Abstract:
Soil moisture stress is one of the major problems that affect the growth and yield of sorghum crops during the main season in arid and semi-arid areas of East Hararghe. In such an area, integrated in-situ water conservation techniques and the application of mulching are very im-portant. The study was conducted to evaluate the effect of tied ridge and mulching on sorghum growth, yield, yield-related components, and water use efficiency in Babile District East Ha-rarghe Zone which is highly affected by moisture stress. The field study was conducted using a randomized complete design in which nine treatments consisted of the combination of in situ water conservation techniques (Tied-ridge plus furrow planting, Tied-ridge plus ridge plant-ing and Flatbed plus row planting) and mulching types (Plastic, Straw and No mulch) with three replications constituting 27 plots. The results revealed in different in-situ soil moisture conservation and mulching types were a significant differences (P<0.05) that affected all the studied parameters of yield and yield components of sorghum at the study site. The soil mois-ture conserved through the growth stages was increased due to the application of the tied-ridge plus furrow planting with black plastic mulching (TFP) at 0 to 90 cm depth of the soil from the planting stage to the maturity stages of sorghum. The results showed that the applica-tion of tied-ridge plus furrow planting with black plastic mulching (TFP) and tied-ridge plus furrow planting with straw mulching (TFS) increased the soil moisture storage by 136 % and 107% in the mean of three soil depths than the flatbed plus row planting with non-mulching (BN) plot treatment during the maturity stage respectively. Moreover, higher growth, yield, and yield components including water use efficiency were obtained in the treatment. The high-est grain yield of 6211.6 kgha-1, biomass yield of 15877.9 kgha-1, and water use efficiency of 20.87 kgha-1mm-1 was obtained in tied-ridge plus furrow planting with black plastic mulching (TFP) treatment, whereas the flatbed plus row planting with non-mulching (BN) resulted in the lowest grain yield of 2104.73 kgha-1, biomass yield of 5434.5 kgha-1, and water use effi-ciency of 6.8 kg ha-1mm-1. Based on this experiment the maximum grain yield, biomass yield and WUE were obtained from tied-ridge plus furrow planting with black plastic mulching (TFP) could be recommended for study area and related agro-ecology.
