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Soil fertility management and cowpea production in the semiarid tropics

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/8757/
 
Title Soil fertility management and cowpea production in the semiarid tropics
 
Creator Bationo, A
Ntare, B R
Tarawali, S A
Tabo, R
 
Subject Soil Science
 
Description Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata [L.] Walp.) is an important grain legume in the semiarid
zone of West Africa as it is a major source of dietary protein for the people. It
is usually grown as an intercrop with the major cereals, namely millet and sorghum.
Despite its importance, its yields are very low due to several constraints including
poor soil, insect pests, and drought. The soils in semiarid West Africa are inherently
low in nitrogen and phosphorus. Soil, water, and nutrient management practices
are inadequate to sustain food production and to meet the food requirements of the
fast growing population. Research results show that proper management of organic
amendments such as crop residues and manure, which are essential complements
to mineral phosphorus fertilizers, can increase yields of cowpea and associated
cereals more than three fold. Direct application of indigenous phosphate rocks can
be an economical alternative to the use of imported, more expensive soluble phosphorus
fertilizers for cowpea production in the region. The agronomic effectiveness
of indigenous phosphate rock is about 50% compared to the imported single superphosphate.
Furthermore, when the unreactive phosphate rocks are partially acidulated
at 50%, their agronomic effectiveness can increase to more than 70%. Studies
on cereal–cowpea rotation revealed that yields of cereals succeeding cowpea
could, in some cases, double compared to continuous cereal cultivation. With
effi cient soil fertility management, cowpea can fi x up to 88 kg N/ha and this results
in an increase of nitrogen use effi ciency on the succeeding cereal crop from 20%
in the continuous cereal monoculture to 28% when cereals are in rotation with
cowpea. Furthermore, the use of soil nitrogen increased from 39 kg N/ha in the
continuous cereal monoculture to 62 kg N/ha in the rotation systems. Future
research needs to focus on understanding the factors affecting phosphorus uptake
from different sources of natural rock phosphate. There is also a need to quantify
the below-ground nitrogen fi xed by different cowpea cultivars. The increase of
cowpea productivity in the cropping systems in this region will improve the nutrition
of people, increase the feed quantity and quality for livestock, and contribute
to soil fertility maintenance. This should contribute to reduction in poverty and
environmental degradation.
 
Date 2003
 
Type Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
Rights —
 
Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/8757/1/Soil%20fertility%20management%20and%20cowpea%20production.pdf
Bationo, A and Ntare, B R and Tarawali, S A and Tabo, R (2003) Soil fertility management and cowpea production in the semiarid tropics. In: Challenges and opportunities for enhancing sustainable cowpea production, 4 - 7 September 2000, IITA, Ibadan, Nigeria.