Influence of Tillage on the Mollisols Physicochemical Properties, Seed Emergence and Yield of Maize in Northeast China

Agriculture

Jianhua Ren¹  Shuying Zang¹  Qiang Chen¹  Yaru Yuan¹  Li Sun¹  Xingyi Zhang² 

[1] Heilongjiang Province Key Laboratory of Geographical Environment Monitoring and Spatial Information Service in Cold Regions, Harbin Normal University, Harbin 150025, China;Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Harbin 150081, China;

关键词: tillage;    Mollisols;    soil structure;    soil organic carbon;    soil moisture;    soil temperature;   

DOI  :  10.3390/agriculture11100939

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Tillage practices are critical for sustaining soil quality necessary for successful crop growth and productivity, but there are only few studies for strip tillage (ST) in the Mollisols region of Northeast China at present. A long-term (≥10-year) study was carried out to investigate the influence of within the tilled row (IR) and between rows (BR) in ST (10-year), conventional tillage (CT, 14-year) and no tillage (NT, 14-year) treatments on soil physicochemical properties. Soil samples were taken in May of 2019 at 0–5, 5–10, 10–20 and 20–30 cm depths and used to analyze bulk density (BD), soil aggregate distribution and stability, and soil organic carbon (SOC). Meanwhile, our study also explored the differences in seed emergence, soil moisture, and temperature during the seed emergence period, and yield of maize (Zea mays L.) among the different treatments. Similar soil properties were observed between ST-BR and NT, which showed they had a significantly greater BD, >0.25 mm water stable aggregate content (WR_0.25) (especially in the amount of >2 mm and 1–2 mm size proportion), aggregate stability, and SOC than ST-IR and CT-IR at a depth of 0–20 cm. By improving soil conditions of seedbed, ST-IR and CT-IR increased soil temperature above NT by 1.64 °C and 1.80 °C, respectively, and ST-IR had a slight greater soil moisture than CT-IR in the top 10 cm layer during the seed emergence period. Late maize seed emergence was observed NT in than ST-IR and CT-IR and the average annual yields in ST were slightly greater than NT and CT, but the differences were not significant. Our results also showed that CT-BR had a poor soil structure and lower SOC than other treatments at 0–30 cm depth. We conclude from these long-term experimental results that ST could improve soil water-heat conditions to promote seed germination, maintain soil structure, and increase the maize yield and it should be applied in the Mollisols region of Northeast China.

【 授权许可】

Unknown