Potential for cereal-based double cropping in Bale Region of Southeastern Ethiopia

Abstract

A double cropping trial was conducted under bimodal rainfall conditions for two years at the Sinana Research Centre in southeastern Ethiopia. Compared to the traditional farmers’ practice of fallowing land during one of the two annual cropping seasons, double cropping increased total farm grain output and net income. The best crop combination, both in agronomic and economic terms, consisted of field pea (Pisum arvense L.) grown during the first rainy season followed by bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) in the second season. Double cropping cereals in both seasons appeared to be the least desirable combination, although this system still outperformed the traditional fallow practice during the two years of this study. Double cropping in Sinana “woreda” district could minimize several negative aspects of the fallow systems: (1) soil erosion could be reduced by maintaining a crop vegetative cover in both cropping season; (2) the rate of expansion of cultivation onto pasture land could be reduced by intensifying production on the currently cropped areas; (3) weed control could be facilitated by rotating non-cereal crops with the second season wheat crop; and (4) human and ox labour could be utilized more efficiently in a double cropping system than in a fallow-wheat system.