Capinota

Capinota is a small town in the Cochabamba Department in the South American Andes State of Bolivia. The history of the city dates back to 27 April 1559, when the monks of the Augustinian Order founded a settlement here.

Location in near space

Capinota is the central place of the district ( bolivian: Municipio) Capinota and capital of the province Capinota. The city lies at an altitude of 2380 m on the northern shore of the Río Arque just before this joins the Río Rocha to the Río Caine, the downstream continues to bear the name Rio Grande.

Geography

Capinota is located in the Bolivian Cordillera Central in the transition region to the Bolivian lowlands. The region has a typical diurnal climate in which the mean temperature fluctuations during the day be more pronounced as the year progresses.

The mean average temperature of the region is about 20 ° C (see climate chart Capinota ) and varies only slightly between 16 ° C in June and July and over 22 ° C in November and December. The annual precipitation is about 550 mm and has a pronounced dry season from April to November month rainfall of less than 10 mm, only in the humidity time from December to March fall up to 140 mm month precipitation.

Traffic network

Capinota located 66 kilometers by road south of Cochabamba, the capital of the department.

From Cochabamba leads in a westerly direction the paved highway Ruta 4 of the city Quillacollo after Parotani and on to Caracollo, where she encounters the Ruta 1, which traverses the Altiplano from north to south and makes connections to La Paz, Oruro and Potosí. In Parotani a road branches off to the south, which traverses some 29 km Capinota and continues on to Arque and San Pedro de Buena Vista.

Population

The population of Capinota has risen in the last two decades by more than half:

The inhabitants of Capinota ethnic group of Quechua belong to in the first place.

Industry

Agriculture

The absence of frost, the growing conditions are favorable in and around Capinota the year. Crops are mainly potatoes, carrots, beets, onions, corn and alfalfa. There are also vineyards and orchards with peach and apple trees.

The fields have an average size of only 0.35 ha, the field size varies 600-6000 m². The land is leased private property or to harvest participation. Cultivation and harvesting done primarily by hand or with oxen, tractors are rare.

Lameo

Just as in some other valleys of the department of Cochabamba, the farmers of Capinota operate the indigenous lameo technique of soil protection (also: may'kas ) to get to their fields fertile soil and improve. They make use of the mineral and organic sediments of the Río Arque that are flushed out by the recurring rains in the upper part of the river. By creating dams the flow is to be diverted to the fields in the flood plain in the valley of Capinosa.

To lay the river, called boca tomas be invested in these dams, ports and inlets which must be renewed every one to three years after each flooding. These openings have a height of 30 cm and the swelling after heavy rains river water stored behind the dams sediments at a height of about 10 cm from. These dikes or dams around the fields are mainly applied in December to the beginning of the rainy season. Between the fields of narrow channels of 35 cm depth and 80 cm width ensure that there is water and sediments evenly distributed. At the bottom of the fields make furrows for drainage of excess water, so that within the dikes, the water is 12-15 cm high.

The lameo irrigation and sedimentation in Capinota is used by more than 200 small-scale farmers on an area of 2.3 km ². This allows the farmers and their families an intensive and market-oriented management in the cultivation of potatoes and tomatoes Holland. On fields that are beyond the reach of the river, soil improvement is operated by river sediments are mixed with chicken manure under the soil.

By geomorphological and sedimentation studies in the neighboring region of Valle Alto could be demonstrated that the lameo technique at least to the time of 1500 goes back in this space BC.