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DIVISION S-6-SOIL & WATER MANAGEMENT & CONSERVATION

Shallow Tillage with a Traditional West African Hoe to Conserve Soil Water

^a Oregon State Univ., Columbia Basin Agricultural Research Center, P.O. Box 390, Pendleton, OR 97886 USA

william.payne{at}orst.edu

Evaporation (E) from soil constitutes a large proportion of evapotranspiration (ET) of pearl millet [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.] fields in West Africa. Reduced E would increase crop water supply and reduce the risk of resowing. We hypothesized that tillage after rain events with the hilaire, a traditional, shallow-cultivating hoe that pulverizes and darkens the soil surface, could conserve soil water and increase pearl millet yield. Experiments were conducted using bare and cropped plots. Tillage after rain (+ or -) was the only treatment for bare plots. Treatments for cropped plots were tillage after rain with the hilaire and fertilizer addition (12 kg ha^-1 N and 12 kg P ha^-1). For bare plots, tillage with the hilaire reduced soil surface reflectance by as much as 0.2 and increased soil temperature at 0.05 m by 12°C. Tillage increased soil water storage in the upper 2.4 m of bare plots by up to 47 mm. For cropped plots, tillage increased soil water storage in the upper 1.4 m by up to 32 mm, and it increased grain yield by 68% in 1991 and 70% in 1992. Fertilizer addition increased yield by 21% in 1991 and 116% in 1992. Tillage reduced ET in 1992 from 417 to 372 mm and increased water-use efficiency (WUE_ET) from 0.99 to 1.91 kg ha^-1 mm^-1. Fertilizer addition increased WUE_ET from 0.95 to 1.94 kg ha^-1 mm^-1. Practical exploitation of the hilaire's effect upon evaporation is not expected because it is a hand-operated tool. However, the study demonstrates principles upon which an animal-drawn implement might be designed.

Abbreviations: E, evaporation from soil • ET, evapotranspiration (evaporation from soil + crop transpiration) • WUE_ET, water-use efficiency (grain yield/ET)

This article has been cited by other articles:

				W. A. Payne Optimizing Crop Water Use in Sparse Stands of Pearl Millet Agron. J., September 1, 2000; 92(5): 808 - 814. [Abstract] [Full Text]