Abstract
A field experiment was carried out to determine the effect of tillage on growth and yield of two wheat cultivars sown after rice at the Agronomic Research Area, University of Agriculture, and Faisalabad during the winter season 2012-13. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with split plot arrangement having three replications with a net plot size of 3.0 m × 7.0 m. The experiment comprised of two wheat cultivars with four tillage treatments viz. Zero tillage, reduced tillage (only one cultivation+hand drilling), conventional method (3 cultivation followed by planking +hand drilling) and deep ploughing (one deep ploughing with chisel plough and one cultivation followed by planking+hand drilling). Maximum grain yield was obtained in Zero tillage treatment in both cultivars as compared to all other three tillage treatments. Similarly, the spike length number of tillers, number of grains spike -1, 1000- grain weight, biological yield, and harvest index were the highest in Zero tillage. Zero tillage in wheat performed well in the entire crop data parameters and showed effectively high yield in wheat.
Highlights
Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) belongs to family Poaceae and is very important crop as it contributes major portion of staple food for the world’s population
Interaction of cultivars and tillage revealed that Zero tillage performed best in cultivar Punjab-2011
Among all the tillage practices Zero tillage performed best deep and reduced tillage and conventional tillage showed poor results. This may be due to higher amount of moisture retention and organic matter in the soil in Zero tillage practice which has directly affected the germination count of wheat cultivars
Summary
Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) belongs to family Poaceae and is very important crop as it contributes major portion of staple food for the world’s population. In Pakistan, total cultivated area of wheat is about 9.210 million hectares and the total production is about 24.03 million tons during the year 2011-12. It is involved in contributing 14.4 percent to the value added in agriculture and 3 percent added to the gross domestic production of Pakistan [1]. It is grown mainly under irrigated conditions and its water requirement ranges from 20-21 inches per acre. Pakistan is ranking in the top ten highly producing countries of wheat but its production in Pakistan has not exceeded beyond 25-35% due to shortage of water, changing climates, reduction of land resources of good quality due to increased deforestation and urbanization and decreased investment of public sector in agricultural systems [2]
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