When it comes to increasing rather maximizing the production of crops, ‘fertilizer’ is the primary buzzword. Though it may enrich the fertility of soil, fertilizer runoff plays havoc on the environment - leaching nutrients, contaminating water etc.
But, again, the use of fertilizer in agriculture cannot be stopped altogether, with a major part of the world surviving primarily on it.
Concerned on these lines, researchers have come up with an alternative cropping practice method. The University of Minnesota researchers claim the new method to be effectively protective towards the environment. It will reduce high nitrate levels in surface and ground water that are generally caused by the use of conventional fertilizer.
The newly designed ‘alternative farming practices’ include organic management practices, which includes rotation of a variety of crops. It includes corn, soybean, oat, alfalfa, buckwheat, and rye along with nutrients supplied from legumes and either fresh or composted manure sources.
This alternative cropping systems can reduce the loss of water in tile drainage by 41 percent, compared to the conventional corn-soybean rotation method. Not just that! ‘Alternative farming practices’ can effectively reduce nitrate-nitrogen losses by between 59 and 62 percent in two out of three years!
This is amazingly a huge reduction of ‘carbon footprint’ on earth leading towards a sound economic growth by saving the huge expenditure on fertilizers.
To read more on the new method, visit here...
