How does fire help agriculture?

Question

How does fire help us agriculturally, ecologically, and chemically, srry, we have to look it up online for class so I'm asking here, thnx

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Answer 1

Here's a link you may find helpful.

Answer 2

Fire is tool that has no care for how it is used. It can be used for good or bad. The developed world has done away with most damaging way of burning other they fireplaces in homes that don't heat the home very well but burn lots of wood for very little heat.

For pasture management in prairie lands where grass was the climax vegetation. Periodic fire kills off weeds and trees before they get to large. But like everyone else for too long the stockman saw fire as something to be avoided at all costs and this changed the species of grass on most pastures over time and let weedy trees such a ceders grow up  until the choke out the grass in some areas.

Contorted burns are the way to improve some pastures but the liability of starting a fire and it getting out of hand make the method dangerous to use near populated areas.

Fire is also use in a way that has  not been considered good practice in 40 years to get rid of excess straw for cereal grains and to control some weeds such a cheat. It is  occasionally use for double cropping to get the straw out of the way to plant cotton, mung beans or other crop after a wheat crop. It is much better to use a dwarf varieties and cut the crop close to the ground with the combine than to waste the cover and nutrients buy sending them up in smoke.

The third would still uses some slash and burn methods of framing in the tropics. It would be nice if we could teach them different ways and provide the capital for them to use them. But the political will just isn't there in some countries  where getting you next meal come before the good of the soil.

burning is still used now an then for clearing ground that is really grown up in annual foliage. It is not as damaging as it seems to the soil as for every thing above the ground there are about the same amount of root mass under the ground and if the ground is burned off and not tilled it may put less carbon in the air in the long run than cutting it down and using tillage to keep it clean as most of the organic matter above ground an that below ground too will be lost to CO2 due to oxidation. If it the top is burned off and the weeds controlled from there with herbicide the carbon in the soil may stay there for 20 years or until it is tilled and allowed to be oxidized by the air let in. We are still leaning on this one.

Some countries still burn sugarcane fields before harvest to get rid of the leaves and dry out the plant cutting down on the work and cost of harvest.

Flame cultivation is still a good tool for killing weeds among living plants that are hardy enough to withstand the flame. It works great on the lawn in the spring when the weeds just start show up in the lawn. Just wiping a flame over the lawn to fast to set it on fire will kill a the tender you weeds and not harm the dormant grass. The same thing works for Cotton and alfalfa but the price of fuel make it to expensive for most thing if the weeds get any size at all on them.

Fire was also used to dive buffalo over cliffs long a ago by the American Indians. It was used well in to the last century for driving game to hunters both for food and trophies.

As you see fire can be a good or bad tool depending on your point of view and what its used for.

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Answer 3

the fire leaves ash

a nutrient

  

Answer 4

1. Agriculturally, kills underbrush and weed seeds to enable new planting and sterilizes the soil, which kills some insect larvae, viruses, fungi, and molds which are detrimental to crops.

2. Ecologically,  kills underbrush and clears land for new growth--especially good for wildlife.

3. Chemically, clears small carbon sinks in favor of larger carbon sinks and returns important nutrients to the soil faster than standard decomposition.