ABSTRACT
Human beings commenced cultivating land by utilizing their then-existing implements to produce agricultural edibles for survival during the Stone Age and the Hunter-Gatherer Age. Although they
5.1 Traditional Agriculture ......................................................................................................... 111 5.2 Role of Traditional Agriculture ............................................................................................ 112 5.3 Traditional Agriculture Practice: Myth or Truth? ................................................................ 112 5.4 Pathogen Life Cycles and the Spread of Plant Diseases ....................................................... 112 5.5 Traditional Cultural Practices for Disease Control .............................................................. 113
5.5.1 Crop Rotation ............................................................................................................ 114 5.5.1.1 Crop Rotation in Winter Cereals ............................................................... 114
5.5.2 Sanitation Practices .................................................................................................. 114 5.5.3 Tillage ....................................................................................................................... 114 5.5.4 Raised Fields and Beds, Ridges, and Mounds .......................................................... 115 5.5.5 Mulching ................................................................................................................... 116
5.6 Control of Seed-Borne Diseases ........................................................................................... 116 5.7 Disease Control through Physiological Methods.................................................................. 117 5.8 Indirect Disease Control Practices ....................................................................................... 118 5.9 Other Traditional Methods of Plant Disease Control ........................................................... 120 5.10 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 120 Acknowledgment ........................................................................................................................... 120 References ...................................................................................................................................... 121
ate meat, from both birds and animals including shes, these did not fulll their needs for sustenance. They were therefore prompted to learn methods of agro cultivation, using nearby or available river water, and to harvest selected crops and grains. Ancient people developed sustainable agriculture practices that allowed them to produce food and ber for thousands of years with few outside inputs; however, some of their traditional strategies were not so successful. In any case, even their successful practices have been forgotten or abandoned except in some developing countries. Considerable evidence shows the traditional farmers’ routine practices, most of which were developed empirically through millennia of trial and error, natural selection, and keen observation (Thurston, 1992).
