Role of Cover Crop, Irrigation Systems and Different Tillage on Soil Physical Properties

Abstract

The central and southern regions of Iraq are located within the arid and semi-arid regions. The deterioration of the physical properties of the soil due to the low content of organic matter that is less than 1%. The high temperatures, low rainfall and the absence of vegetation cover, as well as the poor use of land and the absence of proper management of irrigation and tillage operations have negative effects on the physical, chemical and biological properties of the soil, which in turn will negatively affect the growth and production of agricultural crops. The experiment was conducted in the Nile district, located within the Babil Governorate, 86 km south of the capital, Baghdad, in a silty clay loam in the fall season 2020, aimed to examine the role of cover crop, irrigation systems and different tillage systems in some physical properties of soil (bulk density, porosity, mean weight diameter, soil resistance to penetration, and saturated soil hydraulic conductivity). The experiment was designed according to the strip-split plot arrangement according to a complete randomized block design. The experiment included three factors, the first that occupied the main plots is the cover crop (C) and included on two levels: without cover crop (C ), and the presence of cover crop (C ), and the second factor was the tillage systems (T) and included on four levels: Zero tillage (T ), 0 1 0minimum tillage (T ), medium tillage (T ) and deep tillage (T ), and the third factor is irrigation systems (I) with three levels: surface drip irrigation 1 2 3 (I ), subsurface drip irrigation (I ) and surface irrigation in basins. (I ) The results showed the superiority of treatment C T I in obtaining the 1 2 3 1 1 2lowest value of bulk density, soil resistance to penetration, highest porosity, mean weight diameter rate, and soil hydraulic conductivity saturated while treatment C T I gave the highest bulk density, soil resistance to penetration, less porosity, mean weight diameter and soil 0 3 3 hydraulic conductivity saturated.