Monitoring of an agroforestry system in the northern Sudanian zone of Burkina Faso

Experiment for monitoring the three woody species Pterocarpus erinaceus (Poir.), Gliricidia sepuim (Jacq.) Walp and Faidherbia albida (Del) A. Chev with the aim of addressing the need to renew the plant communities in ageing and regressing agroforestry parks in Burkina Faso.

Gliricidia sepium plant. Photo: YE Fatoumata Mireille.

Pterocarpus erinanceus plant. Photo: YE Fatoumata Mireille.

Faidherbia albida plant. Photo: YE Fatoumata Mireille.

Table 1: Effect of treatments on plant growth.

Figure 1: Survival rates for the three species.

Agroforestry is a technique that enhances biodiversity in agricultural plots while making the most of available land and improving ecological connections between crops and woody plants. This practice is widely known among African populations (Belem et al., 1996; Bationo et al., 2012; Gning et al., 2013). However, agroforestry parks are ageing and regressing (Yaméogo et al., 2019; Takenaka et al., 2021), reducing their potential for improving agricultural production systems. This raises the need to renew the plant communities in agroforestry systems.

The species concerned are Gliricidia sepuim (Jacq.) Walp, Pterocarpus erinaceus (Poir.) and Faidherbia albida (Del) A.Chev, all of the Fabaceae family. The choice of species was guided by their high agroforestry potential.

Gliricidia sepuim
Indeed, Gliricidia sepuim has the capacity to fix nitrogen for the benefit of crops (Partey et al., 2018) and thus contributes to improving yields. It maintains fertility and restores soils. It also reduces weed intensity (Kouadio et al., 2021).

Pterocarpus erinaceus
Finally, the Pterocarpus species is subject to strong anthropic pressure and seems to be disappearing from certain localities in Burkina Faso and Niger (Nacoulma, 2012). As a forage plant, it also contributes to improving soil fertility.

Faidherbia albida
As for the Faidherbia species, in addition to its soil-fertilizing properties, it is reputed to be a fodder species whose leaves and pods are consumed by livestock (CIRAD-Forêt, 1988; Fall-Touré et al. 1997) and it is highly appreciated in agroforestry systems, as the tree is bare in the rainy season, thus preventing light from reaching herbaceous crops (Chevalier, 1934).

Experimental set-up
The experimental set-up is a split plot with the agroforestry species (Gliricidia sepium, Faidherbia albida and Pterocarpus erinaceus) as the first factor, and the seedling management technique (watering, watering and manuring, and control) as the second. A corridor planting of the three species was carried out at spacings of 4 m and 6 m on December 5, 2022 in Gampela (Burkina Faso). Water was added every 7 days, and cow manure was applied once at a rate of 2 kg per plant. The parameters measured each month were the number of living plants, plant height and crown diameter.

Results
After seven months (December to June) of treatment, all three species had a survival rate of over 50%, with G. sepium showing the best survival rate at 96.30% (Figure 1). The average height of Gliricidia plants for the three treatments control (34.58±20.32 cm), water supply (51.86±32.57 cm) and water and manure supply (61.07±34.22 cm) is higher than the average height of Faidherbia and Pterocarpus species. The same species also has the highest mean diameter values. Gliricidia is therefore the fastest-growing species compared with Pterocarpus and Faidherbia, whatever the treatment applied (Table I). Analysis of variance shows that for Faidherbia species, the watering and watering + manure treatments had no significant effect on plant growth; on the other hand, the treatments did have a significant effect on growth in diameter and height for Pterocarpus and Gliricidia plants respectively. Gliricidia appears to be more sensitive to water supply than the other two species. Gliricidia seems to be a species that adapts easily to its environment, making it ideal for domestication.

Written by:

Ye Fatoumata Mireille, PhD student at Université Nazi BONI
Yaméogo T. Jérôme, Institut du Développement Rural/Laboratoire des Systèmes Naturels, Agrosystèmes et de l’Ingénierie de l’Environnement (Sy.N.A.I.E), Université Nazi BONI
Kalifa Coulibaly, Director of research and technology extension at Université Nazi BONI
Bazier Hugues Roméo, Département of Plant Biology and Physiology at University Joseph Ki-Zerbo (University of Ouagadougou)

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University Joseph Ki-Zerbo (University of Ouagadougou) Cited literature

Cited literature

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