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Contour plowing or contour farming is the farming practice of plowing and/or planting across a slope following its elevation contour lines. These contour line furrows create a water break, reducing the formation of rills and gullies during heavy precipitation and allowing more time for the water to settle into the soil. [ 1 ]
Contour strip cropping employs a crop rotation system down a slope to minimize runoff and rain velocity. [1] It is used mainly on gentle slope gradients. The width of protective strips is often higher than that of the row crop strips, so they may effectively intercept runoff.
Random contour plowing also becomes off contour but usually with the opposite effect on runoff, namely causing it to quickly run off ridges and concentrate in valleys. The limitations of the traditional system of soil conservation , with its "safe disposal" approach to farm water , was an important motivation to develop Keyline design.
Planting species that can tolerate saline conditions can be used to lower water tables and thus reduce the rate of capillary and evaporative enrichment of surface salts. Salt-tolerant plants include saltbush, a plant found in much of North America and in the Mediterranean regions of Europe.
In some systems residues are burned. This is a fast and cheap way to clear a field in preparation for the next planting, and can assist with pest control, but has a number of drawbacks: organic matter (carbon) is lost from the system, soil is exposed and becomes more susceptible to erosion, and the smoke produced is an atmospheric pollutant. [20]
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Contour trenching (a.k.a., Continuous Contour Trench or CCT) [1] is an agricultural technique that can be easily applied in arid sub-Sahara areas to allow for water, and soil conservation, and to increase agricultural production.
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