At a suitable time, the cover crop plants are cut off at the root and the leaves and stems are simply allowed to fall to the ground where they form a mulch that continues to protect the soil. The mulch is left in place where it decomposes and enriches the soil. Follow-on crops are planted right through the existing mulch such that the layer gets thicker with time. This technique avoids plowing and turning of the soil, so the labor required to put in a crop drops dramatically. In Chiapas, the soil for 6 or more inches becomes very dark, soft and fertile.
Planting is done simply by poking holes with a stick and dropping in the seed.
Yields have gone up by as much as 6 times as well. For program planning purposes, we recognize two difficulties with this phase. First, we have not yet identified a suitable green manure crop. We may have to find more than one, as many of our communities have over 2,000 feet of elevation differences with quite different climates from top to bottom. Secondly, this technology will represent a distinct change in from traditional techniques and we anticipate it will be slower to catch on.