Effect of soil surface formation on yield and yield components of maize (zea mays l.)‎ In the north of gadaref state, Sudan

Abstract EN

Two in-situ water harvesting techniques were compared with traditional and conservation agricultural practices for two consecutive rainy seasons, 2004/05 and 2005/06, to study the effect of soil surface formation techniques on yield and yield components of maize in the North of Gadaref State.

Treatments consist of sowing on contour ridges (CR), tied ridges (TR), wide level disc harrowed soil surface (HS) and sowing on no-tilled soil surface (NT).

Results indicated that the average yield of maize increased from 0.36Mg/ha by NT to 0.417, 0.54 and 0.562Mg/ha by HS, CR and TR respectively.

The increase in yields was accompanied with increase of plant population (plant/m2), stem diameter (cm), plant height (cm) and dry matter weight (Mg/ha).

Insitu water harvesting techniques (CR and TR) encouraged the soil to absorb and store more water within the root zone throughout the growing 0season over HS and NT.

Soil moisture contents during early, mid and late season were for NT 97.8, 82.5 and 52.3 mm respectively, for HS 114.8, 88.4 and 56.5 mm respectively, for CR 140.8, 122.1 and 72.2 mm respectively and for TR 146.1, 126.5 and 71.2 mm respectively.

The data suggested that use of simple in-situ water harvesting techniques could be used successfully to meet the high water demand of maize in the North of Gadaref State, which suffers the intermittent and low rainfall and could therefore encourage farmers to cultivate such an important crop.