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Adapting agriculture to climate change - An evaluation of yield potential of maize, sorghum, common bean and pigeon pea varieties in a very cool-wet region of Nayandarua County

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Title Adapting agriculture to climate change - An evaluation of yield potential of maize, sorghum, common bean and pigeon pea varieties in a very cool-wet region of Nayandarua County
 
Creator Miriti, J M
Esilaba, A O
Rao, K P C
Onyango, J W
Kimani, S K
Lekasi, J K
Njeru, P N M
 
Subject Soil
Pigeonpea
Sorghum
Maize
Climate Change
Kenya
 
Description Soil and water conservation, use of more adaptive crop genotypes and crop diversification are widely
accepted as some of the management practices that can help reduce agriculture vulnerability to impacts
of climate change. A study was conducted to evaluate the yield potential of maize, sorghum, common
bean and pigeon pea varieties under different water management, plant densities and fertility levels in
Nyahururu, Central Kenya. The study involved three experiments. The first experiment evaluated the
growth and performance of three varieties (early maturing, medium maturing and late maturing) of
maize, sorghum, pigeon pea and common bean. The experimental design was a completely randomized
block design (RCBD) replicated three times. The second experiment evaluated maize and sorghum
yield response to water conservation and three fertiliser rates (0, 20 and 40 kg N/ha). The third
experiment assessed the effect of water conservation measures on crop yields of common bean and
pigeon pea grown under three plant densities (low, medium and high). Tied ridge tillage was used as
the water conservation measure and disc plough as the control in the second and third experiments.
Results showed that water conservation in general did not have a significant effect on crop yield though
they were improved. The medium density pigeon pea gave the highest grain (719 kg/ha) followed by
low (688 kg/ha) and high plant density (687 kg/ha), though not significant at 0.95 confidence level.
Similar trends were observed with common bean grain and dry matter yield. Tied ridges tended to
lower maize yield compared to flat tillage while it increased sorghum yields but the difference was
insignificant. When average across the tillage systems, the highest maize grain (5553 kg/ha) and dry
matter (14298 kg/ha) yield was obtained in plots without N fertilizer. Sorghum dry matter was highest
(11333 kg/ha) in plots with 40 kg N/ha and lowest (7903 kg/ha) in plots with 20 kg/ha N. In the
variety experiment, the EM pigeon pea variety (ICPL 84091) yielded the greatest grain (881 kg/ha)
while the late maturing variety (ICEAP 00040) gave the least (565 kg/ha). The LM maize variety
(DK8031) yielded the highest grain (5701 kg/ha) and dry matter (18843 kg/ha). The LM sorghum
variety (Macia) had 47% and 49% dry matter yield advantage over MM (Kari Mtama 1) and EM
(Gadam) varieties, respectively. The yields for common bean varieties tended to vary with seasons. So
what are the conclusions?
 
Date 2013
 
Type Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
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Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/10612/1/Adapting-agriculture-to-climate-change.pdf
Miriti, J M and Esilaba, A O and Rao, K P C and Onyango, J W and Kimani, S K and Lekasi, J K and Njeru, P N M (2013) Adapting agriculture to climate change - An evaluation of yield potential of maize, sorghum, common bean and pigeon pea varieties in a very cool-wet region of Nayandarua County. In: Joint proceedings of the 27th Soil Science Society of East Africa and the 6th African Soil Science Society, October 20-25, 2013, Nakuru, Kenya.