Using animals and trees improves the fertilization of the soil and therefore protects it from the parasitic weed Striga.
Striga attacks cereal crops and therefore destroys your harvest. On fertilized soil, you will find less Striga than on poor soil. Leaving your animals fenced or roped up on the field is the easiest way to get manure and urine and therefore make the soil fertilized.
Protection of trees
On places with trees, there is less wind and the soil stays moist. Therefore it is good to grow trees on the fields. Another advantage is, when animals eat leaves from the acacia and other trees they get fat and give more milk, so they have healthier calves.
Animal manure
Every manure is good for the soil. It doesn‘t matter if it is from chickens, goats, sheep, camels or cows. To improve the soil, you should rope up your animals over night. If you see to much manure on one part, you can spread it over the field. To make bedding that can suck up urine, you can use straws and other dry plants and put them in the corral. Goats and sheep are easy to keep in raised pens, where it is easy to save the urine and other droppings. Another good way to save manure is to use a chicken pen.
During the dry season some farmers ask herders to let their cattle on their field. Therefore, you should dig wells or conserve trees to attract herds to your field during the drying season.
Fresh manure has weed seeds. You can dig a pit and store the dropping there. When it is going to rain the seeds will rot. Afterwards you are able to put the manure on the field.
Never feed Striga to your animals, because their manure will spread Striga seeds. Furthermore you should always weed Striga per hand, even after the harvest.
