This study was conducted in the Lempira Department of western Honduras, near
the border with El Salvador (N 14°4’, W 88°34’). This rural and mountainous region is
dominated by hill slope farms intermixed with pasture and patches of sub-humid tropical
forest. At roughly 400 m in elevation, rainfall in this region averages 1400 mm yr-1, with
nearly all precipitation occurring between May and November. At the field site, mean
monthly temperature varies between 22 and 27 °C year round. Given the steep terrain in
this region, soils are generally shallow and rocky and dominated by Entisols (Hellin,
1999), with a sandy clay loam texture (47% sand, 33% silt, and 20 % clay) at the field
site.