Overcoming soil nutrient constraints to crop production in West Africa: Importance of fertilizers and priorities in soil fertility research

1991 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. T. F. Wong ◽  
A. Wild ◽  
A. U. Mokwunye
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Soil Fertility ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Soil Nutrient

scholarly journals Soil Fertility Management for Better Crop Production

Agronomy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 1349
Author(s):  
John Havlin ◽  
Ron Heiniger
Keyword(s):  
Soil Fertility ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Nutrient Management ◽  
Root Zone ◽  
Nutrient Use Efficiency ◽  
Soil Nutrient ◽  
Crop Productivity ◽  
Soil Fertility Management ◽  
Fertility Management

Increasing crop productivity per unit of land area to meet future food and fiber demand increases both soil nutrient removal and the importance of replenishing soil fertility through efficient nutrient management practices. Significant progress in enhancing nutrient-use efficiency in production agriculture requires improved estimates of plant-available nutrients in the root zone, enhanced crop response to applied nutrients, and reduced offsite nutrient transport. This special issue, Soil Fertility Management for Better Crop Production, presents 15 manuscripts that advance our knowledge of interrelated soil, plant, and management factors important to increasing the nutrient availability and crop recovery of applied nutrients.

scholarly journals Low Soil Nutrient Tolerance and Mineral Fertilizer Response in White Guinea Yam (Dioscorea rotundata) Genotypes

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryo Matsumoto ◽  
Haruki Ishikawa ◽  
Asrat Asfaw ◽  
Robert Asiedu
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Soil Fertility ◽  
Soil Nutrients ◽  
Tuber Yield ◽  
Soil Nutrient ◽  
Mineral Fertilizer ◽  
Dry Weight ◽  
Nutrient Supply ◽  
Fertilizer Response ◽  
Guinea Yam

Yam (Dioscorea spp.) is a major food security crop for millions of resource-poor farmers, particularly in West Africa. Soil mineral deficiency is the main challenge in yam production, especially with the dwindling of fallow lands for the indigenous nutrient supply. Cultivars tolerant to available low soil nutrients and responsive to added nutrient supply are viable components of an integrated soil fertility management strategy for sustainable and productive yam farming systems in West Africa. This study’s objective was to identify white Guinea yam (D. rotundata) genotypes adapted to available low soil nutrients and responsive to externally added nutrient supply. Twenty advanced breeding lines and a local variety (Amula) were evaluated under contrasting soil fertility, low to expose the crop to available low soil nutrient supply and high to assess the crop response to added mineral fertilizer (NPK) input at Ibadan, Nigeria. The genotypes expressed differential yield response to low soil fertility (LF) stress and added fertilizer input. Soil fertility susceptibility index (SFSI) ranged from 0.64 to 1.34 for tuber yield and 0.60 to 1.30 for shoot dry weight. The genotypes R034, R041, R050, R052, R060, R100, and R125 combined lower SFSI with a low rate of reduction in tuber yield were identified as tolerant to LF stress related to the soil mineral deficiency. Likewise, the genotypes R109, R119, and R131 showed high susceptibility to soil fertility level and/or fertilizer response. Genotypes R025 and R034 had the tuber yielding potential twice of that the local variety under low soil nutrient conditions. Shoot dry weight and tuber yield showed a positive correlation both under low and high soil fertility conditions (r = 0.69 and 0.75, respectively), indicating the vigor biomass may be a morphological marker for selecting genotypes of white Guinea yam for higher tuber yield. Our results highlight genotypic variation in the tolerance to low soil nutrients and mineral fertilizer response in white Guinea yam to exploit through breeding and genetic studies to develop improved genotypes for low and high input production systems in West Africa.

scholarly journals MULTI-SITE TIME-TREND ANALYSIS OF SOIL FERTILITY MANAGEMENT EFFECTS ON CROP PRODUCTION IN SUB-SAHARAN WEST AFRICA

2002 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Buerkert ◽  
H.-P. Piepho ◽  
A. Bationo
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Soil Fertility ◽  
Trend Analysis ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Dry Matter ◽  
Time Trend ◽  
Rock Phosphate ◽  
Base Saturation ◽  
Annual Rainfall ◽  
Sub Saharan

Soil fertility constraints to crop production have been recognized widely as a major obstacle to food security and agro-ecosystem sustainability in sub-Saharan West Africa. As such, they have led to a multitude of research projects and policy debates on how best they should be overcome. Conclusions, based on long-term multi-site experiments, are lacking with respect to a regional assessment of phosphorus and nitrogen fertilizer effects, surface mulched crop residues, and legume rotations on total dry matter of cereals in this region. A mixed model time-trend analysis was used to investigate the effects of four nitrogen and phosphorus rates, annually applied crop residue dry matter at 500 and 2000 kg ha−1, and cereal-legume rotation versus continuous cereal cropping on the total dry matter of cereals and legumes. The multi-factorial experiment was conducted over four years at eight locations, with annual rainfall ranging from 510 to 1300 mm, in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Togo. With the exception of phosphorus, treatment effects on legume growth were marginal. At most locations, except for typical Sudanian sites with very low base saturation and high rainfall, phosphorus effects on cereal total dry matter were much lower with rock phosphate than with soluble phosphorus, unless the rock phosphate was combined with an annual seed-placement of 4 kg ha−1 phosphorus. Across all other treatments, nitrogen effects were negligible at 500 mm annual rainfall but at 900 mm, the highest nitrogen rate led to total dry matter increases of up to 77% and, at 1300 mm, to 183%. Mulch-induced increases in cereal total dry matter were larger with lower base saturation, reaching 45% on typical acid sandy Sahelian soils. Legume rotation effects tended to increase over time but were strongly species-dependent.

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