EVALUATION OF CROPPING SYSTEMS THROUGH OPTICAL SENSOR MONITORING AND SOIL MOISTURE MEASUREMENT IN MAIZE BEAN CROP

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.