Agronomic Techniques for Moisture Conservation under Semi-Arid Tropics

Maize has the highest production potential among the cultivated field crops and is known as ¿Queen of cereals¿. It is the most important cereal grain due to high potential of grain yield and fodder for livestock; source of industries and local consumers. Arid and semi-arid areas define as prolonged dryness, greatly affected by the unreliable rainfall regime. Possible means of mitigating the adverse effects of drought on food insecurity is on-farm rainwater harvesting. The recommended method to increasing grain yields in rainfed farming systems of dry spell areas is moisture stress caused by inefficient use of rainwater as a consequence of poor rainfall resulting in low soil moisture and of poor plant uptake. To overcome these problems a field experiment was conducted in split plot design with three replications, three treatments such as moisture conservation method as a main plot. Varieties as sub plots and Plant spacing as sub-sub plots were tested in this experimental study.