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Great, today we are going to talk about soil fertility and farming in Ghana for that matter Africa. Soil fertility basically is the ability or the capacity of the soil to supplied nutrients in adequate amounts and in the right proportions and ensure steady flow of the nutrients to plant throughout the growing season. Many soils in Ghana and Africa as a whole do not have the adequate amount of nutrients thus poor yields are recorded at the end of the season. A visit to many farms in the country show that, large hectares of farmland are cultivated especially for maize but as usual small number of bags are packed at the end of the growing period. I do not blame farmers for this since many do not know the ways of replenishing soil fertility. Before I go on to talk about ways of improving soil fertility, remember that, every field contains a maximum of one or two and minimum of one or two nutrients.
WAYS OF REPLENISHING SOIL FERTILITY
There are many ways we can employ in order to make our soils fertile so that we can have bumper harvest even if the the plot of land cultivated is not larger enough. Some of these are as follows fallowing, green manuring, cover cropping, mulching, application of farm yard manure, lime and inorganic fertilizers. Let us take time and critically look at each of these methods one after the other.
FALLOWING
This simply talks about the process of reshuffling and recycling of the nutrients. This process increases the organic matter content of the soil due to the decomposition of fallen leaves, seeds, twigs and branches. The humus content also get increased because of activities of both macro and micro organisms like termites and earthworms, root slough and exudation. This method is however effective in the forest zone than the grassland area due to less biomass and bush burning resulting in bare soils in the latter. Fallowing, nowadays has become difficult to practice since many of these farmlands have been taken up for commercial purposes such as real estate development and also population increase has increased pressure on the land acquisition and use thus farmland do not usually fallow.
GREEN MANURING
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| Green manuring plant. |
This is another method of replenishing the nutrients in the soils in order to support plant growth. In this method, plant mainly leguminous plants are grown on the field and then they are incorporated into the soil to enrich it and support plant growth. These plants are ploughed into the soil hence plants used for this method must be fast growing and easy to eradicate. Although this method is good, here in Ghana it is not practice mainly due to the socioeconomic situation we found ourselves. Inability of many farmers to access tractor, the climate and geographical location of the nation are some of the factors.
COVER CROPS
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| Cover crop |
Cover crops are low growing crops that are grown to primarily give a protective covering of the soil. These crops perform many functions that help to replenish the fertility of the soil. The functions include the following :
- prevent soil erosion through protecting soil against direct impact of rain drops and reduction of surface runoff.
- regulate the temperature of the the soil by providing shade to the soil hence reduce rays of the sun from direct contact to the soil.
- improve the soil structure and organisms in the soil.
- conserve the soil moisture.
Growing of cover crops is commonly practice here in the country mainly in the tree plantation.
MULCHING
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| Mulching material |
Like cover crops, mulching have the same objectives and functions. So I would not like to repeat this but the only thing I would like to add here is that mulching is mainly materials which is not planted or grown. It is can be weeds, sawdust or anything that can function as covering to the soil.
FARM YARD MANURE
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| Farm yard manure |
Farm yard manure consist of a mixture of three general classes of constituents ; domestic animals dung or feaces, urine and any materials used for bedding and any miscellaneous waste farm product.
Farm yard manure is a source of plant - food. Manure contains Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium compounds which are the constituents needed in the soil for growing crops. Manure promotes the growth of useful organism in the soil. These organism break down complex compound into simple which decomposed adding nutrients to the soil. Many farmers do add farm yard manure to the soils here in Ghana but the problem I have seen with this method has got to do with its application. Many just put them on the leaves of the growing crops in order to prevent animals from feeding on them. This does not help to achieve the purpose of farm yard manure.
INORGANIC FERTILIZERS
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| Inorganic fertilizers |
These are artificially or synthetically manufactured plant food which when added to the soil support plant growth and development. There are many types of fertilizers. Many farmers used fertilizers on the field because of the fact that they give instant results and are easy to acquire. Hence fertilizers have been the order of the day in Ghana especially in the Northern part where without which nothing can thrive. This development has made the rest of the methods very unpopular and are not practice well.
It is therefore our hope that farmers will start to implement some of these methods to improve production level.
Our next episode is going to be purely on fertilizers that is the inorganic type. We shall look at the various elements that make up the fertilizer and their functions in the soils. See you and take good care of yourself.
