Egyptians love to start their day with delicious, energy-packed fools and ta’meya. Both are made from fava beans. Fava beans and many of the legumes that we enjoy eating are rich in protein.
Legumes are easy to recognize as their seeds split in two. Some trees and plants like Lucerne are also legumes and are known for their high protein content for animal feed.
Legumes are truly amazing plants. They are healthy for humans and animals, while building soil fertility. Their magic happens where you least expect it – in their roots. Legumes are unique because they partner with nitrogen-fixing soil-living bacteria that allow them to grow such high levels of protein.
When legume seeds germinate, Rhizobium bacteria are activated in the soil. These move towards the sprouting roots and penetrate them. As a result, the legume roots form pale pink nodules in which these bacteria live. The bacteria benefit from this by getting carbon and other nutrients from the plant, and in return provide nitrogen from the air, building soil fertility and the plant protein content.
Because you can not be sure if this bacteria lives in your soil, it is best to inoculate your legume seeds. You can buy inoculants with Rhizobium bacteria at your local agro shop. Each legume has a specific inoculate.
Coat your seeds on the day of sowing. You need a sticky liquid, such as molasses, or a syrup of sugar with water. Don’t use tap water as the chlorine in it can kill the bacteria.
About 4 to 8 weeks later, when your legume plants are flowering, the nodules start to be visible. Having nodules is not a guarantee that the bacteria is fixing nitrogen. You must check the color inside the nodules.
Uproot some plants, and gently wash the soil from the roots and break the nodules to check if they are pink or red inside. This is a good sign that you are getting free nitrogen thanks to the active bacteria.
Good nodulation has long lasting results. Legumes release nitrogen slowly in the soil through their roots and through crop residues left in the field.
The bacteria can survive in the soil for 3 to 5 years, enhancing your future harvest. This is why farmers include legumes in their crop rotations, as they reduce the need for chemical fertilizers.
Growing legumes benefits your soil and your next crop while giving you a nutritious meal full of protein.giving you nutritious meal full of protien.
Next time you enjoy your foul and ta’meya, know that this delicious meal is thanks to a symbiosis between soil dwelling bacteria and a legume plant.
All farmers work with the risk of pest infestations. If they do not pay attention, pests will destroy harvests and leave farmers’ pockets empty. To cut their losses, most farmers buy pesticides, but these also come at a cost to our health and pollutes our land.
Instead of pesticides, there is a way to protect crops naturally by introducing the predator insect of your pest. Predators are insects used in biological control, that do not harm your crops, but instead eat the pests in your field, eliminating infestations with their appetite!
You may have already noticed the lady beetle – she is a fierce predator that feasts on one of farmers common pest problems – aphids. She hunts aphids at all stages of her life cycle.
Even more ferocious is the lacewing- because she eats almost all pests, and keeps eating, even when full. Lacewings can cover a larger radius searching for their food, eating up to 300 aphids per day when still a larva. As an adult, she only feeds on flower nectar, and lays up to 900 more eggs. Other warriors of biological control include Trichogramma, a micro-wasp that lays its eggs into the egg of the pests, so that the pests are eaten alive, and can’t hatch.
Predators are nature’s solution to healthy plants. And today, we can replicate nature genius in a man-made setting, to easily increase predators needed in our farm. Predators allow us as farmers to work with natural solutions instead of spraying chemical pesticides.
You can do this, by purchasing pest predators from a laboratory.
In a biological control laboratory, small teams in simple places multiply predators in large numbers. They start by raising pests as feed for predator, and work to collect predator eggs.
Adult predators are farmed in boxes that re-create the environment which they like to grow and lay thousands of eggs. Because most insects lay their eggs under a leaf, a simple piece of dark fabric offers them a similar environment.
Once the eggs are ready for collection, they are transferred to cards using sticky glue. The cards make it easy to release the predators by hanging them as eggs ready to hatch and invade your plants and trees. Eggs and larvae can also be transported to the field in wood shavings that are sprinkled on top of your plant leaves.
When facing a bad pest infestation, you will decrease time between predators’ release. This guarantees they catch pests in all stages of their life cycle.
Biological control using predators does involve some planning, such as regular trips to the laboratory and releasing them immediately after.
Notes
Healthy plants require healthy soil. And a healthy soil is living soil. Yes, soil that is alive with life. Soil can only be considered truly alive when it contains microorganisms. As farmers, we work to feed our plants with nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium and other minerals.
In fact, all of these non-living elements already exist in our farm: from manure, crop residues, and rock elements. While they are there, plants cannot benefit from them, unless they are broken down into a form they can readily absorb. For example, no good farmer would fertilize his field with fresh manure. When manure is fresh, it will burn young plants, stop germination and can cause diseases to spread!
To benefit from manure, it is best to apply it after composting.
What is compost?
Composting is a process that turns wastes into wonders, through the help of micro-organisms.
When organic farms make compost, they add two thirds of organic matter to the fresh manure, they regularly turn and water their piles. This extra effort makes sure that only beneficial, aerobic microorganisms can live in the compost pile. Aerobic microorganisms are what we need as farmers to make soil healthy.
Bad microorganisms are anaerobic, and their source can be badly managed manure piles. If manure piles are mismanaged and not well aerated, they become heavy and breed the types of fungi, bacteria and nematodes that weaken your crops.
Organic farmers can successfully deal with pests and diseases by increasing the number of beneficial microorganisms in their farm. They do this, with the help of compost.
While compost adds beneficial microorganisms to your soil, it isn’t enough to fully protect your plants throughout the growing season. You can turn compost into a full plant booster, by turning it into compost tea. Organic farms will make compost tea on a regular basis.
Get to know the compost tea making process:
1- A big container, or even an old water tank can be used.
2- The aeration system typically consists of a pump, and pipes that distribute the air in the container.
3- collect your compost and bring it to your compost tea production site.
4- Use a mesh bag and add compost at a ratio of 1 to 10. 10 kg of compost is enough for a 100-litre container.
5- Once the compost is added, you will make a mixture of different foods that the microorganisms need to multiply. An unprocessed sugar is added, like molasses, creating the conditions for rapid
6- multiplication of beneficial bacteria. You also add other foods like fish oils that help the rapid growth of beneficial fungi.
7- Once all your key ingredients are added, you will leave the mix vividly aerating – so that it is fully oxygenated, from 12 to 24 hours. During this time, the microorganisms that were in the compost, find these new food sources and start to multiply.
8- Once the micro life inside the tea has reached its peak you can use the tea. If you wait too long all the foods like molasses and fish oils will be consumed, and the number of microorganisms will start to decrease, and discount your efforts.
9- Collect the tea so that it can be added to your irrigation water, and slowly make its way to your soil, supporting the area around your plant roots. 60 to 70 liters of compost tea will be enough to irrigate 1 feddan.
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