January 10, 2024

Revolutionizing Rainfed Agriculture in the West African Sahel with the Optimized Shrub System (OSS)

The leadership of the Agro-Shrub Alliance (ASA), Ibrahima Diedhiou (Vice President and Research Director), Richard Dick (President) and Amanda Davey (CEO) recently visited the Agro-Shrub Farm Network farmers piloting the Optimized Shrub System (OSS) in the Peanut Basin of Senegal. It provided an opportunity to engage with these farmers to learn of their experience in  implementing OSS and deepening the network partnerships as the initiative gears up to scale OSS with 10,000 farmers. The ripple effects of this nature-based system are poised to revolutionize rainfed crop cultivation in the West African Sahel, boosting food security, climate resilience, and regenerating the landscape for future generations.

The OSS is a nature-based system that utilizes the readily available indigenous shrubs, Gueira senegalensis and Pilostigam reticulatum. The system works by dramatically increasing the natural shrub density in farmers’ fields from current levels (<200-35 shrub/ha) to ~1500 shrubs/ha and annual incorporation of the pruned shrub residue into the soil. Although farmers recognize the value of shrubs, they typically prune them to the soil surface in the spring to clear fields and unfortunately burn the residue, depriving soils of much-needed organic inputs. In over 20 years of research on long-term research plots and farmers’ fields in Senegal (including more than 35 peer-reviewed articles) the Optimized Shrub System (OSS) has demonstrated a cascade of benefits including significantly improved soil quality, increased microbial diversity, improved water and nutrient status of crops, increased beneficial microorganisms, reduced time to harvest by about 15 days, and dramatically increased yields – up to three-fold.

The Power of Bio-Irrigation
One of the remarkable research findings is the  OSS "bio-irrigation" effect, where shrubs aid crops through hydraulic lift. This, combined with improved soil quality, alleviates crop water stress during in-season droughts. In the semi-arid Sahel, where access to expensive fertilizer is limited and soils are fragile, OSS is a nature-based solution that addresses the ecological and food security challenges of the region.

The Birth of Agro-Shrub AllianceRooted in the success of OSS, the Agro-Shrub Alliance and its associated Agro-Shrub Farm Network were conceived as a platform to scale OSS across the West African Sahel. Operating in regions where Gueira senegalensis and Pilostigam reticulatum coexist with crops, the network, consisting of 60 smallholder farmers, has been piloting OSS since 2019. The insights gained from farmer-led management have been instrumental in refining and expanding the initiative.

Voices from the Field
Farmer Sette Thiam from the Agro-Shrub Farm Network told the Agro-Shrub Alliance team that, “OSS crops taste different, even with peanuts. I save the OSS-grown crops for my family, and we sell the non-OSS crops at the market.” Thiam, who used to burn all shrubs in his fields, now refrains from burning on any of his plots, showcasing a shift towards sustainable agricultural practices.

Addressing the labor-intensive process of chopping shrubs, the ASA team, in collaboration with partners at École Nationale Supérieure d’Agriculture and Institut Sénégalais de Recherches Agricoles, has developed a dual-purpose shrub shredder. This innovative technology efficiently shreds shrub residue into mulch and can also chop millet stalks for animal fodder. The dual-purpose, labor-saving shredder not only streamlines agricultural processes but also holds the potential for “agri-preneurs” to develop shrub and fodder shredding businesses.

 The journey to the Agro-Shrub Farm Network in Senegal invigorated our commitment to the smallholder farmers of the region. With the Optimized Shrub System innovation, the Agro-Shrub Alliance is not just cultivating crops; it's sowing the seeds of prosperity, climate resilience, and ecological balance in the region. As the network expands its reach, the ripple effects of this OSS are set to redefine the landscape of agriculture, one shrub at a time.

This work is supported by USAID Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Peanut and the
Conservation, Food, and Health Foundation

From the left: Amanda Davey, ASA CEO, Sette Thiam, Agro-Shrub Farm Network farmer, Richard Dick, ASA President and Khardiatou Sadio, agronomy student; Middle photo: Khardiatou Sadio, Birame Bessane, Agro-Shrub Farm Network farmer, Richard Dick, ASA President; Far right: Ibrahima Diedhiou, ASA Vice President and Research Director

October 25, 2021

Inaugural Optimized Shrub System Field Day to Promote Improved Yields and Soil Quality in Senegal

A group of farmers, researchers, students, extension specialists, and NGOs gathered on October 7th for the inaugural Field Day of the Optimized Shrub System (OSS), an innovative management system developed for rainfed crops in the West African Sahel.

The OSS Field Day was held at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Agriculture in Thiès (ENSA), Senegal as part of the Ohio-State led, USAID-funded project titled, “Optimized Shrub System (OSS): An innovation for landscape regeneration and improved resilience for the peanut-basin of Senegal.”

The OSS works by increasing the natural density of two native shrubs (Gueira senegalensis and Piliostigma reticulatum) in farmers’ fields from ~250/ha up to ~1,500/ha and annual incorporation of shrub biomass into the soil instead of the current practice of coppicing the shrubs to the soil surface and burning the residue, depriving soils of much needed organic inputs. Over the span of nearly two decades of research in Senegal, SENR Soil Science Professor and Global Water Institute (GWI) Faculty Advisory Board member Dr. Richard Dick led the development of OSS in collaboration with U.S., Senegalese, and French scientists. GWI Program Manager, Amanda Davey, joined the OSS work in 2011.

“This Field Day was an important opportunity for us to learn from farmers so we can incorporate their experience before our next steps to scale the OSS system across the Sahel,” said Dr. Richard Dick, Project Director

After a welcome breakfast, the participants were transported by bus to the long-term OSS research plots in the village of Keur Matar. Lead Senegalese researcher and Director of ENSA, Professor Ibrahima Diehdhiou, presented the results of over 20 years’ of research which has shown that OSS dramatically increases soil quality, carbon sequestration (off setting climate change), microbial diversity and activity, nutrient and water availability, and most importantly increased yields – up to three-fold (32+ peer reviewed articles). A truly remarkable finding is that these shrubs “bio-irrigate” crops via hydraulic lift at night; combined with improved soil quality and that OSS reduces time to harvest by about 15 days, OSS greatly buffers crops against in-season drought.

Dr. Sidy Diakhaté, who conducted his doctoral thesis on the effect of shrubs on nematodes, explained that the presence of shrubs such as Piliostogma reticulatummakes it possible to reduce by more than 30% parasitic nematodes that attack the roots of millet and reduce yield. At the same time, the shrubs help increase the beneficial nematodes that contribute to the availability of nitrogen in the soil. Following, Co-PI Dr. Moussa Diangar, researcher at the Senegalese Institute for Agricultural Research (ISRA), presented his findings that cowpea crops grow more robustly under the OSS system rather than the traditional system.

Through the project’s socio-economic research, the team has learned that a barrier to OSS adoption is that farmers do not know how to propagate new shrubs. To that end, Mr. Moussa Dione gave a demonstration on shrub propagation, showing the simple layering technique used to make more shrubs. Another potential barrier is the labor needed to prune and cut the leaves and stems before incorporating them into the soil. Eng. Pape Diop of ISRA demonstrated a shrub shredder machine he designed to address the labor constraint. Eng. Diop’s machine is dual purpose, acting as both a shrub shredder and a chopper to turn crop residue into animal fodder.

The day was not without its adventures, including a brief delay when the bus became stuck. After a short struggle to pull the bus out of the sand, the group headed back to ENSA for a traditional Senegalese meal and tea before heading to the afternoon OSS symposium where PhD student Mariama Dione presented the results of the bio-physical data from 30 farmers piloting OSS, Co-Pi Dr. Katim Toure presented the socio-economic findings from the current pilot study. In addition, participating farmers gave their feedback from implementing OSS over the past three seasons. The day ended with an engaging discussion where there was shared excitement over the next steps for the OSS innovation.

The Secretary General of the largest farmer cooperative organization in Senegal, Federation of NGOs in Senegal (FONGS) congratulated the team on their results and said that he would, “like to establish a partnership between the OSS team and the farmer organizations he represents to advocate for funding to implement scaling of the OSS innovation,” Abdou Hadji Badji, SG FONGS.

“The field day was a great success, evidenced by the engaged discussions and questions in the field and afternoon session – reinforcing stakeholder support and guidance for developing a scaling platform for collaborative OSS implementation with smallholder farmers in Senegal and beyond,” said Dr. Richard Dick.

July 19, 2021

NATIVE SHRUBS – A LOCAL SOLUTION FOR THE CONSTRAINTS OF THE WEST AFRICAN SAHEL

The mechanisms behind the dramatic yield response seen when native shrubs are intercropped with millet and groundnut are reported in a recently published paper in the journal Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment. The research was done at the long-term Optimized Shrub System (OSS) Experiment that has been running since 2004 in Thies, Senegal. The experiment compares the optimized G. senegalensis intercropping system (~1500 shrubs ha-1 with coppiced residue incorporated into soils) to sole-cropping (no shrubs) under four fertilizer treatments (0 to 1.5 times the recommended NPK rate).  Various soil properties and agronomic performance of pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) and groundnut (Arachis hypogaea) have been measured in both the plus shrub and minus shrub plots.

Contrary to conventional perspectives, G. senegalensis does non-compete with the millet crop for nutrients and water. An important finding, that in part explains this, comes from the observation that coppicing (cutting the shrub to the soil surface) causes the shrub to suppress fine root growth during the first two months of crop growth, thus allowing crop roots to explore the surface soil for nutrients and water with minimal competition from shrub roots. 

The G. senegalensis intercropping system significantly increased crop yields, notably for millet where yields, averaged across fertilizer treatments, increased 126%. Importantly this system, over sole-cropping, maintained yields in low rainfall years which coincided with this system having significantly greater water use efficiency for both millet and groundnut. These responses were related to improved soil quality (increased particulate and total organic matter, and extractable nutrients).  

Another important finding was that this system keeps surface soil temperatures below the critical 35 ℃, plant-physiological threshold during crop establishment which greatly improves crop emergence and early season growth.  

This optimized shrub-intercropping system with its ability to produce abundant biomass (unpalatable to livestock) and unique ecological adaptation to coppicing, provides a logical approach for increasing food security and climate change mitigation and adaptation. It is a local resource that subsistence farmers can directly utilize without the need for costly external inputs.

The top left is millet grown without shrubs and the top right is the neighboring millet grown with shrubs. The two photos were taken on the same day. The bottom left is soil from no shrub plots while the bottom right is organic matter rich soil from the plus shrubs plot.

Ohio State News 
November 2, 2018

NEW STUDY FINDS DROUGHT-RESISTANT NATIVE PLANT CAN IRRIGATE FOOD CROPS

Nate Bogie, PhD student from UC Merced; Richard Dick of Ohio State and Matthew Bright, PhD student from Ohio State

By Misti Crane, Ohio State News crane.11@osu.edu

Growing these shrubs side-by-side with the food crop millet increased millet production by more than 900 percent, according to a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science.The trick to boosting crops in drought-prone, food-insecure areas of West Africa could be a ubiquitous native shrub that persists in the toughest of growing conditions.

A couple of decades have passed since Richard Dick, a soil scientist now at Ohio State, was traveling through rural Senegal in West Africa and noticed low-lying shrubs that seemed to be doing fine despite arid conditions that had wiped out most other vegetation in farmers’ fields.

“I said, ‘Wow, there’s some biomass! What’s that?’” he said, referring to his team’s initial interest in finding organic matter to improve soil in the area. Since then, Dick and long-term lead collaborator Ibrahima Diedhiou of Senegal have discovered many ways in which the shrubs benefit soil and crops.

But the most profound discovery came recently, Dick said.

A newly published study shows that those same shrubs – when planted adjacent to millet – can share the precious water they draw in and boost production of one of the primary grains that provide nutrition to West Africans.

“People in this part of Africa rely on locally grown crops to survive. Finding ways to increase food production, especially during times of severe drought, is critical,” said Dick, a professor of soil microbial ecology at Ohio State.

“As things stand now, the population is continuing to climb, there’s no more land and yields are staying flat.”

The new study has found that certain woody shrubs – notably one called Guiera, after the Latin name Guiera senegalensis – can effectively share their water with millet plants below the surface of the soil. Millet, a grain crop, along with sorghum, is an essential food source in Senegal.

Farmers there and in other parts of the African region called the Sahel have been allowing these shrubs to grow alongside crops to varying degrees – likely for thousands of years, Dick said.

Some cut them back or rip them out and burn them and they’ve been largely unrecognized as a resource for crops, he said.

"People in this part of Africa rely on locally grown crops to survive. Finding ways to increase food production, especially during times of severe drought, is critical" Richard Dick

Dick and his research team have developed an innovative crop management system that they call the “optimized shrub system” that takes advantage of these readily available shrubs. Their approach involves the dramatic increase of shrub density in farmers’ fields from fewer than 300 shrubs per hectare (about 2.5 acres) to 1,500 shrubs on that same plot of land. Their system also includes fertilizing the ground with the shrub leaves and stems rather than burning this organic matter.

Along with a dramatic increase in yields, this system improves soil quality, boosts nutrients in the crops and reduces the time to harvest by about 15 days, which is important in an area plagued by low rainfall, Dick said.

The newly published research details one of the ways in which the plants benefit their neighbors.

The shrubs’ roots grow deep into the soil, searching for moisture 30 to 40 feet beneath the ground surface. That obviously better equips the shrubs themselves to survive tough, dry conditions.

But how do they share the liquid wealth? Dick and his collaborators created an experiment in which they were able to track water that moved from deep tap roots into adjacent pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum.)

They found that, at night – when the shrubs weren’t busy with sunlight-dependent photosynthesis – the water drawn from deep underground leaks out through surface roots into the surrounding soil rather than exiting through the leaves.

The stomata – the “pores” on the leaves of a plant – close in the dark, when photosynthesis stops, Dick explained.

And that meant the millet plants’ roots near the surface are able to take up water delivered to the surface by the shrubs.

The researchers confirmed this by tracking water from its initial entry into the shrubs’ roots to its eventual presence in the millet leaves during a scientifically imposed drought experiment that included a comparison shrub-free field.

“We proved that ‘bioirrigation’ by these shrubs is happening and it’s the first time this has been shown for crop production,” Dick said. “This is a native plant and it’s free and easy to grow – everything about this is positive.”

Now the team still wants to run pilot tests of their growing system with farmers throughout the Sahel and make any adjustments needed to foster more widespread adoption of the practice.

Finding natural, easy-to-employ solutions to feed a growing population has great potential in West Africa, Dick said. In other areas of the world, including Southeast Asia and South America, farmers have adapted to population growth by extensive use of fertilizer and pesticides. But in Senegal and neighboring countries, agriculture is dependent on what nature provides – growers do not typically use fertilizer or pesticides, and do not have the resources to irrigate dry crops.

“This is a semi-arid region, where it rains only part of the year. Some years, there are major droughts and people go hungry,” Dick said, adding that between 60 and 90 percent of the Senegalese live in small, agricultural villages.

“The ultimate solution is going to be whatever is locally available, and finding these answers and working with the local farmers to consider potential agricultural techniques is paramount,” Dick said.

The National Science Foundation supported this research.

Dick worked with scientists from Senegal, France, and the University of California, Merced and Riverside.