Winter barley performance on two different soils under conservation tillage systems
2011
Damalas, Christos A. | Lithourgidis, Anastasios S.
Conservation tillage is becoming increasingly attractive to farmers due its potential to reduce production costs and allow a more sustainable land use as compared with conventional tillage. Field experiments were conducted over three consecutive growing seasons to study barley performance under three tillage systems (minimum, reduced, and conventional tillage) on two different soils (a sandy loam and a clay soil) of northern Greece. No significant differences in plant number, ear number, or grain yield were observed among tillage systems in any growing season in the sandy loam soil. By contrast, reduced plant number by 15 and 18% in the first growing season and by 18 and 21% in the third growing season was observed for the reduced and the minimum tillage system, respectively, in the clay soil as compared with conventional tillage. Reduced plant number in the clay soil was due to the unfavorable soil conditions during sowing and the uneven seedbed as a result of the presence of summer weeds which apparently prevented correct and uniform planting depth. However, no significant differences in ear number or barley grain yield were found among tillage systems in any growing season in the clay soil. Findings of this study showed that conservation tillage can affect the establishment of barley stands depending on soil type and weather conditions but this is not always expressed in grain-yield reduction due to the effect of compensation through increased tillering.
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