Tillage Systems Effect on Wheat Yield in the Saïs Region of Morocco

Abstract

Morocco is facing a significant threat to food grain production due to climate change, with an important incline in temperature and a decline in precipitation. Conservation agriculture (CA) is an important tool to confront soil fertility depletion and the adverse effects of climate change. The objective of this work was to compare and evaluate the impact of four cultivation techniques (no-till: NT, minimum till: MT, chisel ploughing: CP and deep ploughing: DP) on certain physiological and agronomic parameters of bread wheat. In this context, an experiment was fielded at the experimental station of Douyet of the National Institute of Agronomic Research of Meknes, Morocco during the 2019-2021 cropping seasons. The experimental design was a complete randomized block, with three replications. Results showed that the stomatal conductance and chlorophyll content revealed a significant effect in the end of flowering stage but no significant effect showed in the heading stage. NT showed the highest grain yield compared with other practices (DP, CP and MT). The decrease in grain yield registered in the first year was related to late sowing and to the drought stress caused by a low rainfall (135 mm) compared to the second year (377 mm). Moreover, the WUE in the NT obtained a higher value (6.36 kg ha^-1 mm^-1) followed by CP (5.14 kg ha^-1 mm^-1), DP (4.99 kg ha^-1 mm^-1) and MT (4.89 kg ha^-1 mm^-1). While in the second year, the NT registered a higher WUE (10.05 kg ha^-1 mm^-1) than other cultivation practices DP (8.72 kg ha^-1 mm^-1), MT (8.41 kg ha^-1 mm^-1) and CP (8.31 kg ha^-1 mm^-1).