Effect of Water Harvesting Techniques and Chisel Plough Depth on Sorghum Production (Sorghum bicolor L.) Under Dryland Farming in Gadaref State, Sudan

Abstract

This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of water harvesting techniques and chisel plough depth on yield and yield components of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) under the dryland farming of Gadaref State during three consecutive seasons (2010/09, 2011/10 and 2012/11). The experimental field was arranged in a split-plot design replicated three times each consisting of three main plots which were ploughed by chisel depths of 20 (D1), 25 (D2), and 30 cm (D3). Each main plot was divided into five subplots each with size of 3×6 m2 to include five different treatments, which were randomly distributed. They were respectively used wide level disc (WLD) as conventional tillage practice, and two tied- ridging spaced at 1 m (TR1) and 2 m (TR2) and {two furrow-ridge with ratios of 1:1(RF1) and 2:1(RF2)}. The latter four treatments were considered as in- situ rain water harvesting techniques. Amounts of monthly rainfall (mm), measured within the three rainy seasons, and collected crop data were plant population(PP), plant height at flowering (PH), dry matter (DM), total grain yield (GY), water productivity (WP) and 1000 seeds weight (1000 SW). The result showed no significant (p>0.05) difference between interaction water harvesting techniques (WHT) and chisel depth, in three seasons on (PP), (PH),(GY), (DM) and (WP).except (GY), (DM) and (WP), in the third season (TS), the result showed that the highest grain yield 2356.70 kg/ha for sorghum was produced by TR2 under (D3) and lowest grain yield 1448.30kg/ha was produced by WLD under (D1), and the highest (DM) 1386.70 kg/ha for sorghum was produced by TR2 under (D3) and the lowest (DM) 801.00kg/ha was produced by WLD under (D1), and highest (WP) 0.67 (kg/m3) for sorghum was produced by TR2 under (D3) and lowest (WP) 0.39(kg/ m3was produced by WLD under (D1). There were significant (p<0.05) difference between interaction water harvesting techniques (WHT) and chisel depth, except in the first season (FS) on (1000 SW), result also showed that the highest (1000 SW) 32.90 and 27.0 (g) for sorghum was produced by TR2 in SS and TS respectively under (D3) the lowest (1000 SW) 20.90 and 19.10 (g) was produced by WLD in SS and TS respectively under (D1).The data suggested that use of simple in-situ water harvesting techniques could be used successfully to meet the water demand of sorghum in the North of Gadaref State, which suffers from the intermittent and low rainfall.