Happy combinations

Rubber cultivation has been underway in Gabon for only the last fifteen years, but tests are well advanced on mixing the cultivation of hevea (Hevea brasiliensis) with food crops, to see if this will increase the productivity of the land. Traditionally, rows of rubber trees have been combined with single cycles of food crops, and yields have often been low. Now experiments have come up with new combinations of crops which use few inputs and require no special material. The approach compensates for the non-productive period of the rubber trees youth, over the first five to seven years. The combinations of crops which work best in the forest soils are rice and groundnuts for two or three crop cycles, followed by plantain for one cycle, or cassava as an annual crop, or vegetables with rice, groundnuts and plantain for one or two cycles. There are many benefits to these mixtures: tillage is cut down, the rubber trees grow better, and farmers incomes rise and diversify. There is one condition that should not be overlooked: the plots of land should be near the village, to facilitate access, and to ensure that the crops can be got to the market. Plantations, recherche, développement, n° 1, 1999 Centre d appui technique à l hévéaculture BP 643, Libreville, Gabon

Bibliographic Details

Main Author:	Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation
Format:	News Item biblioteca
Language:	English
Published:	Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation 2000
Online Access:	https://hdl.handle.net/10568/46744 https://hdl.handle.net/10568/99588
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