## 4 Conclusions  
Daily rainfall events of 9-76 mm generated runoff in both conventional and minimum tillage treatments under the semi-arid conditions of the study sites. Planting basins retained more rainwater (12-19%) and hence reduced runoff generation more (40-51%) than conventional and ripper tillage practices. Runoff generation in tillage treatments varied with soil texture, with conventional and ripper systems having more runoff in loamy sands than under sandy soil. Planting basins reduced runoff generation more in sands than loamy sands sand soil. Conventional and double ploughing treatments recorded more runoff (11-12%) in loamy sands than in sandy soil. Surface water storage and _CN_ results from tillage treatments were consistent with runoff findings, further confirming that conventional and ripper practices made similar contributions toward managing runoff on smallholder farms. Conventional and ripper tillage practices had similar runoff potential, as demonstrated by their _CN_s generated in this study. Curve numbers of 75-76 for conventional and 72-74 for minimum tillage systems are practical under the conditions of light-textured soil and a land slope of <2%, where conventional and minimum tillage practices were implemented. We therefore conclude that the method used to derive _CN_s in this study gave values that are fairly consistent with previous estimates used for southern Africa.  
Figure 10: Curve numbers derived from runoff amounts measured in the four tillage treatments across two seasons. Means with the same letter are not significantly different (5%).  
Figure 9: Surface water retained in different tillage treatments under sandy and loamy sand soils across sites and seasons in Gowanda and Insiza districts, Zimbabwe. Means with the same letter are not significantly different (5%). The crossed blue square in each box plot represents the treatment mean.  
The limitations of the study include lack of rainfall intensity measurements during each storm that generated surface runoff at the different experimental sites. The intensity that raindrops fall on the soil surface can help to explain runoff generation and surface water storage dynamics. Furthermore, infiltration, hydraulic conductivity, and sorptivity measurements could have complemented the results reported in this study. An assessment of pore geometry and the different types of pores present in the top soil will strengthen the results obtained in this study. Therefore, future study could focus on these parameters in order to gain a full understanding of runoff generation and soil water storage in the cropping systems used in this study.  
The following supporting information can be downloaded at: [[https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/app13179623/s1](https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/app13179623/s1)]([https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/app13179623/s1](https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/app13179623/s1)).  
W.M. and L.C.--conceptualization and Development of the first draft. L.C. and C.D.-M.--data analysis. B.N. and I.N.--editing of the full draft of the manuscript. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
This research received no external funding.  
Not applicable.  
Data Availability StatementData are only available upon request to the authors. The code is available upon request to the authors.  
This paper is a contribution to WaterNet Challenge Program Project 17 \"Integrated Water Resource Management for Improved Rural Lvelihoods: Managing risk, mitigating drought and improving water productivity in the water-scarre Limpopo Basin\". The cooperation of farmers and the Department of Agricultural Research and Extension Services in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (Matabeleland South Province) is gratefully acknowledged.  
The authors declare no conflict of interest.