Determining Soil Hydraulic Properties Using Infiltrometer Techniques: An Assessment of Temporal Variability in a Long-Term Experiment under Minimum- and No-Tillage Soil Management

Castellini, Mirko; Vonella, Alessandro Vittorio; Ventrella, Domenico; Rinaldi, Michele; Baiamonte, Giorgio

doi:10.3390/su12125019

Cited by 13 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 50 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In this regard, it is worth noting that while the expected positive relationship between compost rate and TOC or AC returns an increasing sequence of treatments (i.e., T1 < T2 < T3 < T4), a different positioning around the regression line is obtained when the effects on conductive features are considered (Figures 7 and 8, respectively), probably due to a negligible effect of the fertilizer dose (T2). The rationale used to interpret our findings, successfully applied in other investigations both in natural [33,40] and agricultural [41] environments, however, was not applicable when the full dataset (initial + ending soil sampling) or when only initial soil condition (initial soil sampling) was considered (Table 4). This result seems obvious enough and may be attributed to the lack of soil structure after box setup.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Short- and Medium-Term Effects of On-Farm Compost Addition on the Physical and Hydraulic Properties of a Clay Soil

et al. 2022

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Compost amendment is a widespread agronomic practice, but little information is available about the short- and medium-term effects on clay soils. In this investigation, we selected three soil compost rates (treatments, T), i.e., fertilizer (T2 = 1.5 kg m−2), amending (T3 = 15 kg m−2), and organic (T4 = 75 kg m−2), that were compared to a control (T1). Our research accounts for the effects reached on representative large boxes (about 0.75 m3), without crops and for about eighteen months. An overall assessment of the physical and hydraulic properties of the soil was made, including infiltration rate or saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks), water content and water retention (θ) of the soil, bulk density and structure, and several physical quality indicators obtained from the water retention curve, accounting for the optimal balance between water/air into the soil, pore volume distribution function, and soil features in the inflection point of the soil water retention curve. Additionally, the temporal changes of Ks were evaluated. The main results showed that (i) after eighteen months, and regardless of T, θ significantly improved by a factor of 1.2–1.3, but these improvements (up to 1%) were detected only close to water saturation (i.e., until 6 cm of soil pressure head) when little (T2) or no compost (T1) addition was considered, while a larger range was detected (until 60 cm) when higher rates (T3–T4) were used; (ii) Ks determination allowed to establish that compost effects vanished after about eleven months, but it was not possible to verify that composting increased the permeability of the investigated clay soil within that time frame; (iii) some significant correlations between Ks and some soil physical indicators estimated from both the inflection point of the water retention curve or bulk density suggested possible improvements in soil permeability. Because some factors (water content of the soil above all) could have affected the comparison of Ks measurements, further research on this topic is needed.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Short- and Medium-Term Effects of On-Farm Compost Addition on the Physical and Hydraulic Properties of a Clay Soil

et al. 2022

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Intensive agricultural activity and not sustainable management practices may give rise to soil degradation processes with a consequent decline of crop yield and soil quality [4,7], and an associated reduction in ecosystem functions and services [8,9]. Among land-use and soil management practices, tillage strongly affects soil physical quality since it directly modifies soil aggregation and structural stability [10], soil porosity [11,12] and hydrological properties [13] and thus the soil ability to store and transmit water and air [14,15]. In addition, tillage management plays a key role in soil organic matter turnover, microbial abundance and diversity, carbon storage and thus CO 2 emissions [16,17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of Soil Quality under Different Soil Management Strategies: Combined Use of Statistical Approaches to Select the Most Informative Soil Physico-Chemical Indicators

Castellini

Diacono

Rossi³

et al. 2021

Applied Sciences

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Assessment of soil quality under different management practices is crucial for sustainable agricultural production and natural resource use. In this study, different statistical methods (principal component analysis, PCA; stepwise discriminant analysis, SDA; partial least squares regression with VIP statistics, PLSR) were applied to identify the variables that most discriminated soil status under minimum tillage and no-tillage. Data collected in 2015 from a long-term field experiment on durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) were used and twenty soil indicators (chemical, physical and biological) were quantified for the upper soil layer (0–0.20 m). The long-term iteration of different management strategies affected soil quality, showing greater bulk density, relative field capacity (RFC), organic and extractable carbon contents (TOC and TEC) and exchangeable potassium under no-tillage. PCA and SDA confirmed these results and underlined also the role of available phosphorous and organic carbon fractions as variables that most discriminated the treatments investigated. PLSR, including information on plant response (grain yield and protein content), selected, as the most important variables, plant nutrients, soil physical quality indicators, pH and exchangeable cations. The research showed the effectiveness of combining variable selection methods to summarize information deriving from multivariate datasets and improving the understanding of the system investigated. The statistical approaches compared provided different results in terms of variables selected and the ranking of the selected variables. The combined use of the three methods allowed the selection of a smaller number of variables (TOC, TEC, Olsen P, water extractable nitrogen, RFC, macroporosity, air capacity), which were able to provide a clear discrimination between the treatments compared, as shown by the PCA carried out on the reduced dataset. The presence of a response variable in PLSR considerably drove the feature selection process.

show abstract

“…Usually, high BD and PR values are linked to lower soil porosity, so lower Ks values were expected relative to those observed. However, contrasting results on the effects of reduced tillage on Ks also appear in the literature (Blanco-Canqui and Ruis, 2020;Castellini et al, 2020;Strudley et al, 2008). Indeed, some studies (e.g., Lipiec et al, 2006;Pagliai et al, 2004) have found how the presence of biopores from root decomposition and earthworm activity might alleviate soil compaction by promoting preferential flow through macropores, while other studies (e.g., Kahlon et al, 2013;Vogeler et al, 2009) have suggested that the loss of macroporosity under no-tillage may not sustain water infiltration.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transition to conservation agriculture: how tillage intensity and covering affect soil physical parameters

Sartori¹,

Piccoli²,

Polese³

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Conservation agriculture (CA) relies on two key practices to improve agricultural sustainability—reduced tillage and cover crop usage. Despite known soil physics benefits (reduced soil compaction and strength, enhanced soil porosity and permeability), inconsistent reports on short-term CA results have limited its adoption in European agroecosystems. To elucidate the short-term effects, a three-year experiment in the low-lying Venetian plain (Northern Italy) was undertaken. Bulk density, penetration resistance, and soil hydraulic measures were used to evaluate results obtained by combining three tillage intensities (conventional tillage (CT), minimum tillage (MT), no tillage (NT)) with three winter soil coverages (bare soil (BS), tillage radish cover crop (TR), winter wheat cover crop (WW)). Among the tillage methods and soil layers, CT, on average, reduced BD (1.42 g cm−3) and PR (1.64 MPa) better in the 0–30 cm tilled layer. Other treatments yielded higher values (+4 % BD and +3.1 % PR) in the same layer. Across the soil profile, reduced tillage coupled with WW improved soil physics even below the tilled layer, as evidenced by root growth-limiting threshold declines (−11 % in BD values > 1.55 g cm−3 and −7 % in PR values > 2.5 MPa). Soil hydraulic measures confirmed this positive behaviour; NT combined with either BS or WW produced a soil saturated conductivity of 2.12 × 10−4 m s−1 (four-fold that of all other treatments). Likewise, sorptivity increased in NT combined with BS versus other treatments (3.64 × 10−4 m s−1 vs an all-treatment average of 7.98 × 10−5 m s−1). Our results suggest that despite some measure declines due to reduced tillage, the strategy enhances soil physics. In the short term, cover crop WW moderately increased physical soil parameters, whereas TR had negligible effects. This study demonstrates that CA effects require monitoring several soil physical parameters.

show abstract

Determining Soil Hydraulic Properties Using Infiltrometer Techniques: An Assessment of Temporal Variability in a Long-Term Experiment under Minimum- and No-Tillage Soil Management

Cited by 13 publications

References 50 publications

Short- and Medium-Term Effects of On-Farm Compost Addition on the Physical and Hydraulic Properties of a Clay Soil

Short- and Medium-Term Effects of On-Farm Compost Addition on the Physical and Hydraulic Properties of a Clay Soil

Assessment of Soil Quality under Different Soil Management Strategies: Combined Use of Statistical Approaches to Select the Most Informative Soil Physico-Chemical Indicators

Transition to conservation agriculture: how tillage intensity and covering affect soil physical parameters

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About