshest manure. I stored it in the shade till spreading. After spreading the termites did eat the good stuff, but even now, 6 weeks later, a majority of the manure has not been eaten and incorporated by the termites. During the dry season some camels camped on my field and the area where they camped looks the worst. The termites won’t eat the camel manure and the sorghum has phosphorus and nitrogen deficiencies. It wasn’t until I sprayed BLF made with fresh donkey manure and leaves have the problems begun to resolve themselves. Frustrating, but a good learning experience.
Regarding the rented land: I would love to own land, but everything I’ve read says that demonstration farms aren’t effective in changing local practice.
My goal for the field was to gain experience. I have hands on experience with irrigated vegetables, but not much hands on knowledge of field crops. For example, everyone here says pigeon peas don’t grow in sandy soil, but no one in the international community says this. Looking at my pigeon pea, the locals are kind of right. They are struggling. my home garden ones (well fertilized) are over 6 times taller even though planted within a week of each other. I would have happily promoted pigeon peas as a gm/cc, not knowing that the soils right now are too poor for satisfactory growth. (We’ll see what I say mid Nov about this). I’ve tried otherwise to follow best agronomic practices otherwise. It was a lot of fun reading all the articles and making the field plan frankly.
I am looking at gm/cc because there is just no way around the supply chain issues. There is not enough wood ash, not enough collectible manure to go around and as I already mentioned, no complete fertilizer. I am left with growing the fertilizer in place. The two major options there are FMNR and gm/cc. The latter seems more culturally appropriate, and lower risk so I’m starting with that. I brought lablab beans out recently and have a few people growing them to try it out. Jackbeans are considered flowers that people have around their houses, which means there is a local supply and pigeon peas are grown in protected gardens although the varieties are long duration day-length sensitive ones.
Most of my ideas are taken from Roland Bunches “Restoring the Soil” and I’m working through his old book “two ears of corn”.
Thanks again for the lengthy response. Most people’s eye’s glaze over when I get into the details.
I’ll try eating the Jackbeans at some point, but it seems like quite the process.