From steved@ncatark.uark.edu Tue Feb 1 18:55:11 2000 Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2000 17:09:13 -0600 From: Steve Diver To: sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu Subject: New: Intercropping Principles and Production Practices Announcing this new web item from ATTRA. Intercropping Principles and Production Practices http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/intercrop.html Abstract Intercropping offers farmers the opportunity to engage nature's principle of diversity on their farms. Plant spatial arrangements, planting rates, and maturity dates must be considered when planning intercrops. Intercrops can be more productive than growing pure stands. Many different intercrop systems are discussed including mixed intercropping, strip cropping and traditional intercropping arrangements. Pest management benefits can also be realized from intercropping due to increased diversity. Harvesting options for intercrops include hand harvest, machine harvest for on-farm feed and animal harvest of the standing crop. The author is Preston Sullivan, agronomy specialist. Here's another sample, from the "Introduction." Sustainable agriculture seeks, at least in principle, to use nature as the model for designing agriculture systems. Since nature consistently integrates her plants and animals into a diverse landscape, a major tenet of sustainable agriculture is to create and maintain diversity. Nature is also efficient. There are no waste products in nature. Outputs from one organism become inputs for another. The death of one organism becomes food for other organisms. Since we are modeling nature, let us first look at some of the principles by which nature functions. By understanding these principles we can utilize them to reduce costs and increase profitability, while at the same time sustaining our land resource base. =============================================== From: Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas - ATTRA http://www.attra.org ================================================ To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command "unsubscribe sanet-mg". If you receive the digest format, use the command "unsubscribe sanet-mg-digest". To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command "subscribe sanet-mg-digest". All messages to sanet-mg are archived at: http://www.sare.org/san/htdocs/hypermail