Abstract
Wheat planting in rice-harvested fields without land preparation is more economical, but the physical characteristics of the plant root sphere are not well documented. Comparative changes in the soil compaction in parallel fields used for no-till and conventional tillage were measured in replicated field trials for two soil types and in three randomly selected farmers’ fields. Weakly to moderately developed soils on recent to old Pleistocene calcareous alluvium were studied. They differed in their clay content. No-till wheat sowing resulted in a greater soil bulk density and a lower total porosity in the heavy-textured soils compared to the light-textured soil. In the light-textured Jhakkar soil, the no-till regime resulted in a greater infiltration at the saturated state and under most suction levels and a greater macroporosity compared to the conventional tillage. The silty clay Kotly soil had greater macroporosity in the conventional tillage than in the no-till regime. The wheat root growth and penetration seemed to be favored by the relatively low bulk density resulting from the conventional tillage, particularly in the silty clay loam soil. The dense layer restricted root penetration in the silty clay loam soil, while there was less resistance in the sandy loam soil. The study demonstrated the suitability of the no-till regime for specific soil types.
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Published in Russian in Pochvovedenie, 2008, No. 11, pp. 1362–1370.
The text was submitted by the authors in English.
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Akhtar, M.S., Nabi, G. & Mahmood-ul-Hassan, M. Does no-till wheat sowing in a rice-wheat cropping sequence cause surface-soil compaction?. Eurasian Soil Sc. 41, 1205–1212 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1064229308110094
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S1064229308110094