Effects of tillage on winter wheat production in Mediterranean dryland fields
Santín-Montanyá, M. I. | Fernández-Getino, A. P. | Zambrana, E. | Tenorio, J. L.
The benefits of conservation agriculture (CA) and associated technologies are not equal for all agro ecosystems. This study used a field experiment to examine winter-wheat yield and weeds under conservational and conventional systems in the central region of Spain. The three tillage treatments were conventional tillage (CT), minimum tillage (MT) and no-tillage (NT). The climatic conditions influenced wheat yield, yield components, soil water content and weeds. When the autumn-winter rainfall was abundant and constant (69.7% of annual rainfall), wheat grain yield (4465 kg ha ⁻¹) and yield components (3897 kg ha ⁻¹ of straw biomass and 584.5 ear m ⁻²) were highest. Wheat grain yield was highest with NT: 3549.9 kg ha ⁻¹ (compared to MT: 2955.1 kg ha ⁻¹ and CT: 2950.3 kg ha ⁻¹) and ear number per m ² was significantly lower with MT (332 no ear m ⁻², compared to 426 and 411.6 ear m ⁻² in CT and NT-systems respectively). Soil water content, at earing stage, was the highest in NT (27.36% of soil moisture) while MT showed the lowest content (11.83% of soil moisture). The higher weed measurements (means of 2.557 plants m ⁻²; 1.443 species m ⁻² and 2.536 g m ⁻²) was with higher annual rainfall (488 mm). Throughout the experiment it was the dominant presence, in MT-wheat plots, of Lolium rigidum Gaudin (with means from 4.87 to 7.71 plants m ⁻²), which reduced the ear number per m ². Our study revealed that in the short term, under semi-arid conditions, only the adoption of NT system (rather than MT) showed economic benefits.
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