CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Sorghum (Sorghum bicolar (L.) Moench) is an important staple food grain among many smallholder farmers of the Nigerian savanna (Ofor et al., 2009). It occupies about 44% of the total land area devoted to cereals in Nigeria (Ajeibe et al., 2010). The land area put into cultivation of sorghum in Nigeria is 6.7 million hectares (FMARD, 2012b).
Decline in yield has been identified as major constraint to sorghum production. Average yield is estimated at 0.6-1.7 tons per hectare against potential yield of 4.0-5.0 tons per hectare of sorghum (FMARD, 2012b). The yield gap is attributed to poor inherent soil fertility and low fertilizer use. (Vanlauwe and Giller, 2006). Smallholder farmers apply little to no fertilizer to their land due to socioeconomic factors including timely access to fertilizer (SSA-CP, 2005). Improper types of fertilizers, ineffective extension system and inappropriate fertilizer recommendation which limit the efficiency of fertilizer use reduce farmer‟s income and increase poverty and food insecurity in the Northern Guinea Savanna of Nigeria (SSA-CP, 2005).
Nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) is important in developing fertilizer recommendations for profitability and environmental sustainability (Kaizzi et al., 2012). Low nitrogen use efficiency in crop production is due to excess application of N. Deficiency of phosphorus (P) and other essential nutrients limit crop growth due to biotic and abiotic factors (Bekuda et al., 2007; Kaizzi et al., 2012). Several attempts to provide fertilizer recommendations tosmallholder farmers often lead to inappropriate fertilizer rates that lower the NUE of crops.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.