Search results for "no tillage"

Long-term effects of no tillage treatment on soil N availability, N uptake, and 15N-fertilizer recovery of durum wheat differ in relation to crop seq…

2016

Abstract No tillage (NT) soil management has largely been promoted because of its potential to generate both economic and environmental benefits. However, it often leads to reductions in crop yield and quality, which in many cases have been attributed to the effects this technique has on the nitrogen (N) dynamics in the soil–plant system. This 2-year study, performed within a long-term experiment in which NT was continuously applied for over 15 years, aimed to verify whether and to what extent the use of NT affects soil N availability, recovery of 15 N-labeled fertilizer, and N use efficiency (NUE) and its components (N uptake efficiency, NUpE; N utilization efficiency, NUtE). Durum wheat w…

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…

Tecniche conservative di gestione del suolo in ambiente mediterraneo: risultati di un ventennio di sperimentazioni.

2013

Weed seedbank size and composition in a long-term tillage and crop sequence experiment

2015

Summary Knowledge of the effects of agricultural practices on weed seedbank dynamics is essential for predicting future problems in weed management. This article reports data relative to weed seedbank structure after 18 years of continuous application of conventional tillage (CT, based on mouldboard ploughing) or no tillage (NT) within three crop sequences (continuous wheat, WW; wheat–faba bean, WF; and wheat–berseem clover, WB). Tillage system did not affect the size of the total weed seedbank, but altered both its composition and the distribution of seeds within the soil profile. In particular, the adoption of CT favoured some species (mainly Polygonum aviculare), whereas the continuous u…

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 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…

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…

Early Sowing Allows To Reduce Weed Pressure In No-Till Organic Durum Wheat Production

2018

In organic farming, the adoption of the conventional tillage (CT) technique is considered by many farmers to be necessary to control weeds. Such tillage system, in fact, permits to bury weed seeds deep in the soil by means of soil inversion with moldboard plowing and to eliminate the weed plants that gradually emerge by means of the secondary tillage operations. However, it is also true that intensive tillage progressively reduces the soil organic matter content and the stability of soil aggregates, thus increasing the risk of soil erosion (Six et al. 2000). This is in contrast with one of the basic principles of organic agriculture, which is the conservation of soil fertility. Alternativel…

Early sowing can boost grain production by reducing weed infestation in organic no‐till wheat

2022

Conservative tillage techniques have several agro-ecological benefits for organic farming. The application of these techniques, however, can create quite a few challenges due to the increased weed competition. Here, we report the results of an organic field experiment in which the responses of wheat and weeds to no tillage (NT) were evaluated compared with conventional tillage (CT). We also tested the hypothesis that, under NT, moving up the sowing date, compared with using the ordinary sowing date for the study area, can result in increased competitiveness of the crop against weeds. Two wheat genotypes, a modern variety and an ancient landrace, were tested.Substantial reductions in grain y…

Tillage and crop sequence effects on productivity and technological and nutritional quality of durum wheat

2015

We report data from two consecutive growing seasons {2012/13 and 2013/14, i.e., after 21-22 years of continuous application of the treatments) on grain yield and some technological and nutritional quality parameters of durum wheat. On average, grain yield was higher with CT than NT, but the effects of tillage varied greatly by crop sequence. On average, NT caused a decrease in both grain protein and gluten contents with respect to CT when wheat was grown after faba bean, whereas no differences between NT and CT were observed for these traits for continuous wheat or berseem clover. Significant interactions between tillage system and crop sequence were observed for alveographic parameters and…