Contour farming can reduce soil erosion by as much as 50 percent compared to up and down hill farming. By reducing sediment and runoff and increasing water infiltration, contouring promotes better water quality.
What are the benefits of contour plowing?
- Contouring can reduce soil erosion by as much as 50% from up and down hill farming.
- By reducing sediment and runoff, and increasing water infiltration, contouring promotes better water quality.
What are the disadvantages of contour plowing?
Drawbacks to contour plowing have caused it to be less widely used than conventional tillage methods. Some farmers may not have been fully aware of erosion damage and prevention. Lack of access to equipment, funding, or training sometimes take their toll .
What is a problem with contour plowing?
One of the main limitations of contour plowing results from its contribution of pockets of untilled land . These untended spots eventually develop weeds, which require extra herbicides. Killing off the weeds sometimes destroys surrounding grasses, which in turn leaves another opportunity for rainwater runoff to arise.
Is Contour farming good?
Contour farming can reduce soil erosion by as much as 50 percent compared to up and down hill farming. By reducing sediment and runoff and increasing water infiltration, contouring promotes better water quality.
What are the pros and cons of contour plowing?
Some advantages of contour plowing is that it focuses on preserving topsoil by reducing erosion from water runoff . The major benefits of this methods is the preservation of the nutrients in the field, resulting in less fertilizer and less need for artificial irrigation. erosion.
Does contour plowing conserve soil?
The Soil Erosion Service was one of the federal programs started in the 1930s to save the land that had been destroyed by years of wind erosion, over plowing, and over grazing. ... Contour plowing forms ridges, slows the water flow and helps save precious topsoil .
How does contour plowing work?
Contour plowing follows the contours of hills and slopes, rather than orienting crop rows up and down a slope. ... Contour plowing furrows run crosswise to the slope, slowing runoff and allowing the soil to absorb rainfall rather than wash away .
Is contour plowing sustainable?
Contour farming captures twice the soil moisture and reduces soil erosion up to eight-fold. ... Above the “T” value means we are losing more soil than we are making which is not sustainable . We can calculate the annual average soil erosion rate by using a formula agronomists call the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation.
Why do farmers do contour farming and terracing?
Contour farming can reduce soil erosion by as much as 50 percent compared to up and down hill farming. By reducing sediment and runoff and increasing water infiltration, contouring promotes better water quality.
What is contour farming in simple words?
Contour farming is farming with row patterns that run nearly level around the hill — not up and down the hill . Contour stripcropping is crop rotation and contouring combined in equal-width strips of corn or soybeans planted on the contour and alternated with strips of oats, grasses, or legumes.
How is contour farming done?
Contouring means farming with row patterns nearly level around a hill – not up and down hill. The rows form hundreds of small dams that slow water flow and increase infiltration to reduce erosion.
How does contour plowing reduce erosion?
Contouring means farming with row patterns nearly level around a hill – not up and down hill. The rows form hundreds of small dams that slow water flow and increase infiltration to reduce erosion.
What is the disadvantages of contour System?
Therefore, contour farming alone is not sufficient to control erosion on steep, long slopes, erodible soils, and during erosive rains. ... The major drawbacks of contour farming are frequent turning involving extra labor and machinery time , and loss of some area that may have to be put out of production.
What are the disadvantages of shelterbelts?
- money and time are needed to plant the trees.
- the area in which the windbreak is planted is lost to production.
- windbreaks require maintenance if they are to function properly.
- roots and branches may need to be pruned to prevent competition with the crop.
What are the disadvantages of strip cropping?
The main disadvantage with strip cropping is that it leads to the disintegration of the land . It also limits the efficient use of machinery so it is not suitable for highly mechanized systems.
