| dc.description.abstract | Pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan) is an important grain legume grown in the semi arid
areas of the tropics used for food, feed and as cash crop. Food insecurity is a
persistent problem, especially in the marginal regions where the rapidly rising
population cannot be supported by the rain-fed agriculture, especially in highly
variable, erratic and changing climate as well as declining soil fertility. A
sound strategy in the alleviation of these challenges is the expansion of
production of crops that are suited to marginal environments such as
pigeonpea. The broad objectives in this research were to establish the response
of pigeonpea to basal phosphorus fertilizer application. The specific objectives
were to characterize the soil fertility factors at the experimental site, to
determine the variations of soil moisture over the growing season of pigeon pea,
to assess the response of pigeonpea to basal fertilizer application and to test the
suitability of the Agricultural Production System (APSIM) software as a
monitoring and forecasting tool in the pigeonpea production.
Two field rain-fed experiments were conducted between November 2006 and
September 2007 at Kenya Agricultural Research Institute sites at Katumani and
Kampi ya Mawe (in Machakos and Makueni districts respectively). The
experimental design was randomized complete block design laid as split-plot
and replicated four times. The whole plot treatment was fertilizer application
and the sub-plot treatment, five pigeonpea varieties which included one a local
cultivar, Kionza as a local check. At the beginning of the experiment, soils
were sampled for physical and chemical analyses. After every fortnight, crop | en |
