Description
Chitemene systems are most widely used throughout the Central Zambezian Miombo woodlands that is the largest ecoregion in Zambia and the predominant ecoregion of Northwestern, Copperbelt, Central, Northern, and Luapula provinces. Typical soils in this biome are of the order Oxisols, which are highly weathered, acidic, and easily leached soils. The pH of these soils range from 4.0 to 4.5, values too acidic for the cultivation of most common cereal grains and root crops in Zambia (maize, finger millet, sorghum, and cassava). The chitemene system, which creates a surplus of ash in concentrated spaces, raises the soil pH, enabling the cultivation of those crops. Furthermore, the heat generated by the burning of the biomass fumigates the soil, kills any existing weed seeds, and reduces the soil to a fine tilth, reducing labor requirements for cultivation of the soil.
The agricultural viability of a chitemene region is limited to a few years, until the soil pH declines. After the yield declines, a new area is cleared for chitemene, and the initial site is left to lie fallow. Typically, the regrowth of branches and natural leaf litter from the coppiced or pollarded stumps will restore soil fertility in 20 to 25 years, at which point the chitemene process is repeated.
Read more about this topic: Chitemene
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten by the English which renders their character insusceptible of civilisation. I suspect it is in their kitchens and not in their churches that their reformation must be worked, and that Missionaries of that description from [France] would avail more than those who should endeavor to tame them by precepts of religion or philosophy.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Whose are the truly labored sentences? From the weak and flimsy periods of the politician and literary man, we are glad to turn even to the description of work, the simple record of the month’s labor in the farmer’s almanac, to restore our tone and spirits.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The type of fig leaf which each culture employs to cover its social taboos offers a twofold description of its morality. It reveals that certain unacknowledged behavior exists and it suggests the form that such behavior takes.”
—Freda Adler (b. 1934)