International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Oyo Road, Ibadan, Nigeria; Department of Agronomy, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria; Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Institute of CIAT (TSBF-CIAT), P.O. Box 30677, Nairobi, Kenya; IITA, c/o
Okogun, J.A., International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Oyo Road, Ibadan, Nigeria, Department of Agronomy, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria, IITA, c/o L.W. Lamboum and Co., 26 Dingwall Rd., Croydon CR9 3EE, United Kingdom; Sanginga, N., Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Institute of CIAT (TSBF-CIAT), P.O. Box 30677, Nairobi, Kenya; Abaidoo, R.C., International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Oyo Road, Ibadan, Nigeria
An attempt was made to solving the problem of shortfall of fertilizer to maize production in the Northern Guinea Savanna (NGS) of Nigeria by harnessing the potentials of legume/cereal crop rotation in on-farm trials. The yield of maize that succeeded two soybean varieties and Lablab in a two-cycle of soybean/maize and Lablab/maize crop rotation in NGS Nigeria was assessed in researcher-managed and farmer-managed plots. Though maize that followed the soybean received between 5 kg N ha-1 from improved soybean variety (TGx 1448-2E) and 17 kg N ha-1 from farmer soybean variety (Samsoy-2) as N balance, this did not significantly (p = 0.05) affect the maize yields. The soybean shed 90-100% of its leaves at physiological maturity which resulted in about 110 kg N ha-1 N uptake. This source of N might be one of the factors responsible for the increase in maize yield that followed soybean (20 to 24%) compared with continuous maize yield plot. Maize yield in previous Lablab plot was significantly (p = 0.05) higher than in all other treatments. Maize yield in farmer-managed plot ranged between 0.13 and 4.53 t ha -1, maize yield in researcher-managed plot was over 200% higher than maize yield in farmer-managed plot because of poor crop management on the part of the farmer. © 2007 Asian Network for Scientific Information.
nitrogen; agriculture; article; biological model; chemistry; crop; growth, development and aging; maize; metabolism; methodology; Nigeria; nitrogen fixation; soil; soybean; Agriculture; Crops, Agricultural; Models, Biological; Nigeria; Nitrogen; Nitrogen Fixation; Soil; Soybeans; Zea mays; Glycine max; Lablab; Zea mays