Prediction of tillage operation strategies for dryland wheat production in a degraded loess soil
2017
Sharīf, Muḥammad | Ijaz, Shahzada Sohail | Ṣafdar, ʻAlī | Ansar, Muhammad | Ḥassān, Asmāʼ
Conservation tillage systems are advocated worldwide for sustainable crop production; however, their favorable effects on soil properties are subject to the length of their use. The following study aimed at using the CENTURY agroecosystem model to simulate long-term changes in soil organic carbon (SOC) fractions and wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) production. Tillage systems include conventional tillage (CT, control), minimum tillage, chisel plow (CP) and zero tillage with (R ⁺) and without residues (R ⁻) in fallow-wheat system. The model validation with 2-year field experiment showed that the simulated results were strongly correlated with observed results for total organic carbon (r ² = 0.94), active soil carbon (r ² = 0.91), slow soil carbon (r ² = 0.84) and passive soil carbon (r ² = 0.85). Similarly, model simulations for biomass and grain yields were, respectively, 81% and 76% correlated with observed results. The long-term simulations predicted that SOC stock and its fractions will gradually build up, crop biomass and grain yield will enhance with crop residue retention, especially under chisel plough in comparison of existing CT system. The study concludes that CP and retention of crop residues have potential to improve SOC contents and ultimately crop production.
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