Modeling the contribution of ecological agriculture for climate change mitigation in cote d'Ivoire

Abstract

The use of crop models is motivated by the prediction of crop production under climate change and for the evaluation of climate risk adaptation strategies. Therefore, in the present study the performance of DSSAT 4.6 was evaluated in a cropping system involving integrated soil fertility management options that are being promoted as ways of adapting agricultural systems to improve both crop yield and carbon sequestration on highly degraded soils encountered throughout middle Côte d’Ivoire. Experimental data encompassed two seasons in the Guinea savanna zone. Residues from the preceding vegetation were left to dry on plots like mulch on an experimental design that comprised the following treatments: (i) herbaceous savanna-maize, (ii)10 year-old of the shrub Chromolaena odorata fallow-maize (iii) 1 or 2 year-old Lalab pupureus stand-rotation, (iv) the legume L. pupureus -maize rotation; (v) continuous maize crop fertilized with urea; (vi) continuous maize crop fertilized with triple superphosphate; (vii) continuous maize crop, fertilized with both urea and triple superphosphate (TSP); (viii) continuous maize cultivation. The model’s sensitivity analysis was run to figure out how uncertainty of stable organic carbon (SOM3) can generate variation in the prediction of soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics during the monitoring period of two years, within the first soil layer and to estimate the most suitable value. The observed variations were of 0.05 % in total SOC within the short-term and acceptable dynamics of changes were obtained for 0.80% of SOM3. The DSSAT model was calibrated using data from the 2007-2008 season and validated against independent data sets of yield of 2008-2009 to 2011-2012 cropping seasons. After the default values for SOM3 used in the model was substituted by the estimated one from sensitivity analysis, the model predicted average maize yields of 1 454 kg ha-1 across the sites versus an observed average value of 1 736 kg ha-1, R2 of 0.72 and RMSE of 597 kg ha-1. The impact of fallow residues and cropping sequence on maize yield was simulated and compared to conventional fertilizer and control data using historical climate scenarios over 12 years. Improving soil fertility through conservation agriculture cannot maintain grain yield in the same way as conventional urea inputs, although there is better yield stability against high climate variability according to our results.

Abstract from the paper’s OpenAlex record, shown for indexing and research. Copyright remains with the authors or the publisher.

The text the model read, with the source record’s inline markup (italics, sub- and superscripts) rendered and its character entities decoded; quote offsets refer to the raw text.