Variable grain legume yields, responses to phosphorus and rotational effects on maize across soil fertility gradients on African smallholder farms

Promiscuous soyabean varieties have potential to contribute significantly to income generation, food security and soil N budgets on smallholder farms. One of the major factors limiting this potential is farmers' preference to allocate nutrient resources to food security cereal crops on the most...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nutrient cycling in agroecosystems 2008, Vol.80 (1), p.1-18
Main Authors: Zingore, Shamie, Murwira, Hebert K, Delve, Robert J, Giller, Ken E
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural economics
Agricultural production
Agriculture
animal manures
Arachis hypogaea
biological nitrogen-fixation
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Cereal crops
Clay
Clay soils
Corn
crop rotation
Crop yield
Crops
Economic conditions
Farmers
Farms
fertilizer rates
fertilizer response
Fertilizers
Food
Food security
Glycine max
Grain
grain yield
Groundnuts
guinea savanna
Income
Income generation
Legumes
Life Sciences
Manures
nigeria
Nutrients
Organic soils
peanuts
Phosphorus
phosphorus fertilizers
productivity
promiscuous soybeans
Research Article
Rotation
Sandy soils
Small farms
small-scale farming
Soil conditions
Soil fertility
Soils
Soybeans
spatial variation
superphosphate
systems
tropics
varieties
Zea mays
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Summary:Promiscuous soyabean varieties have potential to contribute significantly to income generation, food security and soil N budgets on smallholder farms. One of the major factors limiting this potential is farmers' preference to allocate nutrient resources to food security cereal crops on the most fertile fields, leaving grain legumes to grow on residual fertility on infertile fields. Two experiments were conducted to: (i) compare the current farmer practice with targeting manure and single super phosphate (SSP) to soyabean in a three-year rotation cycle on two fields with different soil fertility: an infertile sandy soil and a more fertile clay soil; and (ii) assess the effects of variability of soil fertility within and across farms on productivity of soyabean and groundnut. In the first experiment, soyabean (
ISSN:1385-1314
1573-0867
DOI:10.1007/s10705-007-9117-3