Pamir Student Interaction With Technical and Expert Farmers

Student and Farmer collaboration:

Students will be involved in collecting samples.

Soil Analysis

Importance of Soil

Soil: The nutrients content of the soil needs to be collected from, the various places with in the pamir region and should be labelled with the farmers name-area-crop-name. These samples needs to be collected as mentioned in http://www.ncagr.gov/cyber/kidswrld/plant/soiltest.htm
http://www.ianrpubs.unl.edu/epublic/pages/publicationD.jsp?publicationId=831
The collected samples can be sent to the nearby center and get the suggested fertilizers level for them.
Alternatively based on the nutrients level we can identify the crops and get the suggestion from the soil analysis department.

The Same list can be predicted by the experts of the community. and the expert farmers and technical team can conclude the list.

We need to clear the unwanted and poisonous  grasses as per this research the pastoral gets affected due to some grasses http://www.researchgate.net/profile/S_Breckle/publication/261596535_Effects_of_Grazing_on_Biodiversity_Productivity_and_Soil_Erosion_of_Alpine_Pastures_in_Tajik_Mountains/links/0c960534c3e6e3ed4f000000.pdf  they can remove the soil nutrients at a faster rate and can turn into barren lands. Some research shows that Mycorrhizal Fungi helps in growing plants but, we need to check its feasibility for crops and if Nitrogen fixation is possible? or does it help pamir soil in any way ?, Effect on Nitrogen cycle in pamir region http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Cyrus_Samimi/publication/51482531_Human_and_climate_impact_on_N_natural_abundance_of_plants_and_soils_in_high-mountain_ecosystems_a_short_review_and_two_examples_from_the_Eastern_Pamirs_and_Mt._Kilimanjaro/links/53e89c480cf21cc29fdc785a.pdf if mixed farming along with Mycorrhizal Fungi will provide results in pamir regions and make the land fertile ? a must watch documentary film on plants what plants talk about ?

Alternate thermal insulation: As per MRD-Journal research on pamir's fuel consumption the main fuel consumption in this area are more for thermal insulation rather than cooking so switch to alternate powers it will reduce the woods and grasses consumption as well, check the feasibility of idea https://winter2015.unhcrideas.org/Page/ViewIdea?ideaid=3797 
probably Catalina Oaida and Anne Nolin can comment on this, as this is their specialization, if such an thermal insulation can help this region. More over if they can switch to solar and wind energy it can save a lot of vegetation and soil erosion.



Temperature and precipitation prediction

Use of Web: With the power of internet we can forecast the weather conditions at least for few days a head http://weather.org/ where we can predict the conditions approximately.
We can predict the humidity and temperature conditions up to 10 days http://weather.org/agriculture.htm along with this data we can look the data from the soil analysis labs we can predict a crop which will be feasible to grow in the given conditions.

The samples collected will be shared by the students and there will be interactions, with the students and the technical teams. The technical teams will guide them how to collect the soil samples, and how to use the precipitation and temperature measurements and will teach them going forward how much fertilizers can be added and a short introduction can be given about mixed farming as well.


Then going forward we can have a brief session on these topics: Probably lecturers from Central asia university can assist or climate co lab can assist on on line session to students.

A basic understanding will help them, rest of the interactions can be done with the technology team as these are advanced topics in agriculture.

1. Seed Profile Improve seed selection and crop planning by customizing Seed Profiles.
2. Crop Planning Lower your agronomic risks for higher average yields by playing a lot of what-if scenarios.
3. Field Workability: Get a snapshot of how much moisture, each soils needs every day.
4. Mixed farming See what varieties got planted where based on the valley in gendral based on climates.
5. Virtual Rain Gauge Be alerted to exact rain amounts for each field.
6. Telemetry Direct your equipment based on soils, seed and weather information.
7. VR Nitrogen Dependency on rain how the nitrogen content changes? Need more N?