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Conservation practices can be of great importance in semi-arid regions for obtaining high crop yields and income, but adoption of the conservation practices, economic efficiencies and benefits remain unknown by most smallholders. The paper presents an overview of the adoption of conservation agriculture (CA), conservation farming (CF) and conventional tillage (ConvT), their technical efficiency and economic benefits. The study was carried out in Wards 4 and 17, Chimanimani District, Zimbabwe using a cross-sectional survey of 179 farmers involving participatory was used. A Stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) was used to determine relative technical efficiencies between CA, CF and ConvT farmers. Maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) technique was used to estimate Cobb-Douglas frontier production function. Gross margin (GM) analysis was employed to determine economic benefits by farmer category. Results showed that adoption was 59% for CF 20% for CA techniques and 69% for ConvT. SFA in R revealed that CF, CA and ConvT farmers were 87, 81 and and 64% technically efficient respectively. GM analysis showed that CF had the highest GM/ha of $99.88 and 196.20 with and without family labor cost respectively. This was followed by CA with GM/ha of $63.82 and 158.60.ConvT farmers had the least GM of -$25.16 and 65.20 with and without family labor cost. Most communal farmers considered ConvT to be a traditional practice; this could have been responsible for high adoption of the practice. Farmers showed a negative attitude towards CA despite the high labor requirements for CF. It is recommended that, of all the three practices in semi-arid regions, farmers use CF practice as it gives highest technical efficiency and GM.

In eastern semi-arid Zimbabwe, planting basins are mostly used to boost maize yields, but still low yields are often obtained due to poor choices of varieties to grow . A comparative study of growth and yield of the only two locally and commonly grown Pioneer cultivars (P2859W and PHB3253) under planting basin technique (PBT) was carried out to determine a more adaptable cultivar in Guhune, eastern Zimbabwe (NR IV). The study was done in 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 growing seasons. An experiment was laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD), with the two cultivars, each replicated four times. Yield, leaf length and plant height were measured and averaged. Results showed that PHB3253 had growth of 75.2 cm after measuring at 2 weeks interval for 10 weeks. Its growth was significantly (p<0.05) higher in terms of plant height than P2859W. Leaf length of P2859W was not significantly (p>0.05) greater than PHB3253. Grain yield of PHB3253 (35.1 kg) was significantly (p<0.05) greater than that of P2859W (26.6 kg). PHB 3253 is therefore more adaptable to semi-arid conditions under basin technique as signified by its higher growth and yield than P2859W. It is therefore recommended that farmers who use planting basins in semi-arid areas for growing short season maize cultivars (P2859W and PHB3253) should opt for PHB3253 for better productivity.