Due to the increasingly frequent and intense droughts that affect corn producers in Chiapas, the National Institute for Forestry, Agricultural and Livestock Research (Inifap), evaluates sustainable solutions with promising results.
The INIFAP coordinator and liaison director in Chiapas, Walter López Báez, emphasized that in many rainfed corn-producing regions of Chiapas, rains occur irregularly during the cultivation cycle, periods of drought have increased in frequency and intensity. , increasing the risk of crop failure, especially in sandy soils and in those that do not have protection to conserve moisture.
To face this problem, INIFAP has evaluated a strategy that consists of two main actions: The first is to help the soil to capture as much rainwater as possible, carrying out practices such as subsoiling that improve the infiltration rate, and subsequently not move or disturb the ground again.
The second is to prevent the captured water from being lost rapidly through evaporation by keeping the soil covered for as long as possible, for this, corn stubble is used supplemented with the sowing of cover crops such as canavalia and legume trees, which remain as a compost factory and protecting the soil after the corn harvest.
The trees are pruned when the corn is planted again so that its growth is not affected. After 2 to 3 years of implementing these solutions, the following benefits have been evaluated in comparison with the soils where the stubble is burned: in biodiversity: it increases up to 3 times more species of macro-organisms and 20 times more is not. of individuals.
In humidity, the infiltration rate of the soil increases 10 times and in dry years humidity is observed up to 50 centimeters deep, the moisture content is 3 times more than in soils where residues are burned, producers can sow a second cultivation to take advantage of this humidity.
He specified that in the corn yield 2.3 times more grain yield is obtained and the crops are stabilized through the years, even in the dry years good yields are obtained, while in the fertilization in the third year a lump of applied urea contributes 798 kilograms of corn grain and in the soil where the same lump of urea is burned, it only contributes 356.5 kilograms of grain.
López Báez explained that in the presence of weeds gradually over the years they disappear due to the coverage on the ground.
He pointed out that all these benefits are achieved thanks to the fact that each year 16.3 tons of dry matter are left on the soil on average from the stubble of corn and legume plants, making the corn crop more resilient to the adverse effects of climate change.
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