ICM005 - Annual crops and AfzeliaMpingo

Introduction

For this ICM (InterCroppingModel) there are 4 perennial crops cultivated in the first season. You can select those via ICM005. The dots on the map are deep rooted crops, so it's also possible to intercrop annual tuber crops between each row. The blue dots are so called retirement crops because they need 50 - 100 years before harvest; they both remain at a small size and are slow growing. The red dot is a crop that will be harvested completely within 5-10 years. A shallow rooted understory crop will be replaced, such as Theobroma cocoa. It's not planted in the first year because the timber crops first need to be in full sun and due to their slow growth they need 5-10 years lead in size and the cocoa needs partial to full shade.

The 4 selected crops are numbered from 1 to 4. Crops with number 1 require the longest growing period and crop with number 4 the shortest. The detailed characteristics of each crops are mentioned in a table. You need to check the altitude and rainfall of each selected crop to see if they are suitable to region.

Selecting Crops

The crops can be selected via the following link: ICM004

Plantation Plancccccccccc

The above described crops which you have selected should be planted in the right order and with the planting distances according to the map below. Planting it in the right order is important because when some of those crops are harvested in the different stages the planting distances remain equal.

The setting up will be a challenge. The first challenge is that if you are by now convinced that your crops is a good selection to plant you need to be able to get those crops. Some of those crops might not be available in your country. That's why this website wants to create a platorm where you can buy seeds from other countries and you can sell sell seeds to other countries. You sell seeds via the following link: Make advertention (first register or log in).

If you order seeds it's good to do it via this website because seed suppliers who can use this website to advertise need to fill in important information about harvest date. And this website will inform you about the seed viabilty and propagation instructions, this will help you to buy seeds that are not expired.

The planning of planting is important because the best moment to start planting is often at the beginning of the longest rainy season. Seedlings are less drought resistant. Seedlings are bought or propagated locally in a nursery several months before planting. Before the time of planting there is also much work to do on the land: The land must be surveyed in order to get the right planting distances. I used a construction line of 100 meters and used a measuring tape to make a hole after every 1.5 meters. As follows another line must be made of exactly 90 degrees. This can be done by the "3,4,5 equation" (pytagoras). You make a triangel and you define a distance which you need to multiply by 3,4,5 of which the 5 is the oblique line and 3 and 4 the perpendicular lines. When that line is 90 degrees you can survey your row-distance which must be 5196 mm. By doing so the secondary crops will be hexagonal with distance of 6 meters from each other.

Plantation Map