ABSTRACT

The paper assessed soil fertility indicators in both short and long fallow regimes in Kafin Madaki area, Bauchi state. A reconnaissance survey was conducted to identify the farmlands that are placed under fallow management systems. A total of 229 questionnaire containing enquiries on total number of farm holdings to a farmer, duration of fallow, crops grown on the farmlands before fallow and land use practices during fallow were randomly administered to the targeted farmers. Surface soil samples were collected from farmland under long and short fallow and a total of six soil fertility indicators such as OM, TN, AP, Ca, Mg, and K were assessed with the use of international guidelines for rating tropical soils. A simple percentage was used to analyze the responses from questionnaire. The results shows that all soil fertility indicators in both short and long fallow field are rated as low while K is rated as very low in soil under one year fallow. The paper concludes that this level of fertility may be attributed to the nature of parent material in the area, high environmental temperature posed by tropicality, and land use practices during fallow. Therefore based on the results and conclusion, there is a need to further investigate the quantitative changes of soil fertility indicators over a specified period of fallow.