Effect of Some Conservation Tillage Practices on Growth and Yield Attributes of Rainfed Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.)Moench) At Alfula, West Kordofan State, Sudan

Abstract

The judicious use of water in agriculture is very much possible through adoption of various engineering interventions and other best management practices in the crop production system. A field experiment was conducted for two consecutive seasons (2016/2017 and 2017/2018) at the Demonstration Farm of the Faculty of Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, University of Alsalam, West Kordofan State. The objective was to study the effect of some conservation tillage practices on growth and yield attributes of rainfed sorghum. The treatments consisted of five tillage practices, namely, chisel plow, cultivator practice, offset disc harrow, chisel plow + offset disc harrow and no-tillage practice (control), and two sorghum cultivars. An experiment was laid out in strip-plot design arranged in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Data were collected on plant height (cm), stem diameter (mm), number of leaves per plant, plant population (plant/m²) and sorghum grain yield (kg/ha). The tillage implements were tested for the effective field capacity (ha/h), field efficiency (%) and slippage percentage (%). Results showed that plant height, stem diameter, number of leaves per plant, plant population, and grain yield (kg/ha) were not significantly affected by the tillage practices during the first season. However, both chisel plow and cultivator were significantly increased sorghum grain yield by 29.5% and 22.3%, respectively, during the second season. The difference among the tillage implements namely chisel plow, cultivator and offset disc harrow with regard to their performance parameters was found significant for both seasons. The cultivator recorded the highest values in the effective field capacity and field efficiency were 2.6 ha/h, 84% and 2.1 ha/h, 86%, respectively, for both seasons. The chisel plow recorded the highest value of 12.33% and 14% in slippage during the first and second season, respectively.