Variable grain legume yields, responses to phosphorus and rotational effects on maize across soil fertility gradients on African smallholder farms

Promiscuous soyabean varieties have potential to contribute significantly to income generation, food security and soil N budgets on smallholder farms. One of the major factors limiting this potential is farmers¿ preference to allocate nutrient resources to food security cereal crops on the most fertile fields, leaving grain legumes to grow on residual fertility on infertile fields. Two experiments were conducted to: (i) compare the current farmer practice with targeting manure and single super phosphate (SSP) to soyabean in a three-year rotation cycle on two fields with different soil fertility: an infertile sandy soil and a more fertile clay soil; and (ii) assess the effects of variability of soil fertility within and across farms on productivity of soyabean and groundnut. In the first experiment, soyabean (