We are working on a remote island in Indonesia with a very pronounced dry and then wet season. Shallots, bawang merah are a key crop and are grown without fertiliser on a free draining, coarse textured alluvial soil.
We have an attitude or starting point relating to working with farmers that can be summed up in – work with, rather than work for. We work with farmers by assisting them to establish simple experiments. In this case it was fertility and management of Bawang merah- shallots.
We set up a simple farmer level experiment in April 2010, where 9 beds of bawang merah were established with three replicates/duplicates of three treatments.
The three treatments were-
- Control- weeded at about 1 month after planting.
- Weeded at about 1 month after planting, then chicken manure (about 200 g/m2) and leaves of Gamal (Gliricidia sepium) were laid on top of the manure to protect the soil and provide a small amount of fertiliser- from the leaves themselves.
- Weeded then leaves only applied.
Within a few weeks we had a clear result. Leaves greatly reduced weed seed germination, by keeping the soil surface dark.
The amount of fertiliser is shown in the photo above. We should have used much more chicken manure. We can of course add more during the growth of the crop.
