Abstract
Conservation agriculture (CA) is one option for dealing with such a challenge, but its main difficulty in West Africa is in maintaining permanent soil cover, particularly with crop residues, due to their preferential use for livestock fodder. The aim of our study was to determine the effect of crop residue mulching on the efficiency of cropping systems based on the principles of conservation agriculture. The experimental design was based on on-station experiments, intended to assess the specific effect of different levels of crop residue mulching on the biological and chemical soil fertility parameters, while in on-farm experiments we mainly assessed the ability of farmers to actually collect crop residues for soil cover and the associated effects on weeds and yields. The on-station experimental design was in fully randomized factorial blocks comprising five treatments and three replicates. The treatments compared the conventional system, tillage and cropping without mulching, and CA systems with 1 ton, 2 tons, and 4 tons of straw per hectare in plots of 10 m2. The effects of CA on the macrofauna, respiratory activity, and soil chemical parameters were evaluated in the 2014 and 2015 growing seasons. For the on-farm experiments, the conventional and CA practices of 15 farmers were compared to conventional practices in 2013 and 2014 in plots of 626 m2. The on-station results showed that the presence of crop residue mulching induced an increase in the density of termites. A significant release of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the CA treatments compared to the conventional treatment was also observed. For the chemical parameters (pH, N, P and K) were significantly and positively affected by mulch in the top 5 centimeters of soil. The on-farm experiments confirmed the difficulty of farmers in collecting enough biomass, with negative effects on grass cover leading to generally lower yields than conventional treatments. Other practices also affected the results, such as the maize sowing date, the gap between sowing and weeding, the gap between sowing and urea supply, the number of years of CA practices in the plot and, the gap between maize sowing and cowpea sowing. For the farmers having the human resources to collect enough crop residues for soil cover and follow the steps of the crop management sequences, it was possible to maintain yields compared to the conventional practice.
Abstract from the paper’s OpenAlex record; open copy licensed cc-by. Read at the source ↗
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.
Claims 5
Claim · model-written summary
Crop residue mulching increased termite density in the on-station experiment.
Not reportedTaxonComparator
Verbatim
e1“The on-station results showed that the presence of crop residue mulching induced an increase in the density of termites”
Claim · model-written summary
Conservation agriculture treatments released significantly more carbon dioxide than the conventional treatment.
- Treatment
- CA treatmentse1
- Outcome
- release of carbon dioxide (CO2)e1
- Direction
- increaseinferrede1
- Comparator
- conventional treatmente1
Not reportedTaxon
Verbatim
e1“A significant release of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the CA treatments compared to the conventional treatment was also observed”
Claim · model-written summary
Crop residue mulch significantly and positively affected soil pH, N, P and K in the top 5 cm of soil.
- Treatment
- mulche1
- Outcome
- pH, N, P and Ke1
- Direction
- increaseinferrede1
- Setting
- top 5 centimeters of soile1
Not reportedTaxonComparator
Verbatim
e1“For the chemical parameters (pH, N, P and K) were significantly and positively affected by mulch in the top 5 centimeters of soil”
Claim · model-written summary
On-farm, conservation agriculture practices generally gave lower maize yields than conventional practices.
- Treatment
- CA practicese3
- Outcome
- yieldse1
- Direction
- lowere1
- Comparator
- conventional practicese3
- Setting
- on-farm experimentse3
Zea maysOrganisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e1“with negative effects on grass cover leading to generally lower yields than conventional treatments”
e2“the maize sowing date”
e3“For the on-farm experiments, the conventional and CA practices of 15 farmers were compared to conventional practices”
Claim · model-written summary
Farmers with enough labour to collect crop residues and follow the crop management steps could maintain maize yields compared with conventional practice.
- Treatment
- crop residues for soil covere4
- Outcome
- yieldse4
- Direction
- no_changeinferrede4
- Comparator
- conventional practicee4
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e2“the maize sowing date”
e4“For the farmers having the human resources to collect enough crop residues for soil cover and follow the steps of the crop management sequences, it was possible to maintain yields compared to the conventional practice”
The same questions in other papers
mulching · nutrient: content · Zea mays (maize)Positive and negative results
45 papers in the same direction as this paper · 3 in the opposite direction
- no effect
- no effect
- negative
45 papers more in this group
See all 49 papers →organic · yield · Zea mays (maize)Positive and negative results
42 papers in the same direction as this paper · 330 reporting no difference from an alternative
- positive
- positive
- positive
369 papers more in this group
See all 373 papers →tillage · yield · Zea mays (maize)Positive and negative results
286 papers in the same direction as this paper · 812 in the opposite direction
- positive
- positive
- positive
1,095 papers more in this group
See all 1,099 papers →Claims are grouped by organism, treatment and what was measured or targeted. A paper counts as positive when any of its claims in the group is positive.