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Multicropping as opposed to monocropping is thegrowing of several crops/species in the same pieceof land at the same time or in sequence within ayear. There are several types of multicropping:intercropping, multistorey planting, relay cropping, and crop rotation. Intercropping This is the growing of two or more crops in alternate rows in the same piece of land in the same season per year. The crops are of different family and are supposed to receive benefits from their association. Examples are corn + mungbean intercropping, corn + peanut intercropping. Multistorey Planting In this system, three or more crops of varying depths of root proliferation are grown in a storey fashion. Crops consist of perennials and annuals. Smaller crops are supposed to have some degree of tolerance to shading. Examples are mixtures of papaya+ corn+ legumes + crucifers (lowland cropping system) with botanical plants around the perimeter of the farm; ‘lanzones’ + coffee + pineapple + ginger (upland/highland cropping system) with botanicals in the perimeter of the farm. Relay Cropping This is the planting of crop even before the harvest of the main crop. The most common of this type is the rice-mungbean relay cropping. The mungbean is usually planted 3–5 days before the rice crop is harvested and when the soil is still moist. The objective is to take advantage of the residual moisture and nutrients from the soil particularly in rainfed areas. Mungbeans are inoculated with Rhizobium for purposes of N fixation. Crop Rotation This is the growing of crops alternately in different parts of the farm in planned fashion to protect the soil from erosion and to build the fertility. The rotation is basically that of crops providing effective protection/soil building and a row crop. Again legumes are generally used as protection-effective crops and cereals/vegetables as row crops. In hilly or rolling areas, it is important to provide hedgerows of grass + legume trees in the buffer strips to further arrest or control erosion. These types of multicropping provide some or all of the following advantages:• Promote diversification, which enables the distribution of risk in farming and continuous supply of different products from the farm.• Reduce pest infestation by the repellent effects of the crops or the non-preference of the pest to the crops. The diversity increases disease resistance and makes it more difficult for pests and microbial pathogens to find certain host plant species.• Improve soil fertility by mixing legumes, such as beans that improve N supply of the non- legumes in a later term. • Increase nutrient and water use efficiency by exploiting the different depths of soil layers.• Provide more dense vegetation through acombination of several crops resulting inbetter soil cover, thus suppressing weedsmore efficiently.This resource comes from: ORGANIC AGRICULTURE in the Philippines: A Training Manual by PCAARRD and DOST.
A fertilizer is any substance that is added to the soil or to the plant (foliar) to supply the elements required in plant nutrition. Organic Fertilizer This is defined as any product of plant or animal origin that has undergone substantial decomposition through biological, chemical, or any other process where the original materials are no longer recognizable, free from chemical fertilizers, any pathogens, soil-like in texture, contains not less than 20% organic matter (OM), and can supply nutrients to plants. Synthetic or Chemical Fertilizer This is a substance that supplies one or more nutrient elements, which are produced throug chemical processes. They usually contain high amount of nutrients and dissolve in water. Chemical-based fertilizers, through the years, are undeniably responsible for the large increases in the yields of crops particularly during the advent of “Green Revolution.” They have contributed to the boosting of crop production that eventually saved humanity from hunger. If it was so, why resort to the use of organic fertilizers and microbial inoculants? The extensive and intensive cropping registered successes during the Green Revolution and these motivated most farmers to continuously use chemical fertilizers alone for the last 30 years or so. Because of this, soils developed fertility imbalance. A shift into the organic approach of managing soil fertility will give the following benefits and advantages: • Provide a more balanced and continuous supply of nutrients • Improve soil aeration • Increase water infiltration and water storage capacity • Improve soil tilth by enhancing soil aggregate stability • Decrease soil erosion losses due to better soil aggregation • Increase the soil nutrient holding and exchange capacity • Promote growth of microorganisms • While chemical fertilizers give immediate effects to plants, there are negative effects that cannot be eliminated particularly due to its long term use: • Acidification of the soil particularly due to heavy application of N–containing fertilizers • Heavy application of N-containing fertilizers pose problems of high nitrate accumulation in plants • Sole use of fertilizers containing only NPK result in deficiency of other nutrients particularly micronutrients due to continuous crop removal without replacement • Inhibit proliferation of N-fixing microorganisms in the soil due to excess N supply • Deprive the soil of organic matter build-up, resulting in the destruction and degradation of soil structure This resource comes from: ORGANIC AGRICULTURE in the Philippines: A Training Manual by PCAARRD and DOST.
