Abstract
Maize productivity is mainly constrained by the climate, meteorological and soil conditions, and agro-technological practice. Reduced primary tillage intensity might be a method to optimize the complex interactions between these conditions. An 8-year field experiment was designed to test this. The aim of the experiment was to establish the influence of deep and shallow ploughing, chiselling, disking and no-tillage systems on parameters of maize productivity. No-tillage resulted in a significant decrease in maize stand density compared with deep and shallow ploughing, as well as chiselling, while maize canopy height and dry biomass was slightly higher in the no-tillage system. Nevertheless, in no-tillage plots the maize yield was insignificantly lower than in deeply and shallowly ploughed plots (on average 3.5–6.4% less). Overall, long-term reduction of primary tillage had less impact on maize productivity parameters than meteorological conditions during the vegetation period.
Highlights
In Lithuania, agricultural crops occupy approximately 32% (2.062 million ha) of the total land area
The effect of the tillage treatments on maize stand density varied throughout the years
Across the five growing seasons, there were no significant differences in the effects of the different tillage methods on maize stand density (Table 5)
Summary
In Lithuania, agricultural crops occupy approximately 32% (2.062 million ha) of the total land area. Cereals account for around 67–70% of the total crop area (Statistics Lithuania 2018). Winter wheat and spring barley are the most widely grown crops. Due to changing climatic conditions (uneven precipitation distribution, lack of sunny days), the quality of grain usually only allows their use as animal feed. Given that processing maize for feed is inexpensive, there has been a focus on developing methods for maize growing, especially those allowing using the grain for a food crop. Demand for maize for livestock concentrate feeds is around 3–4 times higher than the demand for cereal grains. Given that maize is not grown in the same soil types as wheat, these two crops do not compete for land
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