Conservation Tillage for Soil and Water Conservation and Maize Yield in Kafa Zone Ethiopia

Abiy Gebremichael and Belay Tadesse

Background and Objective: Conservation tillage including strip tillage, two times tillage and zero tillage plays a great role in soil erosion reduction and soil moisture improvement which could lead to an increase in the yield of the crop. The study was conducted to determine the effects of tillage practices on grain yield and yield of maize, soil moisture and soil loss under a slope of 15-20% farmland. Materials and Methods: The experiment was carried out during the 2017 and 2018 years on Nitisols in Kafa Zone Southwestern Ethiopia. Four tillage methods conventional tillage (CT), strip tillage (ST), reduced tillage (RT) and no tillage (NT) were evaluated in randomized block design with three replications. Results: From the combined analysis of 2 years, there is no significant differences (p>0.05) in 100 seed weight, biomass and grain yield. The highest grain yield was found in conventional tillage (4561.33 kg ha^–1) and the lowest in no-tillage (3994.41 kg ha^–1) in the year 2017 while the highest yield was found in reduced tillage (4843.00 kg ha^–1) and the lowest yield in strip tillage (3188.66 kg ha^–1) in the year 2018. It was found that no tillage could save 34% of soil loss relative to conventional due to reduction in soil disturbance in no tillage. The moisture content was not significantly different in all treatments at the planting stage, flowering stage and harvesting stage. Conclusion: Overall, the economic analysis indicated that reduced tillage practice, next to no-tillage is economically beneficial than conventional. Generally, NT and RT can be recommendable to the area since they get higher economic net benefit than CT and reduce soil erosion. However, when tillage experiments are done, it is important to consider a compromise between short term and long-term benefits for farmers than direct recommendations.

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