Journal of
Soil Science and Environmental Management

  • Abbreviation: J. Soil Sci. Environ. Manage.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN: 2141-2391
  • DOI: 10.5897/JSSEM
  • Start Year: 2010
  • Published Articles: 314

Article in Press

Evaluation of Conservation Farming Practices for Improving Sorghum Yield at Tanqua Abergelle Wereda, Northern Ethiopia

Meresa Weleslassie, Guesh Assefa

  •  Received: 10 October 2017
  •  Accepted: 12 April 2019
Traditional farming, particularly tillage has long been used by farmers to loosen the soil, make a seed bed and control weed. However, it has been discovered that tillage operations, overtime, cause a decline in soil fertility and overall productivity resulting from deterioration of soil physical, chemical and biological properties. The purpose of the study was to find the effect of minimizing soil disturbance on sorghum yield. The research was conducted at Tanqua Abergelle Wereda in specific localizations called Gereb Giba testing site. Six treatments replicated three times according to randomized complete block design and plot size 3.75 m x 4 m were used. The conservation farming practices such as basin and tie-ridger were prepared, one month earlier from its sowing date. Moreover, sorghum seeds were sown at nursery in the month of june, which was latter transplanted to the field experiments. Agronomic data were collected for three consecutive years (2014 to 2016) and subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA). The obtained result indicates that there was significant difference (0.05 %) between treatments especially with comparison to conventional tillage. The highest grain yield (1.41t/ha) was obtained in the treatment (Ripper + tie-ridger + transplanting), followed by Ripper + tie-ridger, Ripper + tie-ridger + inter-cropping, basin + transplanting and conventional tillage with 1.16t/ha, 1.21t/ha, 1.33t/ha and 0.95t/ha respectively and the lowest was obtained from basin 0.72t/ha, due to sandy soils, i.e siltation affects at initial growth stage. Though, practicing such kinds should be taken as compulsory issue particularly in dry land areas.

Keywords: Conservation agriculture, sorghum and productivity