Abstract
ABSTRACT The objective of this work was to evaluate the agronomic performance and water use efficiency of crop rotations under conventional system (CTS) and no-tillage system (NTS) through two experiments conducted in the Semiarid region of the northern state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Experiment 1 consisted of a grain corn-common bean rotation, and experiment 2 consisted of a sorghum-sweet corn rotation. The treatments, in both experiments, consisted of two tillage systems (CTS and NTS) arranged in strip-plots, in two crop years, with ten replications. Yield and production components of all crops and water use efficiency (WUE) of crops grown in the autumn-winter seasons were evaluated within each crop rotation. The data obtained were subjected to analysis of variance and, when significant, the means were subjected to the F test at 5% significance level. The results obtained showed that the NTS increases corn yield in 21.45% in the grain corn-common bean rotation; however, the common bean yield present no difference between tillage systems. NTS increases the sorghum fresh and dry matter yields in 39.65% and 84.26%, respectively, in the sorghum- sweet corn rotation, and the sweet corn total and commercial ear yield in 11.99% and 21.80%, respectively. The NTS increases the WUE of crops grown in the autumn-winter season, in both crop rotations.
Highlights
Agriculture has a high socioeconomic importance in the North region of the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, presenting a diverse profile composed of rainfed and irrigated areas with fruit, vegetable, and grain crops and pastures
In Experiment 1, the joint analysis of variance referring to the grain corn crops grown in the springsummer seasons of 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 showed significant effects of tillage systems (TS) and crop year (YEAR) for grain yield (GY), and significant effects of the interaction (TS × YEAR) for one hundred grain weight (100GW) and ear yield without husk (EYWH)
The 100GW in the no-tillage system (NTS) was higher than in the conventional tillage system (CTS) in the second crop year (Table 1). This result denotes the superiority of NTS over CTS, different from the results reported by Farinelli and Lemos (2012), who found that 100GW of corn crops grown in the summer is not affected by the tillage system in subtropical climate conditions
Summary
Agriculture has a high socioeconomic importance in the North region of the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, presenting a diverse profile composed of rainfed and irrigated areas with fruit, vegetable, and grain crops and pastures. Despite the agricultural suitability of the region, it presents a semiarid climate characterized by a low and irregular rainfall regime with long drought periods and scarcity of water resources for irrigation, which has leading to underutilization and abandonment of crop areas (ALMEIDA et al, 2014). In this context, the use of tillage systems that favor soil and water conservation in these agroecosystems are essential to make agriculture feasible in the region
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