Abstract
Decreased tillage intensity can contribute to a reduced agro-technological footprint and stabilise the negative impact of climate change, especially in leguminous crop cultivation. For this reason, a long-term (since 1988) stationary field experiment has been performed on silty loam Planosol (in Lithuania). The main objective of this study was to establish the influence of sustainable tillage and no-tillage systems on soil aggregate stability to water, penetration resistance, enzymatic activity, abundance of earthworm and faba bean grain yield. Five different tillage systems were investigated: conventional deep and shallow mouldboard ploughing, deep chiselling, shallow disking and no-tillage. No-tillage in faba bean cultivation significantly increased soil structural stability by 40–97%, saccharase content by 0.7–2.0 times, urease activity by 3–4 times, the average quantity of earthworm by 55% and the biomass by 3.6 times. The impact of other ploughless tillage systems on soil properties was positive but not as significant. Faba bean grain yield was more influenced by growing seasons than by different tillage methods.
Highlights
During the last 20–30 years, ploughless tillage technologies have become prevalent inculcated
In our experiment, long-term non-inversion tillage systems significantly prevented the destruction of soil structural aggregates (Table 5)
We have found that the reduction of primary tillage from conventional ploughing to shallow cultivation resulted in more or less similar number and mass of earthworms, but in NT plots the number of earthworms in the wheat stubble increased on the average by 2 and the mass by 3.7 times compared to deeply ploughed (DP) plots (Romaneckas et al 2016)
Summary
During the last 20–30 years, ploughless tillage technologies have become prevalent inculcated. According to Cannell (1985), shallow tillage can be a good practise as mouldboard ploughing in most countries on a wide range of soil types. No-tillage (NT) or zero tillage technology is the marginal technology, which uses new machinery, higher amounts of pesticides and so on. Despite that, it is currently used on more than one million hectares in Europe (Lopez et al 2012). Kertész and Madarász (2014) points out that risk of soil erosion varies according to the different ecological regions in Europe. In the Northern countries, in cold climate conditions, risks of soil erosion are lower compared to the semi-arid Mediterranean regions are lower. The best way to mitigate the process of erosion is to increase the stability of soil structure through sustainable tillage practises (Rasmussen 1999)
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