Search results for "No tillage"
showing 10 items of 16 documents
Long-term effects of contrasting tillage on soil organic carbon, nitrous oxide and ammonia emissions in a Mediterranean Vertisol under different crop…
2018
This 2-year study aimed to verify whether the continuous application of no tillage (NT) for over 20 years, in comparison with conventional tillage (CT), affects nitrous oxide (NO) and ammonia (NH) emissions from a Vertisol and, if so, whether such an effect varies with crop sequence (continuous wheat, WW and wheat after faba bean, FW). To shed light on the mechanisms involved in determining N-gas emissions, soil bulk density, water filled pore space (WFPS), some carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) pools, denitrifying enzyme activity (DEA), and nitrous oxide reductase gene abundance (nosZ gene) were also assessed at 0–15 and 15–30 cm soil depth. Tillage system had no significant effect on total NH e…
Faba bean grain yield, N2 fixation, and weed infestation in a long-term tillage experiment under rainfed Mediterranean conditions
2012
Background and Aims Long-term experiments could provide valuable information to determine the effects of an agronomic practice on agro-ecosystem productivity and stability. This study evaluated the long-term (18-year) impact of different tillage systems on faba bean (Vicia faba L.) productivity, including weed and broomrape incidence, and N2 fixation. Methods The experiment was carried out on a Vertisol under rainfed Mediterranean conditions. It was set up as a strip plot design. The tillage systems were: conventional tillage (CT) with moldboard plow, reduced tillage (RT) with chisel plow, and no tillage (NT). Nitrogen fixation was estimated over 2 years in the final phase of the experiment…
Long-term effects of contrasting tillage systems on soil C and N pools and on main microbial groups differ by crop sequence
2021
Abstract Determining the best conservation agriculture practices for increasing soil organic carbon (C) and hence soil quality is of paramount importance in the semi-arid Mediterranean environment, where soils are experiencing a continuous decline in organic matter. Therefore, the aim of this long-term study was to assess the combined effects of tillage system and crop sequence on soil organic C and biochemical properties of soil generally used as indicators of soil quality. After 23 years of continuous application of contrasting tillage systems (conventional tillage [CT], vs. no tillage [NT]) and crop sequences (wheat monoculture vs. wheat-faba bean rotation), soil samples were collected f…
Conservation tillage in a semiarid Mediterranean environment: results of 20 years of research
2014
Conservation tillage techniques are becoming increasingly popular worldwide as they have the potential to generate environmental, agronomic, and economic benefits. In Mediterranean areas, studies performed on the effects of conservation tillage [in comparison with the conventional tillage technique (CT)] on grain yield of cereal crops have reported contradictory results as well as considerable year-to-year variation, demonstrating how the impact of different soil tillage techniques on crop productivity is strongly site-specific. The present paper summarises the main results from a set of experiments carried out in Sicily during the last 20 years in which we compared no tillage (NT) to CT in…
Tillage Changes Vertical Distribution of Soil Bacterial and Fungal Communities.
2018
Tillage can strongly affect the long-term productivity of an agricultural system by altering the composition and spatial distribution of nutrients and microbial communities. The impact of tillage methods on the vertical distribution of soil microbial communities is not well understood, and the correlation between microbial communities and soil nutrients vertical distributions is also not clear. In the present study, we investigated the effects of conventional plowing tillage (CT: moldboard plowing), reduced tillage (RT: rotary tillage), and no tillage (NT) on the composition of bacterial and fungal communities within the soil profile (0-5, 5-10, 10-20, and 20-30 cm) using high-throughput se…
Weed flora evolution in direct seeding under cover systems
2018
Direct seeding under cover, by its emergent properties, raises new questions of research on weed communities. The absence of soil disturbance and the implementation of cover crops, modify all factors of conventional agriculture and lead to a complete change of habitat for and management of the weed flora. In addition, these systems allow the development of a certain number of animal communities that interact with one another and with plant communities and thus potentially promote the regulations expected in Agroecology. Finally, there is the issue of annual weed species diversity in systems where tillage is strongly reduced. This thesis, started in November 2017, has as main objective to pr…
Can conservation agriculture deeply change the structure of weed communities
2023
International audience
Microbial biomass carbon dynamics in a long-term tillage and crop rotation experiment under semiarid Mediterranean conditions
2015
Microbial biomass carbon (MBC) of soil is an important ecological indicator of nutrient cycling and soil fertility. In addition, it responds to the changes of soil fertility more rapidly than soil organic matter. The aim of the present work was to evaluate the effect of a long-term implementation of a conservative soil management strategy (No Tillage [NT]) compared to the inversion tillage (conventional tillage [CT]) on the soil MBC in a range of crops - continuous durum wheat (WW), wheat after fababean (FW) and faba bean after wheat (WF). MBC of NT plots was higher than CT. In addition, the content of MBC varied with sampling time during the growing season; this variation did not show a co…
Weed flora evolution in direct seeding under cover systems
2019
Since the beginning of agriculture, farmers have been working the soil to produce. With the apparition of mechanization (development of plow coupled to tractors in the early 20th century), this practice has intensified and widespread on all farms. However, in France, since the 2000s, more and more farmers are questioning the utility of working the soil to produce. A new form of agriculture has appeared; the direct seeding under cover which groups together a set of cropping systems that meet certain requirements: no tillage, maximum vegetation cover and diversified rotation. By its emergent properties, this new form of agriculture raises new questions of research that mobilize both agronomy …