STUDIES PERFORMED 40 YEARS REGARDING THE CONVENTIONAL AND NO TILLAGE SYSTEMS APPLIED TO MAIZE CROPS IN ROMANIA'S SPECIFIC CONDITIONS

Abstract

In pedo-climatic conditions of Romania, the no tillage system can be applied to maize, soybean, wheat and barley crops on an area of at least 1 million hectares of the 10 million hectares of the countrys arable land. The no tillage system was studied for 30 years, namely in the interval 1963 1993 at the National Institute for Agricultural Research. In the conventional system, the maize yield was 8,287 kg/ha, while in the no tillage system the yield was 9,561 kg/ha so the yields in the two cases were almost the same, but there were big differences in terms of fuel consumption. In the period 2005 2007, the no tillage system was studied at the Agrofam Agricultural Company on maize crops. The average value of the yields obtained in the 3 years by applying the conventional system was of 9,980 kg/ha and by applying the no tillage system the yield was lo,l79 kg/ha (the crops being irrigated), so the yields obtained were practically the same. Yet there were big differences in terms of fuel consumption and mechanical work expenses. The fuel consumption in the conventional system was of 96 l/ha, whereas in the no tillage system the consumption was much smaller, namely 26 l/ha. As for other mechanical works, there were also big differences, these expenses amounting to l435.0 RON/ha in the conventional system and to only 373.0 RON/ha in the no tillage system.