Selected Farming Systems for Improving Crop Production and RainWater Productivity in Semi-Arid Zone, Sudan

Abstract

The problem of water shortages for rainfed agricultural production is due to low rainfall and uneven distribution throughout the rainy season makes rainfed agriculture a highly risk enterprise. Appropriate farming systems and soil conservation measures are the only opportunity to reduce the high risk of crops yield losses. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of three farming systems; Conventional Farming (CF), Conservation Agriculture (CA), and in-field rain Water Harvesting (WH); on the yield and water productivity of sorghum, sesame and cowpea crops. Field experiments were conducted in semi-arid area of Sennar State, Sudan for two consecutive seasons (2015 and 2016). Three different planting machines were used. The CA recorded higher crop yield for sorghum (2594 kg/ha) followed by in-field rainwater Harvesting (WH) which gave 2362 kg/ha, while CF has the lowest crop yield (2072 kg/ha). For the sesame crop the WH gave the highest crop yield (740kg/ ha) followed by CA (718 kg/ha) and the lowest crop yield was obtained by CF (602 kg/ha). The highest cowpea crop yield was obtained by WH (927.kg/ha) followed by CA farming system (847 kg/ha) and the lowest crop yield was obtained by CF (785kg/ha). The CA farming system recorded the highest water productivity for sorghum (1.081 kg/m3) compared to the WH and CF, while the WH farming system recorded the highest water productivity (0.32 and 0.366 kg/m3) for sesame and cowpea respectively compared to the CA and CF. WH is best recommended farming system in semi-arid areas and CA the best recommended practice where annual rainfall is relatively high.