Abstract
Due to declining soil quality and increasing climate change, resource conservation technologies are often advocated for the food production system. Conservation agriculture (CA) is one of the technologies that increase soil nutrient status without jeopardizing the soil health and quality. The effects of conservation tillage, residue retention, and cropping systems on soil physical, chemical, and biological properties within the irrigated agricultural system are well established. However, scanty information is available on the combined impact of tillage, residue, and cropping system available on the major and micro-nutrient in the rainfed farming systems. Thus, a field experiment was conducted to measure the short-term effect of CA practices on soil properties and major (N, P, and K) and micro (Fe, Mn, Zn, and Cu)-nutrients in a Vertisol of Central India. The field experiment was laid out in a split-plot design consisting of two tillage systems (TS), conventional tillage (CT) and reduced tillage (RT), as the main plots and six cropping systems (CS) as subplots. A total of 144 soil samples were collected after four crop cycles to assess soil properties and nutrient (major and micro-nutrient) status. Results demonstrated that in the surface soil layer (0–5 cm), the major and micro-nutrient concentrations were higher than subsurface layers, regardless of TS and CS. In the surface soils, soil organic carbon (SOC) varied from 0.58 to 0.60% under CT and from 0.60 to 0.62% under RT. Tillage and cropping systems had a significant effect (p < 0.05) on major available nutrients (N, P, and K) at 0–5-cm depth. The DTPA extractable Fe, Mn, Cu, and Zn concentrations exhibited decreasing trends with increasing depth. At 0–5-cm depth, the DTPA-Fe, Mn, Cu, and Zn under CT varied from 7.56 to 9.58 mg kg−1, 15.04 to 15.91 mg kg−1, 1.37 to 1.80 mg kg−1, and 0.57 to 0.62 mg kg−1 and under RT varied from 8.25 to 11.16 mg kg−1, 15.65 to 17.73 mg kg−1, 1.54 to 1.80 mg kg−1, and 0.59 to 0.67 mg kg−1, respectively. We concluded that RT practices, coupled with crop residue retention, positively affected major and micro-nutrient distribution and availability in this soil. Results highlight the importance of nutrient dynamics under different tillage and cropping systems and thus improve the nutrient recommendation in the semi-arid eco-region of Central India.
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Acknowledgments
The first author sincerely thanks Dr. A. Subba Rao, Former Director, ICAR–Indian Institute of Soil Science, Bhopal, for his guidance in taking up this research project. We thank Mr. R.K. Mandloi, Mr. P.K. Chouhan, technical officers, and Mr. Hukum Singh, field assistant, for their assistance in field experimentation and soil sampling. We also thank Mr. Sahab Siddiqui and senior research fellows for their assistance in soil sample analysis.
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Table S1 Effect of cropping system on pH, SOC, major nutrients after four crop cycles under conventional tillage system. Table S2 Effect of cropping system on pH, SOC and major nutrients after four crop cycles under reduced tillage. Table S3 Effect of conventional tillage and cropping system on DTPA-extractable Fe, Mn, Zn and Cu after four crop cycles Table S4 Effect of reduced tillage and cropping systems on DTPA-extractable Fe, Mn, Zn and Cu after four crop cycles. Table S5 Results of principal component analysis (PCA) (DOCX 42 kb)
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Jayaraman, S., Sinha, N.K., Mohanty, M. et al. Conservation Tillage, Residue Management, and Crop Rotation Effects on Soil Major and Micro-nutrients in Semi-arid Vertisols of India. J Soil Sci Plant Nutr 21, 523–535 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42729-020-00380-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42729-020-00380-1