Green manure crops play an important role in the life of any soil: through its exudate from live roots the soil microbiome gets fed and survives the winter. Some species like the Brassica’s have tap roots that dig deep down and bring up minerals to the surface. Others add root biomass.

The above-ground biomass can be used as animal fodder e.g. Triticale-Rye-Oats-Vetch-Winter pea-Winter rape mixture, which the programme tested with the Andijan Agrarian Institute. They harvested 42 tonnes of green mass against 30 tonnes with the usual triticale green manure. On this ‘senage’ milk production went up from 10 liter per day to 25 liter per day, but dropped again when the senage was finished.

Inclusion of legumes in the green manure mixtures adds some nitrogen to the soil and increases the crude protein content of the green mass to be fed to animals. Italian Ryegrass-Crimson Clover-Hairy Vetch is another mixture which when sown in September can give one cut of forage in late autumn and one or even two light cuts in spring before end of April planting of cotton, maize/sorghum or another crop.

AKIS Syrdarya is blessed with a very active agronomist Mr. Pardabay-aka, who laid out with the help of the programme trial-demonstration plots with green manure crops around the AKIS office, which can now be used in practical demonstrations to farmers.

Southern Agricultural Research Institute has sown larger areas of hairy vetch and winter peas, both very promising leguminous green manure crops. In their research we hope to get an answer on the potential of seed production in-country to reduce dependency on import.

The great challenge in Uzbekistan for green manuring is availability of irrigation/soil water and land! The large area under winter wheat takes away most of the land that can still be irrigated in autumn. Winter wheat will occupy the land from September/October until end of June/beginning of July if the combine delays. That is more than 9 months with around 4-8 irrigation cycles, depending upon soil, groundwater level and rainfall. Part of this winter wheat is used to feed livestock and produce alcohol; a major part goes as ‘vtoroi sort’ flour to Afghanistan. With Afghanistan’s new Qosh Tepa Canal they plan to become even a wheat exporting country, so that market will fall away. Part of the area under winter wheat, corresponding with the part of the wheat used for animal feed could be designated for green manuring, followed by a modern hybrid sorghum grain crop, that under irrigation will yield between 5 and 7 tonnes, more than the average winter wheat yield/ha but with only 2-3 irrigations. Its deep root system helps in ‘finding’ water and nutrients deeper down. The addition of Mycorrhiza soil fungus to the seeds will increase nutrient and water uptake through biological effects.

The programme is striving to import various hybrid grain sorghums to test against locally available sorghum varieties and see whether their higher yield than winter wheat will more than compensate for the higher seed costs. And besides that there is the positive effect on soil structure and fertility, which is hard to express in money!