RA 00110.pdf - OAR@ICRISAT

low fertility conditions should be considered as an
integral part of the most probable cropping systems
in which millet will be grown. For the Sahel Zone,
where arid conditions exclude major cultivation of
other crops which respond more to fertilizer, relative
profitability among crops is a less important criterion
for farm-level decision making, and low absolute
response and high risk of loss become the major
obstacles to fertilizer use. At the level of national
policy, efficiency criteria alone would concentrate
fertilizer supplies in the more humid zones, not in the
Sahel. Thus again breeders face the probability of
low fertilizer management systems in which new
millet cultivars will be adopted.
across zones showed that the average grain-yield
increment for local sorghum cultivars was 140 kg
ha -1 and for selected cultivars it was 200 kg ha -1 ,
compared to 40 kg ha -1 for local cultivars and 20 kg
ha -1 for selected cultivars. Because labor time to
prepare fields before planting is an important constraint,
breeders should consider zero plowing management
as an integral part of the cropping systems
into which these cultivars will be adopted. Alternatively,
the response to improved soil tillage for new
millet cultivars must be substantially increased
to levels competitive with other major cereals in
areas where farmers have diversified cropping
systems.
Response to Improved Soil-Water
Management
The preceeding points about fertilizer responsiveness
are also true for millet's relative response, compared
to other crops, to tillage and other improved
soil-water management practices. Experiments conducted
by the ICRISAT Soil-Water Management
Program in 1981 showed that sorghum's grain-yield
response to tied ridges and mulch was approximately
four times greater than that for millet, with
an absolute response difference of more than 1 t ha -1 .
Similarly, four years of ICRISAT farmers' tests
Actual Farm-Level Input Use
Patterns and Yields
Farmers themselves recognize the low management
responsiveness of the available millet cultivars, and
allocate their resources accordingly. ICRISAT survey
results show that in those zones where cropping
options are widest all variable inputs complementary
to land and labor—manure, chemical fertilizer,
animals, and equipment—are used less intensively
on millet than on either sorghum or maize (Table 3).
As a result, average farmer grain yields for millet are
extremely low, approximately 500 kg ha -1 , even dur-
Table 3. Input use and production for major cereals on an average farm in three zones of Burkina Faso, I C R I S A T survey
results, 1981. 1
Manual households
Traction equipped households
Zone
Crop
Manure
(kg ha -1 )
Chemical
fertilizer
(kg ha -1 )
Grain
yield
(kg ha -1 )
Chemical
Manure fertilizer
(kg ha -1 ) (kg ha -1 )
% area
scarified
% area
plowed
Grain
yield
(kg ha -1 )
Sahel
Millet
White sorghum
Maize
200
0
11 960
0
0
0
570
450
400
390
0
1 660
0
0
0
70
0
40
8
0
15
450
300
500
Sudan
savanna
Millet
White sorghum
Red sorghum
Maize
160
170
1 270
5570
9
28
55
53
480
660
1430
1530
660
940
720
4800
2
25
13
67
0
0
0
0
13
29
39
17
870
1210
1520
1240
Northern
Guinea
savanna
Millet
White sorghum
Red sorghum
Maize
0
60
240
11 280
0
2
3
68
420
520
580
1460
0
90
1 110
21 730
0
0
3
22
0
0
22
9
0
14
15
66
430
610
830
1770
1. Data are from the villages of Woure, Kolbila, and Sayero.
240