ABSTRACT
Important to future crop nutrition management in semiarid areas, likely with more intense rainfall events and longer periods of soil water deficits, will be the conditioning of soils and fields for greater resilience accompanied by reduced soil erosion and runoff. The intercropping and rotation options may be more appropriate for more humid areas, while parkland agriculture is more common in semiarid areas. Crop growth near shrubs is also commonly better than further from the shrub in some semiarid areas. Inclusion of well-managed perennial grass ley in rotation with periods of annual crop production has great potential for semiarid areas. Using experiential learning with farmers, field experimentation, and improved simulation models, functionally significant variables will need to be determined and applied for “leapfrogging” efficient targeting and optimization of the integration of water conservation, soil improvement, and fertilizer use integration for resource-constrained farmers in diverse semiarid areas.
