Animal Traction for Soil Cultivation, Water Harvesting and Production of Sorghum on Gurdood Soil of North Kordofan State – Sudan

Abstract

Animal traction is very important in rural areas of Sudan mainly for cultivation and crop production. This study was conducted to investigate the effect animal traction for cultivation and as water harvesting techniques in sandy loam “gurdood” soil of North Kordofan State for improving water conservation and production of sorghum. A field experiment was carried out in four different sites, using randomized complete block design and four treatments (animal drawn cultivator, rectangular digs, combination of cultivator and digs and control), replicated three times for two seasons. Data were collected on field performance of animal drawn cultivator, field efficiency (FE), field capacity (FC), draft power and cultivation cost, soil moisture content and soil infiltration rate. The effect of treatments plant height, leaf area index and crops residues and seeds yield was also measured. The results of the two seasons showed high field efficiency (76.25%) and high field capacity (0.19fed/hr) of cultivator. The cultivation operation cost decreased to 31% and 61% compared to hand labor and tractor, respectively. Animal drawn cultivator with digs has significantly increased the soil moisture content in the upper layer. Soil infiltration rate was increased by 59% in the cultivated soil with water harvesting digs compared to the control. The cultivator with digs increased plant height, leaf area index, sorghum grain yield and residues by 29%, 25%, 38% and 39%, respectively, compared to the control. The study concluded that introduction of animal traction and water harvesting techniques on gurdood soil of North Kordofan State can improve soil properties and increased the yield of seeds and residues of crops. The animal traction can alleviate the burden on the rural women, solves scarcity in hand labor and decrease cost of