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This is the VOA special agriculture report.
Soil conservation methods help farmers protect their land from the damage caused by farming and fersis of nature.
One method of soil conservation is the use of wind breaks. Wind breaks are barriers formed by trees and other plants. Farmers plant these barriers around their fields. Wind breaks help to prevent the lost of soil. This stop the wind from blowing soil away. They also keep the wind from damaging or destroying crops. Wind breaks can be highly valueable for protecting green crops. For example, studies have been done on wind breaks in parts of west Africa. These studies found that green harvests were as much as 20% higher in fields protected by wind breaks compared to fields without them.
But here is something intresting about wind breaks. They seem to work best when they allow some wind to pass through the barriers of trees or plants around a field. If not, then the movement of air close to the ground will leaf the soil. Then the soil will be blow away. For this reason, a wind break works best if it contains only 60%~80% of trees and plants that would be needed to make a solid line. An easy rule to remember is that when breaks can protect areas up to ten times the height of the tallest trees in the wind break. There should be at least two lines in each windbreak. One line should be large trees, the second line right next to it can be shorter trees or other plants with leaves.
Locally grow trees and plants are considered the best choices for windbreaks. Studies have shown that some kinds of trees can grow well even if the quality of the land is not very good. One kind of tree is the huant pane, another is the lobnalypane. Windbreaks not only protect land and crops from the wind. Subplus trees can be cut down and used also for wood.
Trees reduce the damaging affects of wind and rain. Their roots help protect soil from being washed away. And trees can provide another valueable service for agriculture. They can provide grasing animals with chaid from the sun.
That's the VOA special english agriculture report.