Saturday, February 14, 2009SOILS NEAR BATIBO, CAMEROONView Larger Map The variation in the color of the soils from dark to red, as explained by Laurens Rademakers the darker soils could have been caused by people?! he Batibo technique was described to us as to work as follows: before the planting season, farmers collect big piles of elephant grass or any other type of savannah grass, which they spread out over their fields to dry it. After the grass has dried, they pile it so as to make long strips, on which they will grow their crops. Then they cover the big rows of grass with a layer of mud, which they leave to dry again. After the mud has dried and hardened, they open one part of the strip and set fire to the grass contained in this "container". The fire travels slowly through this "kiln", providing a low oxygen environment, and chars all the biomass. After this operation, they crush the mud layer, and the char beneath it. They repeat the effort several times to create layers of char and crushed mud. This then becomes their soil bed, on which they start planting crops when they rains arrive. The rains turn this soil layer into an apparently fertile soil. To our own amazement, the farmers of our workshop in Kendem immediately understood the biochar concept, because of their knowledge of this Batibo technique. |
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BATIBO - CAMAROON |