Abstract
Soil shear strength (SS) is an important parameter for designing appropriate farm machinery. This study was aimed to estimate the surface SS of lowland puddled rice soils in Sri Lanka through the assessment of bulk soil parameters including soil moisture content (MC), bulk density (BD), soil texture and organic matter content (OM) under different weed control methods. Vane shear tester was used to measure the surface SS. All soil parameters were measured throughout the Maha Season of 2013/14, with four treatments; (1) bare lowland, (2) no weed control, (3) chemical weed control and (4) weed managed by “Asakura” wooden clog in three replicates. After identifying the effect of weed control method, measured values were evaluated to identify the suitable determinants to explain the variation of surface SS and ultimately built up their relationships. Results reveled that measured SS significantly varied with weed control method and time. Bulk soil properties did not significantly vary with weed control method (excluding clay %) and showed significant temporal variation (excluding sand% and OM) at p<0.05. Surface SS showed a significant relationship with BD and MC at 0.05 probability level, it could be estimated by 107.053 – 1.06 MC – 42.738 BD in chemical weed control fields and other fields by 110.643 – 1.06 MC – 42.738 BD. It is suggested to conduct future studies including depth variation of SS, weed and plant growth parameters which may provide sound information to improve this finding.
Highlights
Rice is the staple food of the inhabitants of Sri Lanka and cultivated as a wetland crop in all the districts
As per the Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD), four treatments which included different weed control practices and three replicates were established on 8X5 m2 plots
Affected soil properties by treatment and time (WAT) at p
Summary
Rice is the staple food of the inhabitants of Sri Lanka and cultivated as a wetland crop in all the districts. There are two major cultivation seasons namely; Yala and Maha which depend on the two monsoons. The net extent, average yield and production of paddy were 520,608 ha, 4,222 kg/ha and 2,235,851 MT in the Maha season (2013/14), and the corresponding figures in the Yala season (2014) were 272,399 ha, 4,204 kg/ha and 1,144,929MT respectively (DCS, 2015). When seeking solutions for the problems associated with the rice cultivation in Sri Lanka, Though several tools and machineries have been introduced to perform various operations in paddy cultivation, most of them are not popularized among Sri Lankan farmers due to some defects and low adaptability to the local conditions (Rathnayaka et al, 2011). Since most of the farm machineries use in paddy cultivation has to work in puddled soil condition, it is very important to study the puddled soil condition
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