Bio-physical and socio-economic evaluation of the phosphate rock and rhizobium on groundnuts in Tororo, Uganda

Abstract

The rapid population increase and reliance on traditional methods of agricultural production has threatened food security in Uganda. Growing of annual crop is one possible solution to the threat. However, frequent growing of annuals leads to accelerated leaching and nutrient mining as a result of frequent tillage and crop harvesting. Reinforcement of soil inputs is one sure way of restoring soil fertility, yet most farmers do not use chemical fertilisers due to problems of accessibility and high costs. Moreover the available organic fertilisers Iike cowdung and crop residues are both quantitatively and qualitatively inadequate. In this study therefore, rhizobium and phosphate rock (PR) were used as appropriate low cost soil inputs to boost groundnut production on the Sandy soils of Tororo district, Eastern Uganda. A baseline study revealed that groundnuts is an important income earning crop to farmers and is grown by 86% of the farmers, both as a food and cash crop. On-farm trails in three sub counties (used as replicates) were conducted (involving training farmers on how to apply the inputs at recommended rates and inoculating groundnuts with rhizobia followed by actual experimentation on their farms. The effects of the two inputs were observed from the final yields of the crop. The results showed a marked response (P< 0.05) of groundnut yield to both rhizobia and rock phosphate