Abstract only

Georgia is a mountainous country with insufficient land area suitable for field crop cultivation, a half of which suffers from erosion. In general, eroded soil is a major cause of low productivity in agriculture. For many farms located at poor soils ( especially in Western Georgia) maize is the basic food and forage crop, yield of which exerts high influence on cost efficiency of the farms production and well-being of the farmers. Stationary experiments and field monitoring allowed to state that maize yield is very low (6-10 t/ha) when conservation tillage practices are not observed. Soil fertility improvement is closely associated with application of conservation tillage. There are new technologies recently elaborated at Sabashvili Georgian RI of Soil Science, Agro-chemistry and Melioration and applied at demonstration plots established through assistance of different projects (CARE/lnternational, World Bank funded ARETP, etc.). These technologies contribute to minimization of hillside flowing, gradual improvement of soil physical and chemical properties and yield increase. Application of appropriate fertilizer management systems to poor, intermediate and heavily eroded soils plays a very important role in conservation tillage. Combined with the background of anti-erosion measures, this tillage will be the most effective, if we provide maize with organic (manure 20 t/ha) and mineral fertilizers (N30-45 and P 30-45) depending on the variety or hybrid and will obtain additional l.0- 2.5 ton/ha of yield increase and improved grain quality.

English

0409|AGRIS 0401|AL-Maize Program

Juan Carlos Mendieta

CIMMYT Publications Collection