Knowledge Resource Center for Ecological Environment in Arid Area
| Exploring niches for short-season grain legumes in semi-arid Eastern Kenya | |
| Sennhenn;Anne | |
| 出版年 | 2015 |
| 英文摘要 | Poor agricultural productivity and food security remain challenging problems for the majority of smallholder famers in Sub-Saharan Africa, including semi-arid Eastern Kenya. However, there is a general consensus that there is urgent need to significantly increase food production to meet the growing demand aligned with the continuing population growth. Furthermore, the intensification and stabilization of agricultural productivity of small-scale farming systems in Sub-Saharan Africa holds a key position to contribute to the economic development and reduce poverty. The major driver for declining or stagnating agricultural productivity in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, such as semi-arid Eastern Kenya, is the decline in soil fertility. Food production is not keeping pace with rapid population growth, forcing farmers to change their traditional farming systems characterized by shifting cultivation, fallow and the use of animal manure. Land and labour restrictions, as well as an increased limited resource endowment further impose the mainly smallholder farmers to focus on the production of staples, such as maize in Eastern Kenya. The investment in soil fertility management strategies remains low and the change from traditionally diverse farming systems to cereal-based monocultures has further increased the susceptibility of the fragile production systems, in particular, to impacts of climate change and variability. The predicted increase in temperature as well as inter- and intra-seasonal rainfall variability will additionally challenge the largely rainfed smallholder farming systems to sustain their productivity in the future. The integration of legumes within the farming system has been part of traditional soil fertility management strategies since legumes are able to fix atmospheric nitrogen and yields of cereal crops are generally better if grown in rotation or intercropped with legumes. In particular grain legumes are highly valued components in smallholder farming systems due to their direct contribution to food and nutrition security. Moreover, legumes display a great agro-morphological diversity with great potential for challenging environments. Challenges aligned with climate change, such as increased rainfall variability, and restricted short growing periods, make short-season grain legumes a viable option as their adaption strategy of completing their life cycle before the onset of terminal drought seems to be advantageous for cropping with frequent droughts in semi-arid areas. However, to understand the temporal and spatial resource use and use efficiency of potential short-season grain legumes, especially in respect to light and water, it is of fundamental importance to design strategies for climate smart agriculture in risky environments, including areas of semi-arid Eastern Kenya. Furthermore,quantifying possible magnitudes of yield increase of different grain legumes can be useful in identifying niches in smallholder farming systems to increase overall farm productivity and sustainability. In order to explore the potential of certain crops and cropping strategies in diverse smallholder farming systems, the development and application of crop growth simulation models proved to be an excellent tool. Since African farming systems are highly heterogeneous and dynamic simulation models manage to address the complexity of these systems which is difficult to address through classical agronomic experiments alone. Simulation models are able to capture interactions between climatic conditions, soil type and nutrient dynamics. One of the most applicable models to better understand the complexities of plant growth in response to the environment has been the Agricultural Production System sIMulator (APSIM) framework, which has been successfully used for numerous farming system analyses in semi-arid areas in the past already. Against this background the objectives of this PhD thesis were, first, to compare growth and developmen |
| 英文关键词 | 630 Legumes Eastern Kenya APSIM Risk management Land- und Forstwirtschaft (PPN621302791) |
| 语种 | 英语 |
| URL | http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-1735-0000-0028-874A-0 |
| 资源类型 | 学位论文 |
| 条目标识符 | http://119.78.100.177/qdio/handle/2XILL650/249523 |
| 推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714 | Sennhenn;Anne. Exploring niches for short-season grain legumes in semi-arid Eastern Kenya[D],2015. |
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