Abstract
Conservation Agriculture (CA) and Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) have been promoted in Sub Saharan Africa as a means to improve soil quality. A four season research (March, 2017 to March, 2019) was conducted to evaluate CA-based treatment, no tillage with residue retention (NTR), ISFM-based treatment, conventional tillage with use of manure (CTM), a combination of CA + ISFM, no tillage with residue retention and use of manure (NTRM) and a control, (C) on soil quality attributes. In the two locations (sub-humid and semi-arid) the effect of soil fertility gradients (high and low) were considered. Trials were set out using a one farm one replicate randomized design. In either high or low fertility fields, soil chemical and physical properties were significantly different between the control and NTR, CTM and NTRM with no significant differences between NTR, CTM and NTRM. SOC was higher under NTR and NTRM practices, which consequently had higher hydraulic conductivity, air permeability, mean weight diameter and available phosphorus. For all the treatments and in both locations, the low fertility fields had significantly lower agronomic use efficiency (AUE) compared to the high fertility fields. In both soil types, plant available water capacity and relative water capacity values were below the recommended thresholds indicating low soil water uptake, suboptimal microbial activity and consequently low nutrient uptake which explains the observed low AUE.
Highlights
Sustainable intensification of agriculture is needed for areas where fallow periods are no longer possible
We evaluated soil quality, nutrient agronomic use efficiency (AUE) and gross income analysis under Conservation Agriculture (CA)-based, Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM)-based and a combination of the two practices and on smallholder farm fields on two contrasting sites after four growing seasons
In Kibugu, soils from high fertility fields had significantly higher pH, higher soil organic carbon (SOC), higher Resin-P and higher total phosphorus (TP) compared to low fertility fields
Summary
Sustainable intensification of agriculture is needed for areas where fallow periods are no longer possible. The said intensification is necessitated by the projected increase in world population to 9.1 billion by 2050 (FAO 2009). The increase is expected to come mostly from the developing world with Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) highlighted on top of the list (Gerland et al 2014). This creates a need for increased food production putting pressure on the natural resource base. Agricultural intensification has recently gained support, in part because of the growing recognition. Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply.
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