Improvement of sorghum productivity through introducing integrated soil fertility management options in the Northern sudanian zone of Burkina Faso

Abstract

Agricultural intensification is a necessity to ensure food security in the Sahel countries. This study aimed at assessing the effects of technological packages of integrated soil fertility management on sorghum productivity. An experiment was set up in dispersed blocks design where each producer constituted a repetition. Fertilizers were applied using the microdose technique. The results showed that the best grain yields of sorghum are obtained with the technology combining stone bunds + zaï + NPK + urea with respectively 1428.70 kg / ha in 2018 and 1158.40 kg / ha in 2019. The grain yield gaps between the current farmers’ practice under stone bunds and ISFM packages varied from 5.66% to 44.45% in 2018 and from 25.15% to 53.80% in 2019. In the context of climate variability and climate change, these results show that water harvesting techniques such as stone bunds and the zaï, associated with microdose are viable and sustainable alternative for improving agricultural productivity.