Back to activities
11 Dec 2019 | Soil management

Conservation farming

0 mins Read

70% Complete

The basic principle of conservation tillage is to maintain a cover on the soil surface of residues (mulching) or vegetation that helps retain soil and water. The improved soil and water conservation results in the preservation of top soil and soil organic matter. Conservation tillage has two basic advantages:

  1. conserving soil, water, and soil organic matter resources and
  2. reducing the need for costly inputs while maintaining or improving crop yield and profits.

The higher yields under conservation tillage systems are generally attributed to the increased soil water content resulting from increased infiltration, decreased run-off, and decreased evaporation. Using conservation tillage systems, growers can start using more intensive crop rotations with fewer summer fallow periods or increase crop yields within traditional cropping systems. Converting to more intensive cropping systems, greatly increases the efficiency of use of precipitation with less water loss below the root zone and less potential for nitrate leaching.

11 Dec 2019 Income generation
Income Generation through High-Value Cash Crops, Horticulture, and Beekeeping

Developing realistic opportunities for income generation is one of the most challenging tasks of development in mountain areas ...

11 Dec 2019 Soil management
Shelter/Protection Belts

Planting and maintenance of shelter or protection belts is another important method of soil and water management. Shelter belts are ...

11 Dec 2019 Community outreach
Scaling up technologies

There are three main thrusts of the scaling up efforts. Collaboration with the NGO ‘Educate The Children/Nepal’ ‘Educate The Children/Nepal’ ...

High value medicinal plants (Taxus wallichiana-Himalayan yew)

Taxus wallichiana (Himalayan yew), is a species of #yew, native to the Himalaya and parts of ...

Solar Technologies – drier, cooker, lamp, oven

Solar energy has been used for centuries for drying crops, clothes, wood, and crop residues, and heating buildings. But now ...

Non-solar Technologies – briquetting, improved stoves

Beehive briquetting technology This technique is an adaptation of methods used to produce charcoal for ...

19 Oct 2020 Soil management
Mulching with leaf-litters

The benefits of mulching? Mulch is a covering, using straw, compost, or plastic sheeting, spread on the ground around plants ...

11 Dec 2019 Water management
Prototype Flood Early Warning System (FEWS)

ICIMOD has designed and installed a prototype of a community-based flood early warning system at the Knowledge Park ...