Assessment of maize productivity under conservation agriculture with tephrosia (2)

Assessment of Maize Productivity under Conservation Agriculture with Tephrosia

www.worldagroforestry.org

IACCA, Lusaka, ZAMBIA 18 – 21 March 2014.

Njoloma J. 1, Sosola B.G. 1, Sileshi G.W. 1, Kumwenda W. 2, Phiri S. 2

1World Agroforestry Centre, ICRAF, Lilongwe, Malawi;

2NASFAM, Lilongwe, Malawi



PRESENTATION OUTLINE

Introduction

Material and methods

Results and discussion

Conclusion

Acknowledgement



Introduction

o Malawi’s current cropping systems

o continuous monoculture of the staple crop,

maize,

o annual tillage practices

o Sustainable agricultural systems

o conservation agriculture

o agroforestry.



Introduction

The question at hand remains whether integration

of CA and agroforestry technologies offer

opportunities to improve crop productivity or not.

The aim of the study was to assess the effect of

integration of Tephrosia with conservation

agriculture in a maize production system.



Materials and Methods



17 farmers mounted CAWT trials in Kasungu and

Lilongwe

9 treatments and 3 replicates in RCBD

Agronomic data were collected for three years

(2010-2013)

Dunnett’s method of pre-planned mean comparison was

applied to compare all treatments with the control “CF”.

CVs were calculated to determine yield stability over time

and across sites for various treatments


Treatment combinations • A total number of 9 treatments

• Main treatments are namely

1. Basin planting (BP)

2. Old ridges and (Or)

3. Conventional tillage (Ct)

• Sub treated - soil fertilility technologies

i. Fertilizer application (F)

ii. Tephrosia under sowing (T) leaf fall application

iii. (F+T ).



Results and Discussion

Treatment description

Maize yield (kg/ha) 3 Years

average

CV (%)

2010/11 2011/12 2012/13

Conventional tillage +

fertilizer 5553.8 6378.6 5449.9 5801.0 59.5


fertilizer + Tephrosia 5776.6 5581.4 4926.3 5484.8 29.9


Tephrosia 4135.3 2862.2*** 2571.9*** 3294.0*** 44.1

Old ridge + fertilizer 5252.4 5694.3 5311.1 5415.3 73.3

Old ridge + fertilizer +

Tephrosia 5631.6 5710.9 5641.1 5662.6 38.4

Old ridge + Tephrosia 3451.2* 1705.9*** 2177.2*** 2529.7*** 44.4

Basin planting + fertilizer 5572.7 5234.3 3792.2 4985.1 70.4

Basin planting + fertilizer +

Tephrosia 5363.4 5025.1 3630.1 4788.4 37.9

Basin planting basin +

Tephrosia 3181.4** 1977.4*** 1786.1*** 2408.0*** 31.2

*, ** and *** represent significant difference between treatments and control

according to Dunnett’s test of planned comparison at 5%, 1% and 0.1%, respectively.

Table 1. Average maize grain yields (kg/ha) over a three year period (2011 - 2013)



Figure 1. Maize grain yield (kg/ha) at different sites in Kasungu

and Lilongwe Districts over time

CONCLUSION



The integration of Tephrosia vogelii undersowing with

conventional tillage combined with fertilizer application

gives stable and high yields.

Basin planting and undersowing of Tephrosia alone

may not achieve yields comparable to conventional

practice

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT



AGRA for the financial support

Participating institutions and Farmers

THANK YOU



Assessment of maize productivity under conservation agriculture with tephrosia (2)

Technology

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