Source: PRESSA 2009

How to Construct a Zai Pit

• Zai pits are 5-15 cm deep, 15-50 cm wide and 80-100 cm apart. In dry areas the size of planting pits can be enlarged.
• Place compost or manure in the pits before planting to improve soil fertility.

Benefits of Zai Pits

• Produces higher grain yields, particularly on highly degraded sandy soils.
• Good potential to both increase the livelihood of the rural population in the drylands.
• Reduces land ruin.
• Rehabilitation of crusted soils and gentle clay slopes with limited infiltration and difficult tillage.
• Can help restore degraded soils, soil erosion, and soil moisture stress.
• Reduce the risk of water stress in a region of low and erratic rainfall.
• They improve soil fertility and hence agricultural productivity of several crops.

Constraints of Zai Pit

Needs a lot of labor when establishing, especially digging and fertilizing. It is more realistic when done groups of farmers instead of individuals.

Where Suitable 

• Areas with relatively low annual rainfall (500-800 mm).
• Light textured soils of 1.5 to 2 m depth.
• Gentle to moderate slopes (0.5-3%). 
• Areas with no gullies or rills. 
• Large land areas (contour hedgerows cover at least

How to Make a Contour Bund and Hedgerows  

• Dig soil up-slope of the bund to a depth of 50 cm. 
• Make furrows parallel to the contours. 
• Contour bunds should drain in one direction and can be manually or machine constructed. 
• The length of a bund across a slope should be between 400 to 500 m. 
• The height of a bund should be at least 25 cm, with spacing of 1-2 m. In arid areas, the distance between bunds can be increased to 5-10 m. 
• Hedgerows grown to stabilize bunds should be spaced at 4 to 8 m across the slope.

Benefits 

• Reduced water runoff hence low soil erosion.
• Reduced water runoff hence more water for crop growth.
• Spreads rainfall and runoff evenly over a field.

How to Make Bench Terraces 

• Terraces draining in one direction should be at least 100m or more. The length can be slightly increased in arid and semi-arid regions. 
• Optimum width of terrace benches ranges from 2.5 to 5 m for manually constructed ones and from 3.5 to 8 m for machine-built ones. 
• Terraces should drain runoff along the horizontal gradient of the slope, either in outward or reverse direction.

Photo: Minimum tillage                         Source: ACT

Benefits of Minimum Tillage Practice 

• Improves water penetration in the farm.
• Improves soil fertility. 
• Saves time, energy, and money because less land is tilled.
• Reduces soil degradation caused by wind and water erosion. 
• Reduces soil compaction because the crop plant roots are left undisturbed.

Permanent Soil Cover 

• The farmer can use crop residues to make permanent soil cover on their farms. 
• If a farmer does not have crop residues, they can use cover crops to attain maximum soil cover. 
• The cover crops include cowpeas, velvet beans, soya beans, common beans etc. 

Benefits of Permanent Soil Cover 

• Reduces soil erosion. 
• Helps water go deep into the soil which is good for crop production. 
• Reduces water evaporation and so conserves moisture for the crop. 
• Controls growth of weeds. 
• Improves the soil fertility. 
• Regulates soil temperature.

Benefits of Conservation Agriculture

• Resource saving: Reduced ploughing saves farmers energy, labor and time. 
• Time savings: Time savings allow farmers to plant earlier, perhaps by weeks. 
• Pest and diseases control: Crop rotation helps break crop disease cycles. 
• Reduces crop failure risks: Planting different crops assures a farmer some harvest. 
• Improved soil water management – good soil moisture for crop growth 
• Reduction in labor use.  
• Reduction in the cost of production

Crop Diversification

The farmer will need to grow several crops on his land. This is done through embracing crop rotation or intercropping.

Photo: Permanent soil cover                     Source: ACT

5.Crop Rotation Management Practice

• Plant different crops in a particular order over several seasons/years in the same farm unit.
• The length of rotation time between different plants will depend on the rotated crops, farmer’s economic circumstances and locally adopted farming systems.
• Include a rotation with legumes crops like beans, groundnuts etc.

Photo: Crop rotation                       Source: KALRO Flicker

Benefits of Crop Rotation 

• Improves soil fertility through legume crops.
• Breaks the cycle of dominant pests and diseases. 
• Provides crop residues. 
• Plant two or more crops in the same farm unit same season/year. 
• This is good where land for cultivation is limited due to high human population. 
• For example, one can inter-crop maize with field beans or sorghum with cowpea.

6.Intercropping Management Practice

• Plant two or more crops in the same farm unit same season/year.
• This is good where land for cultivation is limited due to high human population.

For example, one can inter-crop maize with field beans or sorghum with cowpea.

Photo: Crop intercropping                       Source: KALRO Flicker

Benefits of Intercropping 

• Greater yield/increased yield and income. 
• Insurance against crop damage because they have diverse. 
• The plants share soil nutrients e.g., legumes fix nitrogen for the other plants. 
• Helps in weed control, also reduces incidences of insects and disease.

How to Make Fanya Juu Terraces

• Make a of 60 cm wide by 60 cm deep, and the bund 50 cm high by 150 cm across. In arid regions the trenches can be enlarged to 150 cm deep and 100 cm wide. 
• Distance between bunds can be from 5 m on steep slopes to 20 m on gentle slopes.
• One can build stone terrace walls to reinforce the bunds on very steep slopes. This allows surplus water to pass between the stones without damaging the terrace. 
• Excess water can be drained from the trenches using cut-off drains.

Where Suitable

• Fairly gentle slopes (0 - 6%).
• Areas where grass is needed for fodder.
• High rainfall areas.

How to Make Grass Strips

• Spacing between grass strips depends on the slope of the land. It can be 20-30 m on gentle slopes and 10-15m on steep land
• Can be planted along ditches to stabilize them, or on the rises of bench terraces to prevent erosion
•  
• Cut/trim the grass regularly, to prevent shading and spreading to cropped areas.
• Some of the good grass species include Vetiver, Napier, Guinea and Guatemala, but depends on what is locally available.

Source: PRESSA 2009

Source: PRESSA 2009

How to Make Stone Lines 

• Stone lines are 35-40 cm wide and approximately 25 cm high. 
• Construction includes a shallow foundation trench of 5-15 cm made along the natural contour with larger stones on the downslope side of the trench and smaller stones are used to build the rest of the bund. 
• The stone lines can be reinforced with earth, or crop residues. 
• Tone lines are spaced 15 - 30 m apart; spacing may be reduced for slopes greater than 10%.

Source: Duveskog 2003; Awulachew 2009

Photo: Tied ridges                                                             Source: Itabari 2004         

Where Suitable 

• Low annual rainfall areas (less than 700 mm). 
• Gentle slopes (0-6%).
• Deep soils (more than 60 cm). 

How to Make a Tied Ridge

• Construct by hand or using mechanical ridgers. 
• Construct along the contours of the field using “A” frames. 
• Dig out shallow furrows along the contour lines of the slope and make ridges on the downside of the furrows. Tie them together by slightly lower ridges made at regular intervals along the furrows. 
• Ridge spacing depends on the spacing between rows of the crop but the height of the ridges is 30cm high. 
• Maintenance involves reconstruction of any lines and ridges that might have collapsed.

Advantages of Tied Ridges

• Reduction in herbicide use, hence cost.
• Improved weed control.
• Residues for the previous crops between the ridges makes the ridges warm, which helps in crop germination.
• Better soil moisture.
• Soil compaction in the root zone is reduced.
• Ridge tillage leaves large amounts of crop residue on the soil surface which greatly reduces erosion and runoff.

Disadvantages

• Its labor-intensive.
• The relatively low number of plants per acre discourages farmers, especially in a good year.
• Does not work well on steep slopes.

Photo: Crop under mulch                                Source: Tengnas 1994     

Where Suitable

• Drought and weed prone areas.
• Low to medium annual rainfall areas (Mulching is not suitable in wet conditions).
• Soils with good drainage.

How to Mulch your Farm

• Mulch is often spread in strips on seedbeds or around planting holes.
• Large pieces of crop residues should be cut into smaller pieces before application.
• Crop mulches work best if a layer of 2.5 to 10 cm depth is evenly spread.
• Mulch should be placed no closer than 15 cm from the base of a tree.
• Fine mulching material should be spread more shallowly to allow aeration.
• Crop residues, such as maize stalks can be left on the ground after harvesting to act as much.
• The mulch may be covered with a layer of soil to protect it against wind.

Cost

Cost varies depending on the choice of mulch material used.