Soil conservation in the Sudano-Sahelian zone: What’s the efficiency of woody amendments?

Abstract

In order to develop sustainable soil management practices, this study aims to determine whether fragmented wood and branches of Piliostigma reticulatum (BRF) used as soil amendments improve soil conservation. The experiment was conducted from 2013 to 2019 in the Sudano-Sahelian zone of Burkina Faso, through a design including four randomized Fisher blocks. The treatments consisted of stem and leaves amended plots (3 Mg DM ha^-1) and non-amended plots (controls). After seven years of consecutive annual amendments, BRF amendments improved soil moisture in 0-10 cm layer (+ 22%) and throughout the soil profile up to 100 cm deep. The activity of the macrofauna was significantly affected (+ 215%) by the amendments, which improved the soil structure. This improvement of soil biophysical properties in amended plots improved growth of sorghum (+ 38%) and increased yield (+ 364%) compared to control plots. We concluded that the stem and leaves amendments from agroforestry shrubs are affordable and efficient agroecological practices needing optimization in the framework of sustainable.