Applicability of full inversion tillage to semi-natural grassland restoration on ex-arable land

Abstract

The application of full inversion tillage (FIT) for the creation of semi-natural grasslands on ex-arable land raises the question of its influence on the availability of soil mineral nutrients as increased soil fertility may cause competitive exclusion of the target plant species. This work is an attempt to answer how FIT influences the availability of N, P, K and Mg and associated soil properties and accordingly how to use this method so that elevated nutrients availability during the establishment of seminatural grassland species could be avoided. An experiment was conducted in 2-ha area of abandoned fields in east Poland, on Rendzic, Cambic Leptosol and Mollic Gleysol. The area was divided into 8-m-wide strips, every second of which was subjected to FIT; 19 pairs of permanent plots were regularly allocated across the area, each pair containing a plot located on a cultivated strip and a plot on the neighbouring control strip. The comparison of soil properties within the pairs resulted in no significant differences, except for a lower K status in the FIT plots. Presumably FIT did not change the soil conditions in a way which could affect the intensity of the inter-specific competition in a newly created plant community.

Seed bank dynamics in restored grassland following the sowing of high‐ and low‐diversity seed mixtures

“…This can have implications for success of restoration of target species, which, amongst others, will be affected by the surface‐layer densities of the seeds both of target species and of potentially undesirable nontarget species (Walker et al ). Accordingly, some authors have suggested soil inversion as a means of reducing numbers of seeds of unwanted species, by burying them deeper in the soil profile and thereby preventing them from interfering with the establishment of target species (Glen et al , ; Czerwiński et al ).…”

The effect of tillage management and its interaction with site conditions and plant functional traits on plant species establishment during meadow restoration

“…This indicates that the plants introduced into a tilled area grew under K deficiency during their establishment. Indeed, in our previous study we observed a decrease in the content of mobile K in the surface layer of the soil under the influence of tillage operations (Czerwiński et al, 2015). This decrease should be attributed chiefly to the acceleration of the chemical weathering of the primary minerals in which nearly all of the soil K is bound, and the accompanying leaching of K into the deeper soil layers (Mengel, 2007).…”

“…Nevertheless, the literature cited above supports the hypothesis that in the experimental area, the rate of N mineralization was elevated in the year following soil inversion, but its resources liberated to the soil were rapidly leached from the surface layer and were no longer available for plants during the establishment of the sown species. Chemical analysis did not detect any difference in soil mineral N content between the tilled and non-tilled plots (Czerwiński et al, 2015). The failure to detect significant effects may have been due to the limited number of soil samples, with the many values below detection limits in the analyzed data set, necessitating the use of non-parametric tests which tend to be less sensitive to small differences than parametric tests (Czerwiński et al, 2015).…”

“…Chemical analysis did not detect any difference in soil mineral N content between the tilled and non-tilled plots (Czerwiński et al, 2015). The failure to detect significant effects may have been due to the limited number of soil samples, with the many values below detection limits in the analyzed data set, necessitating the use of non-parametric tests which tend to be less sensitive to small differences than parametric tests (Czerwiński et al, 2015).…”

“…Determination of plant-available forms of P and K was made with the use of the Egner-Riehm DL method. The methodology of soil analysis is described in detail in our previous paper (Czerwiński et al, 2015). As the response metric Ei is derived from the four plots within each block an average value of each of the soil parameters was determined for each of the 19 blocks.…”