Soil Physical Properties of Vertisol Affected due to Different Tillage and Mulch Practices under Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)
2011
Meena, H.M. | Sharma, S.K. | Meena, M.C.
A field experiment was carried out in rabi season during the year 2006–07 under All India Coordinated Research Project for Dryland Agriculture, College of Agriculture, Indore (Madhya Pradesh) to evaluate the changes in soil physical properties of Vertisol due to different tillage and mulch practices under irrigated wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). The experiment was laid out in split plot design with four main tillage treatments viz. T1: Conventional tillage, CT (Cross cultivation through cultivator); T2: Deep Tillage, DT (M.B. Plough); T3: Rotavator (RT); T4: Bed planting (BP) of wheat (three rows per bed), and the sub treatment comprises of two mulch treatments viz. M1: Soybean straw mulch (5 t ha⁻¹) and M0: No –mulch with four replications. The water retention of these soils at 0.3 and 15 bar suction was 400 mm and 220 mm per meter of soil profile. Deep tillage gave 6.1%, 8.7% and 0.80% less bulk density of surface layer as compared to CT, RT and BP treatments, respectively. The lowest mean weight diameter (MWD) was recorded in case of DT (1.38 mm), followed by RT (2.28 mm), BP (2.56 mm) and maximum in case of CT (2.71 mm). Highest wheat yield was recorded with bed planting followed by deep tillage. The total root length under deep tillage was maximum, followed by bed planting, conventional tillage and minimum in case of rotavator till plots, mulch has helped in enhancing the water use efficiency of wheat by 21.62 percent as compared to non mulched treatment.
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