Combining farmers’ and scientists’ tree species and soil fertility assessment for improved cropping decisions in swidden systems of Northern Thailand

Despite increasing pressure on land, many hill tribe communities in Northern Thailand practice traditional swidden agriculture with long fallow periods that allow the soil to recover from cropping. To determine the most appropriate time for a new cropping cycle, farmers, in a collective decision mak...

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Autores principales:	K. Tongkoom, C. Marohn, H.P. Piepho, G. Cadisch
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Elsevier 2021
Materias:	Swidden agriculture Tree indicator Soil fertility Fallow duration Indigenous knowledge Mainland Mountainous Southeast Asia Ecology QH540-549.5
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/02dbd67ea45c463bb6a54673c3a7e945
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:02dbd67ea45c463bb6a54673c3a7e9452021-12-01T04:51:59ZCombining farmers’ and scientists’ tree species and soil fertility assessment for improved cropping decisions in swidden systems of Northern Thailand1470-160X10.1016/j.ecolind.2021.107719https://doaj.org/article/02dbd67ea45c463bb6a54673c3a7e9452021-08-01T00:00:00Zhttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X21003848https://doaj.org/toc/1470-160XDespite increasing pressure on land, many hill tribe communities in Northern Thailand practice traditional swidden agriculture with long fallow periods that allow the soil to recover from cropping. To determine the most appropriate time for a new cropping cycle, farmers, in a collective decision making process, often use presence or numbers of tree species considered as soil fertility indicators.In Nong Khao, a case study village in Mae Hong Son district, we investigated in how far abundance of indicator tree species found during vegetation surveys corresponded to measured soil fertility parameters and whether an extended list of indicator species could improve prediction of these soil properties. During interviews, farmers listed 11 tree species considered indicators for good upland rice and vegetable soil, unsuitable soil for upland rice, or hard soil. Abundances of indicator species as well as of other species found during comprehensive botanical inventories on 135 plots of different fallow ages were introduced into regression models to predict soil fertility parameters measured on the inventoried plots. Both models – including only indicator species versus all species found in the inventories – were compared regarding their predictive power for soil properties.Soil organic matter (SOM), pH, plant available phosphorus (Pav) – related to farmers’ criteria ‘good soil’ or 'unsuitable for rice cropping’ – as well as bulk density (BD, for ‘hard soil’), changed significantly during the fallow period, from initial maxima towards temporary pessima in years 6 to 7, followed by recovery towards year ten. Most indicator species, like Macaranga denticulata for enhanced Pav or Dalbergia cultrata for high SOM, were clearly related to the soil quality characteristics attributed to them by farmers. Including all inventoried tree species significantly improved predictions of measured soil parameters by ΔAIC > \|2\|. Ten additional species from the surveys had potential as additional indicator species.Our approach to relate indicator species to measured soil parameters is generic across areas, while soil parameters are site-specific. Applicability of our approach to link environmental parameters to indicator species could be extended if further criteria considered important by farmers such as weed suppression, represented by tree structure parameters, would complement soil fertility.K. TongkoomC. MarohnH.P. PiephoG. CadischElsevierarticleSwidden agricultureTree indicatorSoil fertilityFallow durationIndigenous knowledgeMainland Mountainous Southeast AsiaEcologyQH540-549.5ENEcological Indicators, Vol 127, Iss , Pp 107719- (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Swidden agriculture Tree indicator Soil fertility Fallow duration Indigenous knowledge Mainland Mountainous Southeast Asia Ecology QH540-549.5
spellingShingle	Swidden agriculture Tree indicator Soil fertility Fallow duration Indigenous knowledge Mainland Mountainous Southeast Asia Ecology QH540-549.5 K. Tongkoom C. Marohn H.P. Piepho G. Cadisch Combining farmers’ and scientists’ tree species and soil fertility assessment for improved cropping decisions in swidden systems of Northern Thailand
description	Despite increasing pressure on land, many hill tribe communities in Northern Thailand practice traditional swidden agriculture with long fallow periods that allow the soil to recover from cropping. To determine the most appropriate time for a new cropping cycle, farmers, in a collective decision making process, often use presence or numbers of tree species considered as soil fertility indicators.In Nong Khao, a case study village in Mae Hong Son district, we investigated in how far abundance of indicator tree species found during vegetation surveys corresponded to measured soil fertility parameters and whether an extended list of indicator species could improve prediction of these soil properties. During interviews, farmers listed 11 tree species considered indicators for good upland rice and vegetable soil, unsuitable soil for upland rice, or hard soil. Abundances of indicator species as well as of other species found during comprehensive botanical inventories on 135 plots of different fallow ages were introduced into regression models to predict soil fertility parameters measured on the inventoried plots. Both models – including only indicator species versus all species found in the inventories – were compared regarding their predictive power for soil properties.Soil organic matter (SOM), pH, plant available phosphorus (Pav) – related to farmers’ criteria ‘good soil’ or 'unsuitable for rice cropping’ – as well as bulk density (BD, for ‘hard soil’), changed significantly during the fallow period, from initial maxima towards temporary pessima in years 6 to 7, followed by recovery towards year ten. Most indicator species, like Macaranga denticulata for enhanced Pav or Dalbergia cultrata for high SOM, were clearly related to the soil quality characteristics attributed to them by farmers. Including all inventoried tree species significantly improved predictions of measured soil parameters by ΔAIC > \|2\|. Ten additional species from the surveys had potential as additional indicator species.Our approach to relate indicator species to measured soil parameters is generic across areas, while soil parameters are site-specific. Applicability of our approach to link environmental parameters to indicator species could be extended if further criteria considered important by farmers such as weed suppression, represented by tree structure parameters, would complement soil fertility.
format	article
author	K. Tongkoom C. Marohn H.P. Piepho G. Cadisch
author_facet	K. Tongkoom C. Marohn H.P. Piepho G. Cadisch
author_sort	K. Tongkoom
title	Combining farmers’ and scientists’ tree species and soil fertility assessment for improved cropping decisions in swidden systems of Northern Thailand
title_short	Combining farmers’ and scientists’ tree species and soil fertility assessment for improved cropping decisions in swidden systems of Northern Thailand
title_full	Combining farmers’ and scientists’ tree species and soil fertility assessment for improved cropping decisions in swidden systems of Northern Thailand
title_fullStr	Combining farmers’ and scientists’ tree species and soil fertility assessment for improved cropping decisions in swidden systems of Northern Thailand
title_full_unstemmed	Combining farmers’ and scientists’ tree species and soil fertility assessment for improved cropping decisions in swidden systems of Northern Thailand
title_sort	combining farmers’ and scientists’ tree species and soil fertility assessment for improved cropping decisions in swidden systems of northern thailand
publisher	Elsevier
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/02dbd67ea45c463bb6a54673c3a7e945
work_keys_str_mv	AT ktongkoom combiningfarmersandscientiststreespeciesandsoilfertilityassessmentforimprovedcroppingdecisionsinswiddensystemsofnorthernthailand AT cmarohn combiningfarmersandscientiststreespeciesandsoilfertilityassessmentforimprovedcroppingdecisionsinswiddensystemsofnorthernthailand AT hppiepho combiningfarmersandscientiststreespeciesandsoilfertilityassessmentforimprovedcroppingdecisionsinswiddensystemsofnorthernthailand AT gcadisch combiningfarmersandscientiststreespeciesandsoilfertilityassessmentforimprovedcroppingdecisionsinswiddensystemsofnorthernthailand
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Combining farmers’ and scientists’ tree species and soil fertility assessment for improved cropping decisions in swidden systems of Northern Thailand

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