Impact of conservation agriculture on cotton productivity

Abstract

A study was carried out to investigate the possibility of adopting conservation agriculture in cotton production and determine its impact on seed cotton yield. The experiment was carried out in Zimbabwe at Cotton Research Institute, Umguza, Kuwirirana, Wozhele, Shamva and Dande communal areas. This new technology is also to fuse with the new Pfumvudza cotton program, a drive which Zimbabwean government is trying to implement. The experimental design used was a randomised complete block design (RCBD) with five replications. The treatments used were as follows: conventional tillage practice, conservation agriculture with basins, conservation agriculture with ripped rows and conservation agriculture with dibber made holes. The data was collected on the average boll mass, plant height and seed cotton yield. The data was analysed using GenStat 18^th version and the means were separated using Fisher’s LSD test at a 5% probability level. Based on the outcome of the results, it showed that high significant differences were realised at sites for all the treatments in terms of seed cotton yield with conservation agriculture with basins yielding the most at 1337kg ha ^-1. The other two conservation practices also produced better yields. This showed that conservation agriculture practices are a promising technology that can be used in cotton production with benefits being significant with time.