Cotton as an entry point for soil fertility maintenance and food crop productivity in savannah agroecosystems-Evidence from a long-term experiment in southern Mali

摘要

Given the scarcity of manure and the limited land available for fallowing, cotton cultivation with its input credit schemes is often the main entry point for nutrients in cropping systems of West Africa. In an experiment carried out during 25 years in southern Mali, the crop and soil responses to organic fertilizer (=OF), inorganic fertilizer (=IF), and a combination of both (=OIF) were quantified and compared to a control treatment for a typical cotton-sorghum-groundnut rotation. From 1965 to 1979 (15 years, period 1), fertilizers were only applied on cotton and the control treatment was not fertilized. From 1980 to 1989 (10 years, period 2), the amount of manure applied was split between cotton and sorghum, and inorganic fertilizers were applied to the three crops. Inorganic fertilizers were also applied to plots with cotton and sorghum that were previously unfertilized control treatments.