Verification of Conservation Agriculture for Maize on Dry Areas of Silte Zone, Ethiopia

Abstract

One year verification trail on conservation agriculture practices were conducted in lanfuro woreda, Grinzila Shafode kebele, Silte Zone, SNNPR, Ethiopia. The objective of this study is to verify three tillage practices namely No tillage, Two times tillage with tide ridge and Conventional tillage on maize yield, soil moisture and infiltration rate in Andosols. Treatments were arranged in randomized complete block design with three replication. Data collected from this research were analyzed using SAS software, and LSD and DUNCANS was used for multiple comparison tests for the differences among the treatment means. Result reveals that conservation tillage increased the soil moisture retention and improved soil infiltration rate as compared to the conventional tillage method. Conservation tillage also reduced maize grain yield as compared with the conventional tillage methods however, difference between the maize yields obtained from different tillage methods was not significant.

Keywords: Conservation Agriculture, Soil moisture content, infiltration rate, Grinzila Shafode, Maize yield