Effects of tillage on winter wheat production in Mediterranean dryland fields
Santín Montanyá, Inés | Fernández-Getino García, Patricia | Zambrana Quesada, Encarnación | 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 m2 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 m2. Our study revealed that in the short term, under semi-arid conditions, only the adoption of NT system (rather than MT) showed economic benefits. © 2017 Taylor & Francis.
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