Yield stability of four staple crops of sub-Saharan Africa: analysis of long-term trials
2025
Awio, Thomas | Senthilkumar, Kalimuthu | Ibrahim, Ali | Corbeels, Marc | Saito, Kazuki
Meeting the food demand of the growing population of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) requires improvement of agronomic interventions including cropping systems and management practices that can lead to higher and more stable crop production. We reviewed studies on long-term experiments (LTEs) in SSA to assess yield and yield stability of maize, rice, sorghum, and pearl millet, and identify agronomic interventions having higher and more stable crop productivity. We used 558 observations from 58 LTEs across 13 SSA countries. Across crops, mineral fertiliser application significantly (p ≤ 0.04) increased yield and sustainable yield index (SYI) by 48–185% and 49–257%, respectively. Organic inputs significantly (p ≤ 0.04) increased yield of rainfed rice and maize by 21 and 79%, respectively, and SYI of pearl millet and maize by 133 and 125%, respectively. Green manure application (in-situ) considerably enhanced yield and SYI of maize by 207 and 291%, respectively, compared with no application. Combined application of mineral fertiliser and organic input substantially increased yield and SYI of maize by 23–36 and 31–43%, respectively. Conservation tillage practices and intercropping did not increase yield and yield stability. Across crops, irrespective of the agronomic interventions, SYI increased with higher yields, whereas for coefficient of variation only a significant negative relationship was observed for rice. The results of this study suggest that achieving both high yields and high yield stability are not conflicting goals. However, apart from mineral fertiliser, the impact of other agronomic interventions is crop specific. Given the limited availability of data from the crops other than maize, there is a need to establish a new generation of LTEs focusing on these other crops in diverse environments in SSA.
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