Planting date and yield benefits from conservation agriculture practices across Southern Africa

摘要

Managing production risks under high rainfall variability remains a research priority in Southern Africa. In this region, conservation agriculture (CA) has been promoted as useful set of principles that could improve farmers' resilience to climate variability and change. However, matching practices to agro-ecological and farmers' socioeconomic conditions remain contentious. Here we combine empirical data and results from a cropping system model to quantify benefits and trade-offs, in terms of sowing opportunity, yield, and yield variability, from adopting CA practices. We hypothesized that CA practices would require less labour, allow farmers to plant earlier, at times closer to optimum planting times and consequently result in higher maize yields.