The effect of main tillage methods on pea productivity

Abstract

The current paper has presented the results of a three-year study (2019–2021), the purpose of which was to study and evaluate the impact of various tillage methods on pea productivity. The trials were carried out on the fields of the structural subdivision of “NCRIMEA” of the FSBSI “Agricultural Research Center “Donskoy”. There have been studied four tillage methods such as subsurface; layer-by-layer; moldboard; ‘no-tillage’ variant. Weather conditions during the study period were contrasting and affected plant vegetation period. When estimating the effect of tillage methods, there were taken into account such indicators of pea productivity as number of productive plants, number of productive nodes, number of productive beans, number of seeds per bean, number of seeds per plant, weight of seeds per plant, 1000-seed weight, and productivity. The three-year study and estimation of the effect of various tillage methods on pea yields and its productivity, there was found that the growing season decrease negatively affected pea productivity under all tillage methods, along with this the plants reacted more sharply to this under the moldboard tillage. The most favorable effect on pea productivity was provided by variants ‘no-tillage’ and subsurface tillage due to the maximum formation of number of nodes, beans and seeds in plants, as well as seed weight increase. The estimated mean pea productivity in 2019–2021 showed the advantage of a subsurface tillage (3.15 t/ha). Relative to it, there was established productivity decrease on 2.2% in the variant ‘no-tillage’, on 13.97% in the variant with a layer-by-layer tillage, and on 28.25% in the variant with moldboard tillage.