Abstract
Abstract Conservation agriculture (CA) based on minimum soil disturbance, crop residue retention, crop rotations and associations are being promoted in southern Africa to reverse the decline in soil fertility and crop productivity. While agronomic benefits of rotations are known, farm level benefits of rotations in CA systems and how they fit in the smallholder farming systems have not been sufficiently addressed. This paper summarizes agronomic results from 2005 to 2011 of maize in rotation and association with different crops in Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Rotation with or without legumes improved water infiltration (between 70 and 238%), soil moisture, soil carbon, macro-fauna and crop productivity. However, due to poor market conditions, rotations with legumes were less profitable than maize during the study period. Farmers have fewer difficulties to abandon tillage and there is scope to retain crop residues in situ in areas of limited crop–livestock competition but the adoption of rotations and associations is constrained by socio-economic factors that need to be addressed before all principles of CA can be applied. Keywords: rotationsno-tillageresidue retentionassociationssoil qualitywater relationsinput–output marketsmaize-based systemsprofitability Acknowledgements We are grateful for the financial support from the Ministry of Economic Cooperation (BMZ) of the German Government and the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD). Technical assistance from Tobias Charakupa, Mwangala Sitali, Gabriel Braga and Robert A. Ngwira, Chitedeze Research Station, Malawi in data collection and trial management is acknowledged. We extend sincere gratitude to Rejoice M. Gumbo, and Dr Neal S. Eash, for assisting in soil analyses and Vine Mutyasira for assisting in the economic analysis. Special thanks go to Brian Sims for valuable comments and editing of a first draft of this paper. Notes
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Claims 7
Claim · model-written summary
Rotations improved water infiltration by 70 to 238%.
- Treatment
- Rotation with or without legumese0
- Outcome
- water infiltratione0
- Direction
- improvede0
- Value
- between 70 and 238%e0
Zea maysNot reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
t0“maize-based”
e0“Rotation with or without legumes improved water infiltration (between 70 and 238%), soil moisture, soil carbon, macro-fauna and crop productivity”
Claim · model-written summary
Rotations improved soil moisture and soil carbon.
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
t0“maize-based”
e0“Rotation with or without legumes improved water infiltration (between 70 and 238%), soil moisture, soil carbon, macro-fauna and crop productivity”
Claim · model-written summary
Rotations improved macro-fauna.
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
t0“maize-based”
e0“Rotation with or without legumes improved water infiltration (between 70 and 238%), soil moisture, soil carbon, macro-fauna and crop productivity”
Claim · model-written summary
Rotations improved crop productivity.
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
t0“maize-based”
e0“Rotation with or without legumes improved water infiltration (between 70 and 238%), soil moisture, soil carbon, macro-fauna and crop productivity”
Claim · model-written summary
Legume rotations were less profitable than maize in the study period.
- Treatment
- rotations with legumese0
- Outcome
- profitablee0
- Direction
- lesse0
- Qualifier
- during the study periode0
- Comparator
- maizee0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
t0“maize-based”
e0“due to poor market conditions, rotations with legumes were less profitable than maize during the study period”
Claim · model-written summary
Farmers had fewer difficulties abandoning tillage.
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
t0“maize-based”
e0“Farmers have fewer difficulties to abandon tillage”
Claim · model-written summary
Adoption of rotations and associations was constrained by socioeconomic factors.
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
t0“maize-based”
e0“the adoption of rotations and associations is constrained by socio-economic factors”
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