Enhancing Maize Production in Mali: The Role of Fertilizer Microdosing and Mechanization in Improving Yield, Economic Returns, and Reducing Labor Use
Kamkam Woumou, Adama Coulibaly, Jens B. Aune
preprint DOI: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-5331059/v1 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Field experiment |
|---|---|
| Population | Maize crops in Mali across three locations with varying rainfall |
| Intervention | NPK microdosing |
| Topics | Microdosing |
| Key findings | Microdosing NPK at 63 kg/ha produced yields and economic returns comparable to the recommended 100 kg/ha row application, and manual labor for microdosing was much higher than mechanized operations. |
Abstract
Abstract The objectives of this study were to determine the optimal maize NPK microdosing rate in Mali and compare labor requirements for mechanized versus manual sowing and fertilization across three locations with varying rainfall. The treatments included five microdosing rates, ranging from zero to 93 kg NPK/ha (3 g NPK/hill), and the recommended rate of 100 kg NPK/ha applied by row application. All treatments also received an additional 150 kg urea/ha. Grain yield increased with application rates up to 93 kg/ha, resulting in a 1029 kg/ha (61.3%) increase compared to the control. The 63 kg NPK/ha microdosing rate resulted in a yield and economic return comparable to the application of 100 kg NPK/ha using row placement. The profitability of fertilizer use was evaluated by analyzing scenarios with both unfavorable and favorable ratios between fertilizer costs and grain prices. The 78.1 kg NPK/ha microdosing rate gave the highest average gross margin and VCR across the two price scenarios. The value-cost ratio was above the critical threshold of two in all fertilizer treatments, even under an unfavorable fertilizer-to-grain price ratio. Therefore, the risk associated with fertilizer use in maize is low, even if only non-subsidized fertilizer is available. The labour study showed that the manual application of seeds and microdosing of fertilizer averaged 11.4 man-days/ha, compared to 1.0 man-days/ha for the corresponding mechanized operation. Farmers will, therefore, not be likely to practice microdosing unless the operation is mechanized.
Comparable studies
Other experimental studies on microdosing, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microdosing Clinical Study: Pharmacokinetic, Pharmacogenomic (SLCO2B1), and Interaction (Grapefruit Juice) Profiles of Celiprolol Following the Oral Microdose and Therapeutic Dose Healthy volunteers matched for SLCO2B1 genotype | 2011 | Pharmacokinetic study | n = 30 |
| Microdosing psychedelics has no impact on cognitive function in naturalistic settings Participants during their microdosing regimen | 2023 | Observational within-subjects design | n = 17 |
| PK and PK / PD Modeling of Bcl2 Inhibitor S65487 in Patients With AML and Investigation of Nonlinearity With Microdosing Phase I/II cancer patients and healthy volunteers | 2026 | Pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic modeling study | |
| Technical pen-based printhead for high-precision microdosing of personalized therapies. | 2026 | Experimental study | |
| Analysis of Serotonin in Caenorhabditis Elegans Subjected to Micro-Dosing with Psilocybin| Iris Publishers Caenorhabditis elegans | 2025 | Experimental study |