Journal
ARCHIVES OF AGRONOMY AND SOIL SCIENCE
Volume 68, Issue 2, Pages 273-282Publisher
TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/03650340.2020.1832655
Keywords
Tillage practices; Rainfed agriculture; Soil erosion; Soil properties
Categories
Funding
- East China University of Technology, Nanchang China [110/1410000475]
- Desert Research Center, Egypt
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Soil erosion and drought are significant environmental hazards in the northwestern coastal zone of Egypt. This study found that adopting integrated ridge-furrow tillage and integrated reservoir tillage can effectively increase soil water availability and improve wheat yield.
Soil erosion and drought are significant environmental hazards for crop production in the northwestern coastal zone of Egypt, leading to increased soil resources degradation.In-siturainwater harvesting techniques by changing the micro-topography of soil via tillage practices can increase runoff retention and improve soil productivity. In this study, field trials were conducted on a sandy loam soil to determine the effects of four tillage systems [integrated ridge-furrow tillage (RFT), integrated reservoir tillage (RT), conventional tillage (CT), and No tillage (NT)] on soil bulk density, volumetric water content, runoff, soil loss, precipitation use efficiency, and winter wheat yield during two growing seasons under-rainfed conditions. The results indicated that tillage systems significantly affected soil properties, precipitation use efficiency and wheat yield in the order of: RFT > RT > CT > NT. Compared with the CT, the mean runoff with the developed RFT and RT was significantly decreased by 55.4% and 40.3%, respectively. Meanwhile, the precipitation use efficiency increased by 18.1% and 9.5%, respectively. By taking into account the stability of soil productivity along with environmental protection, it is suggested that the RFT and RT are the tillage systems that can efficiently increase the availability of soil water and, consequently, wheat yield.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available