Abstract:
Maize-legume cropping systems are practiced under conventional practice (CP) which has
resulted in soil degradation and frequent crop failure, which may be slowed or reversed with
conservation agriculture (CA). Traditional plant tissue sampling and analysis is time taken
and destructive method; whereas optical sensor techniques in particular, normalized
difference vegetative index (NDVI) are an instantaneous, non-destructive, and quantitative
assessment. CA can improvesoil health and crop productivity. However, CA has not been
well studied considering different crop and soil parameters for its impact on soil and maize
productivity in Ethiopia. So,field experiment was conducted at Melkasa Agricultural
Research Center (MARC) during the rainy season in 2018to study the effects of CA and CP
under different cropping systems using NDVI, soil moisture and crop productivity.Split-plot
treatment design withthree replicationwas used. Two tillage levels, CA and CPwas assigned
to the main plot and four cropping systems, maize monoculture (MMC), maize–bean
intercropping (MBI), maize–bean rotation (MBR) and sole bean (SB) were assigned to
thesubplots.Result showed CA had early maize emergence but late tasseling, silking, and
physiological maturity compared to CP. CA_MBI had more maize grain yield, above ground
biomass and harvest index than CP_MBI. Bean phenology was significantly unaffected by
tillage, cropping system, and interaction of tillage and cropping system. Intercrop bean
harvest index was higher than sole bean. The NDVI was greater with CP for the earlier
periods and less with CP at all measurement periods and lower with CA at earlier periods and
become greater with CA during grain filling stage relatively. Higher soil moisture content at
different soildepthwas recorded from maize bean rotation system. It may be concluded that
rotational system under CA was very advantageous as compared to cropping system under
CP.
