Farmers worldwide have been looking for alternatives on how to cover the requirements of crops, because they have done so for many decades through conventional or traditional practices, that is, based on the implementation of technological packages and the use of agrochemicals in order to improve the conditions for crops, these tasks gave good results in the medium term, but at the same time they began to cause problems in the productive ecosystem due to the harmful effects of agrotoxins and the degradation of soils in this way causing disturbance of the ecological balance of the agroecosystems - and consequently affecting the growth of plants as well as the production of their fruits.
In this sense, as the years passed, man began to notice the serious problems that were occurring in the agroecosystem and consequently on crops, therefore the search for alternatives to improve agriculture has been raised, one is to incorporate naturally all the nutrients needed by the soil for its fertility, it should be noted, fertilization practices must guarantee the source of nutrient supply where two alternatives for crop fertilization are distinguished, in other words, chemical or synthetic and agroecological amendments.
In this same order of ideas, the aforementioned seeks that farmers use organic products in their production systems and through these they begin to recover the fertility, biodiversity and natural structure of soils using endogenous materials and begin to progressively decrease the use of chemical fertilizers.
The organic matter most used by farmers and in gardening is cattle manure, which can improve soil fertility because a percentage of the nutrients obtained by animals from forages would be recycled, which has a direct impact on crop yield. Some researchers point out that manure contains three of the essential nutrients: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium; as well as organic materials that benefit the quality of the soil at the same time as feeding the plants.
For this reason, alternatives have been sought to obtain a liquid fertilizer using solid manure through a preparation whose process is to make a type of tea, since the manure is placed in a bag and is introduced into a plastic container with water and the bag is moved daily as a kind of tea bag, with this the manure is sought to release its nutrients into the water and thus they become available to the plants.
The materials that can be used to make this fertilizer are the following: plastic container for 200 liters of capacity, sack, bovine manure, grated banana, leaves, molasses, milk among other materials. Its elaboration is as follows: the manure is introduced into the bag, the grated banana, the legume leaves and also a stone of approximately 4 kg is added to help keep the sack submerged while it is not moving, then the sack is tied and introduced into the sack leaving a piece of rope outside it, as if it were a large tea bag, the container is filled with clean water and molasses and milk are added to the water, after two weeks of aerobic fermentation, the manure tea is ready, we proceed to open and extract the bag from the container by squeezing it so that all the liquid comes out, the liquid that remains in the container is the manure tea ready to be applied.
After the product is packaged and sheltered in a cool and shaded place, the application can be started by diluting it in water, for example, with a ratio of 50/50 that is, in a 20 liter sprinkler pump, 10 liters of manure tea and 10 liters of water can be applied, the frequency of application may vary, it would be important to carry out tests with different soil crops. Some research indicates that in short-cycle crops the dose applied with a 20-liter sprinkler pump is 5 liters of tea and 15 liters of water. On the other hand, Estrada (2010), points out that it is more advisable to use it during the growing season of plants, since at this stage the plants have the ability to absorb 50% of the nutritious substances of tea.
Thank you for reading our article, we hopethat it will be useful to all lovers of agriculture.
| Bibliographic references |
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- Estrada, E.( 2010). Agricultural technical manual: Preparation of solid and liquid organic fertilizers. 1st ed. Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. q 22.
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