[Twelve years of zero tillage in an olive-grove in Beira Interior [Portugal]]
1998
Luz, J.P. | Silva, M. | Moreira, I.
The no-tillage and minimum tillage techniques of soil maintenance in olive groves often reduce the costs and increase the productivity, playing therefore an important role in the new olive growing systems. In the present work traditional systems of soil maintenance are compared with no-tillage in an olive grove in Beira Interior, Portugal. In this study a 30-year-old non-irrigated olive grove, cv. galega, with 10x10 m spacing was observed. The experiment started in the spring 1986 and the tillage systems used were the following: no-tillage with permanent natural vegetation cover (NMCV) - the weed control is being done by sheep grazing; traditional tillage (MOB) - the weed control is being made by the traditional methods in the region, which consist in two harrowings. The harrowings were done using a disc-harrow at a depth of 15-20 cm; no-tillage with bare soil (NMD). The results highlight the high yield alternation and the higher yields, in the last 8 years, of the trees on NMD, except in 1993 when the NMD and NMCV yields were the same. From 1986 to 1989, the NMD yields ewre always lower than the NMCV yields. This could be due to tree adaptation to this new system of soil maintenance. Weeds with resistance to the active ingredients used were not detected. The annual rainfall and the olive oil yield are also discussed
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