Ground creeper to smother weeds
Farmers in West Africa are using the leguminous ground creeper Mucuna utilis, to smother and kill serious grass weeds. Researchers at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Nigeria have been working with Mucuna for several years, mainly as a plant to rejuvenate degraded land. Its ability to smother persistent weeds such as Imperata grass was recognized later. The Imperata problem is especially bed on small farms in Nigeria and Benin where land has been abandoned because it is too costly to buy herbicides. But now central Benin farmers can successfully remove Imperata grass from land that had been abandoned At the beginning of the wet season the Imperata is cut down and the Mucuna seed sown. It is necessary to cut the Imperata once again, but after that the Mucuna is able to vow away and form a thick blanket, which smothers anything else that is growing. At the end of the season the Mucuna, an annual, dies down and the vegetation left forms a thick mulch that can be incorporated into the soil. Normal cropping can then be resumed. It may be necessary to repeat the exercise a year or so later if the Imperata creeps back. IlTA has also been using Mucuna to maintain soil fertility in fragile soils. On the Institute's farm Mucuna has been grown as a routine fallow crop and has sustained annual cropping for the past 20 years. Another use for Mucuna is to 'row it with a crop of maize silage to increase {he protein content. There are also reports from Latin America that the Mucuna bean has been used as a substitute for coffee. If the Mucuna bean could be developed as a cash crop it could become far more attractive to farmers and its soil enrichment effects would become a byproduct. The International Institute for Tropical Agriculture - PMB5320 -Ibadan NIGERIA
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| Format: | News Item biblioteca |
| Language: | English |
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Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation
1990
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/45290 http://collections.infocollections.org/ukedu/en/d/Jcta27e/ |
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