Abstract— To meet our food security demands, Papua New Guinea (PNG) needs to improve smallholder subsistence agriculture by promoting the production of cash crops that mature early and have a high market value. Peanut is a typical example of a cash crop which potentially has a high market value, but pod yields are low due to declinein soil quality. A field experiment was conducted under 4 different land use systems (LUS) to evaluate the effects of continuous peanut cultivation on peanut pod yield and on selected soil properties. Peanut pod yield declined significantly under the continuous peanut and peanut/corn rotation systems; while the poultry manure and land fallow systems significantly increased pod yield. Over the 3 cropping seasons, significant changes in organic carbon; extractable potassium and CEC in all cropping systems occurred, while changes in total N was significant in the peanut/corn rotation and poultry manure cropping systems only. No significant changes in bulk density; field capacity; electrical conductivity; soil pH and available phosphorus were observed in all the 4 LUS over the 3 cropping seasons. We suggest that adequate fallow periods of more than 1 year and poultry manures are applied to enhance soil quality and improve peanut productivity and/or sustain peanut production in marginal lands under continuous cultivation.
Keywords— Continuous cultivation, land use systems, peanut pod yield, soil properties.
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