**3. Land rotation or shifting cultivation**

ade has been ranked first among the constraints collated from all the districts of northern

The low soil fertility in this part of the country is therefore blamed on the bush fires which usually occur annually during the dry season commencing from October to April the following year (SARI, 1995). This situation renders the soil bare exposing it to both wind and water erosion in the dry and rainy seasons respectively thereby depleting the macro-nutrients such as Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium (NPK) and organic matter

Initially, farmers used to replenish the soil with its nutrients by practicing shifting cultiva‐ tion or land rotation. However, with the increase in population which has put pressure on land use, this practice is not being sustained and this therefore calls for other measures to

The purpose of this chapter is therefore to expose to Agricultural science teachers/trainers,

**•** to the available soil fertility enhancing practices applicable in the Savanna zone of North‐

**•** To discuss and recommend for adoption the most proven practices involving organic and in-organic materials either by applying each individually or the combination of both in

Materials used were the various works done in the area of soil fertility management in the Savanna regions within the sub-Saharan Africa. These are published books, journal papers, annual reports and technical reports. It also included works done by the author, students dissertation supervised by the author and personal experiences gathered. Suc‐ cess stories from other interventions by the Government and Non-governmental Organi‐ zations implemented in the form of projects to raise soil fertility status in the zone were also considered. All were reviewed, discussed and conclusions drawn from the results of

The various interventions being practiced within the Sub-region to enhance or maintain the soil fertility status include the manipulating of the crops planted (cropping systems) in the area. Others are land rotation, conservation agriculture and the application of different types of soil fertility enhancing materials and the integration of some or all of these as a sin‐ gle treatment. The difficulties associated with adoption of these practices will also be out‐

the management of soil fertility for crop production in the Savanna zone of Ghana.

maintain soil fertility for sustainable crop production in the savanna zone of Ghana.

Ghana at the various regional planning sessions.

from the soil.

4 Soil Fertility

scientists and farmers:

**2. Materials and methods**

these various practices.

lined. Some of these are:

ern Ghana.

It is a crop production system based on rotation of cultivated period on a given piece of land. The cultivated period is always shorter than the fallow period because the system is characterized by the use of very little or no external soil fertility improving inputs. The soil fertility is therefore recovered by a natural process which is often very slow. The length of fallow period is determined by land availability but can last between 10 and 20 years after which the vegetation is cut back to allow another cycle of farming activities(EPA, 2011). This is no longer practiced because of the scarcity of arable land as a result of high growth in population of the country.
