Abstract
Conservation agriculture may lead to increased penetration resistance due to soil compaction. To loosen the topsoil and lower the compaction, one-time inversion tillage (OTIT) is a measure frequently used in conservation agriculture. However, the duration of the positive effects of this measure on penetration resistance is sparsely known. Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyze the spatio-temporal behavior of penetration resistance after OTIT as an indicator for soil compaction. A field subdivided into three differently tilled plots (conventional tillage with moldboard plough to 30 cm depth (CT), reduced tillage with chisel plough to 25 cm depth (RT1) and reduced tillage with disk harrow to 10 cm depth (RT2)) served as study area. In 2014, the entire field was tilled by moldboard plough and penetration resistance was recorded in the following 5 years. The results showed that OTIT reduced the penetration resistance in both RT-plots and led to an approximation in all three plots. However, after 18 (RT2) and 30 months (RT1), the differences in penetration resistance were higher (p < 0.01) in both RT-plots compared to CT. Consequently, OTIT can effectively remove the compacted layer developed in conservation agriculture. However, the lasting effect seems to be relatively short.
Highlights
Conservation agriculture is one of the most important agricultural practices in the world [1,2,3].It aims to reduce negative impacts on the environment while maintaining high productivity [4,5].The three main principles of conservation agriculture are: (i) the minimal disturbance of the soil surface by tillage, (ii) high soil cover by crops/crops residue and (iii) diversified crop rotation [6]
The disadvantages related with conservation agriculture are the stratification of nutrients [15,16], an increase of weed pressure [17,18] and an increase of soil compaction [19,20,21,22], while soil compaction may be reduced in conservation agriculture [22,23,24,25]
This study showed that one-time inversion tillage (OTIT) can remove the compacted layer that has developed in long-term reduced tillage as indicated by penetration resistance measurements
Summary
Conservation agriculture is one of the most important agricultural practices in the world [1,2,3] It aims to reduce negative impacts on the environment while maintaining high productivity [4,5]. The three main principles of conservation agriculture are: (i) the minimal disturbance of the soil surface by tillage, (ii) high soil cover by crops/crops residue and (iii) diversified crop rotation [6]. This is in contrast to conventional agriculture, where a high level of soil disturbance by tillage is common. The disadvantages related with conservation agriculture are the stratification of nutrients [15,16], an increase of weed pressure [17,18] and an increase of soil compaction [19,20,21,22], while soil compaction may be reduced in conservation agriculture [22,23,24,25]
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