Influence of Various Tillage Practices on Soil Physical Properties and Wheat Performance in Different Wheat-based Cropping Systems

Abstract

Excessive tillage in conventional agriculture systems may cause plough pan, which alters soil physical properties, and thus adversely affects the crop growth and productivity. This study was conducted to monitor the effect of different tillage practices in wheat-based cropping systems on soil physical properties, allometry and grain yield of wheat. Wheat was planted in different cropping systems (viz. fallow-wheat, rice-wheat, cotton-wheat, mungbean-wheat and sorghum-wheat with zero tillage, conventional tillage, deep tillage and on two types of beds (60/30 cm with four rows) and (90/45 cm with six rows). Interaction between different tillage practices and cropping systems had significant effect on soil bulk density and total porosity, wheat allometry and grain yield. Minimum bulk density tied with higher total porosity was recorded in both types of bed sowing followed by deep tillage. This improvement in soil physical properties caused improvement in leaf area index and duration, specific leaf area, crop growth, and net assimilation rates. As a result, the productivity of bed sown wheat was better; however, grain yield of zero tilled wheat was low due to poor crop growth and net assimilation rate. Wheat productivity was substantially low when planted after sorghum; nonetheless, and was quite high when sown after mungbean. In crux, wheat planting on beds after mungbean is the best option considering the long-term environmental sustainability of wheat-based cropping systems.

Influence of Priming on Emergence, Weed Infestation, Growth and Yield of Wheat Sown under Different Tillage Practices

“…During initial stages the growth of main root axis of plant is badly affected in zero tilled plots owing to change in soil physical properties (Lampurlanes et al, 2001) which may limit the nutrient and water uptake by plants (Qin et al, 2006). Therefore, in this study, zero tilled wheat observed decrease in crop allometric traits because of these limitations (Shahzad et al, 2016a). However, improvement in allometric traits from osmoprimed seeds was due the emergence of more healthy and vigorous seedlings.…”

“…Regular use of tillage practices to craft fine seedbed for wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) planting leads to the formation of plough pan (Islam et al, 2005;Bertolino et al, 2010) which may affect crop performance due to altered soil physical properties and increasing penetration resistance to developing roots (Shahzad et al, 2016a). Moreover, this plough pan is found to be shallower than usual rooting depth and thus may act as a hurdle for roots either due to lesser porosity or higher root penetration resistance (Bruand et al, 2004;Shahzad et al, 2016a).…”

“…Moreover, this plough pan is found to be shallower than usual rooting depth and thus may act as a hurdle for roots either due to lesser porosity or higher root penetration resistance (Bruand et al, 2004;Shahzad et al, 2016a). However, continuous use of tillage practices may reduce the weeds infestation level (Gajri et al, 1999), but hastens the degradation of soil resource base (World Resources Institute, 2000).…”

“…Puddling rice culture destroys soil structure which makes it compact and hard and develops surface cracks of varying sizes and shapes. This poor condition of soil reduced wheat yield (Shahzad et al, 2016a) by limiting root growth and distribution (Oussible et al, 1992).…”

Influence of soil tillage system on soil compaction and winter wheat yield

“…Küstermann et al (2013) examined the effects of a conventional and reduced treatment with different N rates on wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) yield in a crop rotation with potatoes; they collected data that indicated that conventional tillage (CT) at low and medium N rates produced higher wheat yields than (RT). These significantly higher wheat yields achieved in the CT system compared with RT are reported by Shahzad et al (2016). Moraru and Rusu (2012) examined the influence of CT, RT, and sowing with no-tillage (NT) and suggest that differences in wheat yield with these systems are nonsignificant.…”