A field study was carried out to evaluate the effects of tillage practices on soil physical properties in Mwala district, Eastern Kenya, during the long rains (LR) and short rains (SR) of 2012/13. The treatments were disc ploughing (DP), disc ploughing and harrowing (DPH), ox-ploughing (OX), subsoiling-ripping (SSR), hand hoeing with tied ridges (HTR), hand hoeing only (H). These were investiga...

Traditional yam-based cropping systems (shifting cultivation, slash-and-burn, and short fallow) often result in deforestation and soil nutrient depletion. The objective of this study was to determine the impact of yam-based systems with herbaceous legumes on dry matter (DM) production (tubers, shoots), nutrients removed and recycled, and the soil fertility changes. We compared smallholders' tra...

A new second generation anticoagulant rodenticide, difethialone (0.0025%), was evaluated in the rice fields at three different cropping stages, viz. Milky, Panicle formation and Panicle maturation, during Kuruvai and Thaladi seasons. The difethailone (0.0025%) yielded satisfactory control success suggesting a great potential as a rodenticide especially in the early stages of rice.

Globally, Maruca vitrata (Geyer) is a serious yield constraint on food legumes including Yard-long bean (Vigna unguiculata subspecies sesquipedalis). However, there is a dearth of information on its damage potential, distribution and population dynamics in Yard-long beans. In the present study, the level of M. vitrata larval infestation on flowers and pods of Yard-long beans in Sri Lanka was de...

Hairy vetch (Vicia sativa L.) succeeded by corn (Zea mays L.)or grain sorghum (Sorghumbicolor L. Moench) were seeded insplit plots randomized within whole plots of no-tillage versus conventional tillage over four growing seasons (1980-83). The vetch-corn cropping system increased the density of Meloidogyne incognita 2.9 X more than the vetch-grain sorghum cropping system. I n contrast, the vetc...

the yield performance of 23 barley (hordeum vulgare l.) genotypes in sixteen test environments across a barley growing region of china was evaluated. the experiment was conducted using a randomized complete block design with three replicates, in two cropping seasons (2010-2011, in the south; 2012-2013, in the north). the gge biplot was applied to analyze the data obtained in the multi-environme...