Người Chăn Đất

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Thirty months

Stage 2 · Mar–Dec 2024

Biomass growth and organic matter build-up

Biomass growth and organic matter build-up

Focus

Straw mulching, planting banana and grasses for biomass, growing pineapple, cassava and legumes, adding compost and microbial inoculants, trialling short-cycle vegetables.

Outcome

Soil turned darker, looser and better at holding moisture. Beneficial microorganisms began to appear.

Photographs from this stage

  • Pipes and channels under construction across the site
    Building the irrigation system
  • Tractor turning over soil on the raised beds
    Tilling to remediate the soil
  • Straw spread across the beds to retain moisture and limit acid rising
    Straw mulching to hold moisture
  • A ditch carrying acid water along the line of the planting beds
    Drainage ditch for acid water
  • Seedling trays being raised for the first planting
    Raising seedlings
  • Acid-tolerant and biomass crops going into the new beds
    Planting acid-tolerant and biomass crops
  • Early vegetable rows planted to test what the ground could carry
    Planting the first vegetables
  • Thin, struggling vegetable rows on soil that has not yet stabilised
    Vegetables on unstable ground, low yields
  • Acid-tolerant and biomass crops growing strongly, a sign the soil is coming back to life
    Biomass crops thriving as microbes and earthworms return
  • Vegetable rows rooted and growing more evenly than the previous crop
    The vegetables start to take
  • Healthy vegetable rows with thick, even foliage
    Vegetables growing green and strong
  • The low perimeter dyke being built up and reinforced ahead of the flood season
    Reinforcing the low dyke before flood season
  • The control plot planted with pineapple for comparison with the fully treated zone
    Zone 2, the control plot — pineapple
  • The control plot with low beds and weeds left growing between the planting mounds
    Zone 2 control: low beds, mounded planting, weeds left to grow
  • Cassava roots freshly lifted from the ground
    Harvesting cassava
  • Floodwater covering the lower beds while the higher ground stays clear
    Flood season 2024: water covering the lower beds
  • Close-up of a pump head heavily corroded by acid water
    Acid water corroding the flood pump fast
  • Pineapple beds under water, drained in time to save the plants
    Pineapple flooded but saved in time
  • Pumps running flat out to clear floodwater from the growing area
    Pumping against the flood
  • Biomass crops standing tall again once the water receded
    Biomass crops surging back after the flood
  • Green returning across the garden after the flooding
    The garden recovering after the flood

Stage 2 of 4

Infrastructure and subsoil remediationStabilising the soil ecosystem
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