Effects of Reduced Tillage on Crop Yield, Plant Available Nutrients and Soil Organic Matter in a 12-Year Long-Term Trial under Organic Management

Sustainability

Sabine Zikeli¹  Sabine Gruber²  Claus-Felix Teufel³  Karin Hartung⁴ 

[1] Institute of Crop Science, Coordination for Organic Farming and Consumer Protection (340d), University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart 70593, Germany;Institute of Crop Science, Agronomy (340a), University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart 70593, Germany; E-Mail:;Claus-Felix Teufel, Landratsamt Konstanz, Amt für Landwirtschaft Stockach, Winterspürer-Str. 25, Stockach 78333, Germany; E-Mail:;Institute of Crop Science, Bioinformatics (340c), University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart 70593, Germany; E-Mail:

关键词: organic farming;    reduced tillage;    soil organic carbon;    plant available nutrients;    long-term trial;    humus budget;    C_org;    mineralization;    moldboard plow;    chisel plow;    conservation tillage;   

DOI  :  10.3390/su5093876

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

A field experiment was performed in Southwest Germany to examine the effects of long-term reduced tillage (2000–2012). Tillage treatments were deep moldboard plow: DP, 25 cm; double-layer plow; DLP, 15 + 10 cm, shallow moldboard plow: SP, 15 cm and chisel plow: CP, 15 cm, each of them with or without preceding stubble tillage. The mean yields of a typical eight-year crop rotation were 22% lower with CP compared to DP, and 3% lower with SP and DLP. Stubble tillage increased yields by 11% across all treatments. Soil nutrients were high with all tillage strategies and amounted for 34–57 mg kg⁻¹ P and 48–113 mg kg⁻¹ K (0–60 cm soil depth). Humus budgets showed a high carbon input via crops but this was not reflected in the actual C_org content of the soil. C_org decreased as soil depth increased from 13.7 g kg⁻¹ (0–20 cm) to 4.3 g kg⁻¹ (40–60 cm) across all treatments. After 12 years of experiment, SP and CP resulted in significantly higher C_org content in 0–20 cm soil depth, compared to DP and DLP. Stubble tillage had no significant effect on C_org. Stubble tillage combined with reduced primary tillage can sustain yield levels without compromising beneficial effects from reduced tillage on C_org and available nutrient content.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.