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Conservation agriculture saves irrigation water in the dry monsoon phase in the Ethiopian highlands

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Title Conservation agriculture saves irrigation water in the dry monsoon phase in the Ethiopian highlands
 
Creator Belay, Sisay A.
Schmitter, Petra S.
Worqlul, Abeyou W.
Steenhuis, Tammo S.
Reyes, Manuel R.
Tilahun, Seifu A.
 
Subject conservation agriculture
irrigation water
arid climate
monsoon climate
highlands
conventional tillage
irrigation scheduling
farmers
irrigation practices
water use efficiency
irrigated farming
crop yield
onions
garlic
soil moisture
farmer-led irrigation
 
Description Water resources in sub-Saharan Africa are more overstressed than in many other regions of the world. Experiments on commercial farms have shown that conservation agriculture (CA) can save water and improve the soil. Nevertheless, its benefits on smallholder irrigated farms have not been adequately investigated, particularly in dry monsoon phase in the Ethiopian highlands. We investigated the effect of conservation agriculture (grass mulch cover and no-tillage) on water-saving on smallholder farms in the Ethiopian highlands. Irrigated onion and garlic were grown on local farms. Two main factors were considered: the first factor was conservation agriculture versus conventional tillage, and the second factor was irrigation scheduling using reference evapotranspiration (ETo) versus irrigation scheduling managed by farmers. Results showed that for both onion and garlic, the yield and irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) was over 40% greater for CA than conventional tillage (CT). The soil moisture after irrigation was higher in CA compared with CT treatment while CA used 49 mm less irrigation water. In addition, we found that ETo-based irrigation was superior to the farmers’ irrigation practices for both crops. IWUE was lower in farmers irrigation practices due to lower onion and garlic yield responses to overirrigation and greater water application variability.
 
Date 2019-10-10
2020-01-03T08:09:29Z
2020-01-03T08:09:29Z
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier Belay, S. A.; Schmitter, Petra; Worqlul, A. W.; Steenhuis, T. S.; Reyes, M. R.; Tilahun, S. A. 2019. Conservation agriculture saves irrigation water in the dry monsoon phase in the Ethiopian highlands. Water, 11(10):1-16. doi: 10.3390/w11102103
2073-4441
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/106358
https://doi.org/10.3390/w11102103
 
Language en
 
Rights CC-BY-4.0
Open Access
 
Format 11(10):1-16
 
Publisher MDPI AG
 
Source Water