Skip to content
Research Article Open access CC BY 4.0

Effect of Tillage Practice on Soil Moisture Retention under Three Selected Cowpea Varieties

R. N. Khaemba, J. M. Kinama, G. N. Chemining’wa

International Journal of Plant & Soil Science · pp. 1–5 · Published 12 Jun 2017

10.9734/IJPSS/2017/32781

Abstract

Aim: To evaluate the effect of tillage practice on soil moisture retention under three cowpea varieties. Study Design: The treatments were laid out in a randomized complete block design with a factorial arrangement and replicated three times. Place and Duration of Study: The experiment was conducted at St. Theresa farm and Nakamane irrigation scheme in Turkana county between November 2014 and January 2015. Methodology: Treatments comprised three tillage practices: conventional tillage (control), conventional tillage + mulch, and zero tillage and three cowpea varieties: M66, K80, and Kenkunde. Soil samples were collected using an auger (25 mm internal diameter) from near randomly selected 5 plants at the depth of 15 cm in all treatments at an interval of 7 days. The gravimetric moisture was determined using the FAO equation. Results: Tillage + mulch and zero tillage conserved 37.07% and 31.63% more moisture than conventional tillage at St Theresa demo farm, respectively. At Nakamane irrigation scheme, zero tillage retained more moisture content of 33.02% followed by conventional tillage + mulch at 32.24% as compared to conventional tillage. Significant interaction was realized between tillage practice and variety at Nakamane experimental site only. The main effects of variety had no effect on moisture retention. Conclusion: Tillage practice has significant effect of moisture retention in Turkana county. Any cowpea variety established has no effect on moisture retention. A broader use of tillage practices and varieties is advisable for further studies.

Cowpea moisture retention tillage

Cited by 1

Effect of Tillage for Rice Residue Management on Physical Properties of Soil

Malkit Singh, K.B Singh · Communications in Soil Science and Plant Analysis · 2021

Article metrics

Real usage data collected on this platform.

0

Page views

0

PDF downloads

0

Outbound clicks

1

Citations

Views by country

Approximate, from request IP at view time — not citizenship or institution. Countries with fewer than 5 views are grouped as "Other".

No views recorded yet.

Traffic sources

Referring site, by host.

No traffic recorded yet.

Views and downloads exclude known bots/crawlers. Citations combines this platform's own DOI-resolved index with each external source's own reported total — see Cited by above for individually listed citing works. Last refreshed 0 seconds ago.