engleski

Soil Erosion Caused by Different Tillage Systems in the Ethiopian Highlands

After clearing natural vegetation Ferralsols as the most favourable soils for arable farming at the Horo Alleltu farm, near Nekemte in Wollega province, north of Addis Ababa on the Ethiopian plateau are exposed to very strong water erosion, which is the main constraint to their use. With the aim of designing a most useful soil conservation, monitoring of soil erosion started in 1987 in different tillage practices that are likely to be applied in this region. According of results, plowing across of slope is the most efficient tillage practice with soil losses of 1, 12 t/ha/year. By no-tillage erosion had a slightly higher loss of 7, 6 t/ha/year, which is still below the soils loss tolerance, which was estimated at 12 t/ha/year. The highest erosion of 27 t/ha/year was by tillage up and down the slope. These results suggest the possibility of soil conservation using of different tillage systems. Soil erosion can be reduced by soil tillage below the soil loss tolerance level of 12 t/ha/year. Application of tilling across of the slope reduced soil erosion below of 2 t/ha/year. In the common tillage systems practised in this region, which include up and down the slope tillage, the soil loss is more than twice as high as the soil loss tolerance. Consequently, up and down the slope tillage should be left out of the agricultural practice in this region.

tillage; erosion; soil;

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