Terraces
Winter 2025
The millet drying racks above Dzüleke
When the air turns crisp, bamboo platforms appear on every roof. A week of sun, wind, and patient turning.
Khonoma, Nagaland • 25°39'N
From the alder
forests of home.
Alder & Millet is a quiet notebook on terrace farming, forest conservation, and everyday life in Khonoma — a village in the Angami hills of Nagaland.
Latest notes
Field notes, seasons, and stories from the terraces.
Forest
October
Alder and the art of renewal cultivation
How Khonoma's farmers plant alder to fix nitrogen, shorten fallow cycles, and hold the slopes.
Community
Monsoon
A walk through the morungs at dusk
Woodsmoke, stories, and the low hum of the village preparing for Sekrenyi.
The Place
Khonoma is built on care.
Perched at 5,200 feet, the village tends 20 sq km of community-conserved forest. Terraces cut the hills like careful handwriting. Here, hunting was banned in 1998 — long before it was common.
700
Years old
~20
km² forest
3
Main clans
Alder-based farming
Alnus nepalensis is pollarded, not felled. Leaves become green manure; roots hold soil and fix nitrogen for the next crop.
Community conserved area
The Khonoma Nature Conservation and Tragopan Sanctuary protects Blyth's tragopan and countless forest species.
Stone and thatch
Houses step with the slope. Dry stone walls terrace the fields, built to last generations without mortar.
About Alder & Millet
This is a personal, slow blog. No hot takes, no lists. Just photographs, field notes, and interviews gathered while walking the terraces around Khonoma. If you visit, come gently — carry your waste back, ask before photographing, hire local guides.
Named for the alder tree (rüpfhe) and millet (tsütsü) — two quiet staples that shaped these hills.