On Farm Evaluation of Conservation Tillage Techniques: An Option for Vulnerable House Hold at Dry Land Areas of Northern Ethiopia
Participatory evaluation of conservation tillage practice was conducted at low rain fall areas of South Tigray, Ethiopia in 2014 cropping season. The treatments were tie ridge with mulching, planting basin (direct and transplanted) with mulching and conventional with minimum of 5 times tillage. The experiment was conducted on farmer's field and a total of 35 farmers were participated. Early maturing (Hormat) medium maturing (Kodem) and late maturing (Abaere) sorghum varieties were used in the experimentation. Significantly (P<0.05) more variation were observed among the tillage practices and varieties tested. In the early maturing vareitiy, the highest grain yield 2.39 t/ha and 2.37 t/ha were recorded from tie ridging and direct panting at planting basin, while the lowest mean grain yield 0.9 t/ha was obtained from the conventional treatments. For the Kodem and Abaere sorghum land race the higher grain yield were obtained from planting basins (3.87 and 5.59 t/ha, respectively) About 68% and 27% of the total respondents also select basin and tie ridging, respectively. This finding provides evidence to scale up the culture of conservation tillage techniques (tie ridging and planting basin) with component package in dry land areas of Tigray and allowing farmers to enhance crop yield in the low rain fall areas. Key word: Conservation tillage Planting basin Mulching Sorghum Tied ridges INTRODUCTION productivity on rain fed farms is low due to infertile soils; In Ethiopia smallholder rain fed agriculture is largely prolonged dry spells, sparse infrastructure and restricted dominant and tillage takes place with a pair of oxen pulling access to markets. the hard plough or 'Marasha' [1, 2] Tillage is the Removal of crop residues from the fields is known to mechanical disturbance of the soil (through plowing, hasten soil organic carbon decline especially when cultivation or digging) and has been used by farmers coupled with conventional tillage [11, 12] Typically in since the first settled agricultural production systems tens southern Tigray, there is a removal of crop residue from of thousands of years ago [3] However, not all outcomes fields after harvesting and animals clear the remaining of this practice are positive; it has been stated that tillage crop residues as they roam freely during the dry season operations, over time, cause a decline in soil fertility and and crop residues are also removed for fire wood and overall productivity resulting from deterioration of house roofing. soils' physical, chemical and biological properties [4 7] Among the solutions being floated to mitigate the Low and erratic precipitation is the most important climatic impact of climate change is adapting to droughts through factor that limits crop yields in most semi arid regions [8] sustainable farming methods. Conservation farming (CF) In Ethiopia cereal grain yields are low <2.5 t ha [9] practices hold the promise of providing both a strategy 1 Research findings suggested that poor soil fertility and for mitigating climate change and also working as an degradation severely limit food security for many adaptive mechanism to cope with climate change. In CF smallholder farmers in southern Africa. In Tigray region crops are grown using conservation tillage and legumes unreliable rainfall [10] patterns often associated with World J. Agric. Sci. 12 (1) 64 69, 2016 65 are included in rotation with other crops. Conservation and 12deg 47'59' N in Raya Azobo. A semi arid type of tillage leads to positive changes in the physical, chemical climate characterizes the study areas receiving highly and biological properties of a soil [13] variable rainfall. To reduce risks of unexpected drought Research findings in Ethiopia indicated that ripping periods at any time of the growing season, whenever ridging fertilizer yielded maize grain yields with 40% available flooding of (spate irrigation, exploiting over land over conventional practice. It was also indicated that flow of water from the highlands of ofla (for raya conservation agricultural practices with increasing tef Alamata) Maichew and Emba Alaje (for raya Azobo) grain yields with 20 50% for ripping ridging as The study areas receives annual average rainfall compared to conventional non fertilized tillage using between 450 and 700 mm. Eutric Vertisols, Lithic Leptosols maresha [14] Conservation agriculture is based on the (Cambic) and Lithic Leptosols (Orthic) are the soil types principles of minimum soil disturbance, which means not covering most of the land in the woredas. The fertility tilling the land, leaving the remainder of the crop after level is below the critical (un published data ATA) In the harvest as a form of mulch to help soil retain moisture and study areas, land preparation is done using traditional rotating cereals such as maize with other crops such as oxen drawn implement 'Maresha' The major crops legumes [15] Therefore, the present study was initiated to grown in the area are Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. evaluate the effect of planting basin and tie ridging Maize (Zea mays L. and Teff (Eragrostis tef conservation technologies on sorghum productivity with farmers' participation. Experimental Design and Procedure: The experiment MATERIALS AND METHODS field on which each farmer was receiving one The Study Area Description: The study areas (Raya conventional method of tillage system. Gross plot size Azobo and Raya Alamata) are situated in the Raya Valley for each treatment was 10m x 10m. The varieties used in cluster, in the South zone of Tigray national regional the experiment was long maturing land race(180 210 days) state. The study sites districts are Garjelle tabia in Raya medium maturing land race (150 180 days) and improved Alamata (located between 39deg 34' 01" E and 12deg 23' 03" N) early maturing variety (100 120 days) For the control and, Genetie (located between 39deg 37' 231" E and 12deg 46' plots plowing were done as per the farmers practice by 36" N) and Tsigea Tabia (located between 39deg 38' 38' E farmers' equipment 'Maresha' with no mulching and was conducted in 2014 cropping season on 35 farmers conservation tillage treatment to compare with their Fig. 1: Map of the study sites World J. Agric. Sci. 12 (1) 64 69, 2016 66 Table 1: Soil physical chemical properties of the farmers' field before