| Summary: | Information on appropriate short-term management practices that best improves maize yield, physicochemical and biochemical properties of Alfisols in smallholder croplands across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is scarce. Hence, a short-term field study was conducted in southwest Nigeria to assess the impacts of four soil management practices on the physical, chemical and biochemical properties of an alfisol under maize cultivation. The study was conducted in two years following a fallow period of about five years. Soil management practices include slash only (SO), slash and burn (SB), slash and ridge (SR) and herbicide (glyphosate) application (HA) at the field recommended rate of 2 L ha−1. Results showed inconsistent trends of management practices on tested soil physical properties. However, SB significantly (p ≤ 0.05) improved soil chemical properties such as pH, available P, exchangeable K+, Ca2+, and Mg2+ when compared with their initial values after two years of study. Furthermore, SB significantly (P ≤ 0.05) enhanced soil biochemical properties such as urease, L-asparaginase, L-glutaminase, dehydrogenase, acid and alkaline phosphatase activities. In addition, SB significantly increased maize yield and yield components after two years of study. Therefore, findings from our study have shown that SB soil management practice was more beneficial in the short term for soil fertility improvement and maize yield increase across smallholder croplands in southwest Nigeria. Keywords: Soil management practices, Maize cultivation, Enzymes activity, Soil physicochemical properties, Alfisols
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