Evaluation and Selection of Physical Soil and Water Conservation Techniques for Early Mature Sorghum Root Zone Moisture Retention at Harari, Erer Research Station

Abstract

The experiment was conducted at Babille district, during 2018 and 2019 main cropping season at Erer Research Station. Erer research sub site is located latitude of 09° 10 41.5 north and longitude of 042° 15 27.3 . The objectives of the experiments were to evaluate and select best methods of root zone moisture retention and soil conservation techniques suited for early mature sorghum. The treatments of experiments were, Control (no soil and water conservation measures), open ended tied ridge, level soil bund, contour furrow, closed ended tied ridge, Broad bed, Semi-circular and mulch respectively. The design of the experiment was RCBD with three replication. Genstats 18th editions was used for data Analysis. Statistically there is highly significant variation among the treatments in terms of all parameters at 5% significance level across three planting years. First year, the highest plant height was obtained from the treatment with Broad bed followed by closed ended tied ridge. On other hand, the lowest plant height was recorded from the treatments with soil bund followed by control (no conservation structure). This is because of no more top fertile soil disturbance during first year. During the second and third planting year, the highest, plant height (132.86cm) and the longest panicle diameter (6.5) was recorded, from the treatments with open ended tied ridge, followed by soil bund and contour furrow respectively. That was because of soil and water conservation (swc) structures design and extra moisture harvested in those structure than rest treatments. During the first year of the experiment, the highest grain yield was obtained from the mulch followed by open ended tied ridge treatments. This is because of no and slight top soil disturbance during the construction stage. But, the third year, the maximum grain yield was recorded from contour furrow followed by open ended tied ridge (2130.9 and 2000kg ha-1) respectively. The lowest yield was obtained from no conservation measures followed by mulching (1125 and 1232.1 kg ha-1). The most probable reason for this variation can be due to the amount of the moisture harvested in the root zone of sorghum because of conservation structure. So contour furrow and open ended tied ridges are suitable swc measures for the area.