Blaise Pascal Bougnom

Organic Orcharding and Use of Wood Ash Compost: Chemical, Physical and Microbiological Implications Blaise Pascal Bougnom

Agricultural primary production is essential for maintaining human life. Sustaining the productivity of soils is essential for future generations, and the way to maintaining soil productivity is often disputed. Organic farming has good attributes as it works with nature rather than against it. Its principles and objectives are achieving good crop yiels by using techniques which minimize the human impact on the environment. If intensive agriculture could allow big yields, the large quantities of pesticides and other chemicals used are known to negatively impact the ecosystems. Moreover, the practice of intensive farming is out of the reach of poor resource farmers in the tropics. Organic farming can allow resolving the problem of wastes disposal that human beings have to get ride of, and which are valuable source of nutrients for plants, and serve the purpose for soil conditioners. On the other hand,in the world, the big use of wood to produce bioenergy generates huge quantities of wood ash which is a source of worries. Wood ash, known to be rich in nutrients and lime could be returned to depleted soils as supplement to organic fertilizers by suitable management practices.