Effect of Native Vegetative Barriers to Prevent Wind Erosion: A Sustainable Alternative for Quinoa ( Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) Production

Ermindo Barrientos-Pérez, Felipe S. Carevic-Vergara (), Juan Pablo Rodriguez, Jorge Arenas-Charlín and José Delatorre-Herrera
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Ermindo Barrientos-Pérez: Engineering Agriculture Department, Natural Sciences and Agriculture Faculty, Universidad Técnica de Oruro, Oruro 00591, Bolivia
Felipe S. Carevic-Vergara: Doctoral Program in Agriculture for Arid-Desert Environments, Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources, Desert Agriculture Area, Universidad Arturo Prat, Iquique 1100000, Chile
Juan Pablo Rodriguez: Julius Kühn Institute (JKI)—Institute for Plant Protection in Horticulture and Urban Green, Messeweg 11/12, 38104 Braunschweig, Germany
Jorge Arenas-Charlín: Doctoral Program in Agriculture for Arid-Desert Environments, Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources, Desert Agriculture Area, Universidad Arturo Prat, Iquique 1100000, Chile
José Delatorre-Herrera: Doctoral Program in Agriculture for Arid-Desert Environments, Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources, Desert Agriculture Area, Universidad Arturo Prat, Iquique 1100000, Chile

Agriculture, 2023, vol. 13, issue 7, 1-15

Abstract: The abandonment of ancestral techniques and the incorporation of new technologies in the production systems for the cultivation of quinoa has resulted in overexploitation of soils, a loss of fertility, water imbalance, a loss of native vegetation cover in plain land areas, and other negative effects on the southern Altiplano agricultural sustainable system. One of the methods to reduce wind erosion and improve soil environmental conditions is establishing a native vegetative barrier. The effect of t’ola [ Parastrephia lepidophylla (Wedd.) Cabrera] as a vegetative barrier to prevent wind erosion was evaluated using the rod method, gravimetric humidity fluctuations, and soil quality measurements in traditional quinoa Real production plots. We found significant differences ( p < 0.05) for mean erosion, sedimentation, net erosion, and mobilized soil variables. The highest loss of soil was reported for December and November. Vegetative barriers comprising three meters of t’ola better protected bare soils up to 7 m from the barrier, while in bare soils, the loss values were over 5 t ha −1 month −1 . Soil humidity fluctuations in plots with t’ola vegetative barriers were highly significant for the distance factors and depth levels. There was a higher accumulation of gravimetric humidity (%) in bare soils from 1.5 m to the barrier (6.95%), while the insides of the vegetative barriers retained an average soil humidity of 6.37%. After two agricultural seasons in the quinoa plots, 62 t ha −1 per year of soils were lost due to a lack of vegetative barriers. Due to the large, cultivated area with quinoa (104,000 ha in 2014) in the Intersalar zone, wind erosion causes 6.48 million tons of soil loss yearly. T’ola vegetative barriers in the southern Altiplano of Bolivia favour the retention of sediments against wind erosion and soil protection for quinoa cultivation. Furthermore, incorporating native lupine increased soil fertility by 80% and protected the soil surface cover.

Keywords: Bolivia; t’ola [ Parastrephia lepidophylla (Wedd.) Cabrera]; Intersalar; soil quality; native shrub; land use (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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