Vol. 5, Issue 1, Part A (2023)

The objective of this study is to show the potential of conservation agriculture on chemical parameters, soil respiration activity and maize yields after 4 years of continuous CA practices. The experimental design is a factorial block with two treatments and three replications. The conventional system (CS = plowing + maize) is compared to the conservation agriculture system (CA = 2 t/ha of straw + direct seeding of maize/ cowpea). The results show that the CA system significantly increased soil pH (11.32%), carbon (81.13%), nitrogen (85.71%) and potassium (97.55%) in the 0-5 cm soil layer compared to the conventional system. The AC system improves the soil respiration activity. It induced a non-significant increase in grain (10.89%) and straw (16.01%) yields of maize compared to SC. Total forage biomass production (straw with or without stover) showed a significant increase of 39.06% in CA compared to SC. It can be concluded that CA with 2 t/ha of straw as cover can ensure sustainable management of tropical soils and improve productivity of cropping systems. However, the beneficial effect would only be noticeable after a few years of continuous CA practice (4 years for our study).