Small-scale agro-ecological restoration // The soil as a fundamental part of natural and agricultural life

Greetings dear friends of the community @ecoTrain, in this opportunity I will be sharing with all of you, parts of the advances of the experience with the cultivation of Cassava Manihot esculenta that I established on a small scale in the patio of my house, as I have commented to you, I have captured photographically the behaviors and biological interactions in our small ecosystem, and each one of the activities of agro-ecological management that I have been developing, among these; application of manual irrigation, application of compost, pest management and weeding.

In relation to the weeding, control of weeds, or elimination of unwanted plants in the cultures as also it is usually said to him, it is of indicating that, initially in the labors preparation and cleaning of the land I proceeded to eliminate all the species that occupied the space where the culture would be established, with the purpose of avoiding the competition by water and light with the vegetative seeds or stakes of Cassava Manihot esculenta, fundamentally to guarantee that the vegetative seeds had all the conditions to germinate of suitable and vigorous form.

I comment them, that after having sowed the vegetative stakes of Cassava Manihot esculenta, during the following three months I proceeded to carry out the weeding in a manual way, leaving aside the paradigm of the control centered the use of synthetic herbicides, on the other hand, taking into account that this zone is very hot, the weeding during all that time I carried out it in hours of the afternoon.

I must comment to you, that finalized the third month I decided to suspend the manual control of weeds, in principle with the purpose of reactivating the natural ecological processes of the ground, fundamentally to return the necessary biological interactions, and with it to maintain in ecological balance of the ground, to favor the retention of humidity, to favor the establishment of beneficial microorganisms that facilitated the natural symbiosis between the ground and the seedlings of Cassava Manihot esculenta.

When stopping the manual weeding, although a microclimate was generated that favored the appearance of multiple ecological niches in the low zones of the crop, it is to emphasize, that the seedlings of Cassava Manihot esculenta continued developing in a normal way, I estimate that this probably happened, because the soils when they have vegetal cover retain more humidity with respect to the discovered soils, reason why, these conditions could improve the hydric availability of the ground, and the seedlings take advantage of this condition to accelerate their vegetative growth.

In summary, this wonderful experience confirms that the soil is the cornerstone of both natural and agricultural life, and while weeding is a recommended practice to ensure that agricultural crops are developed optimally, it is necessary to re-evaluate control methods, in particular I recommend that during the production cycle of any crop should be applied rest periods, which ensure the reactivation of the natural ecological processes of the soil.

In the penultimate photo our three cats appear, the one in the last photo is called Dino, and besides being my faithful friend, he is the one who always accompanies me in each of the field activities and photo captures. Until the next delivery, may their lives be flooded with positive energies.