Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1 Department of Seed and Plant Improvement Research, Fars Agricultural and Natural Resources Research and Education Center, Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), Shiraz, Iran
2 Department of Agricultural Engineering Research, Fars Research and Education Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources, AREEO, Shiraz, Iran.
3 Department of Plant Production and Genetics, School of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran.
Abstract
Implementing conservation tillage is important system to achieve sustainable agriculture by conserving water and soil resources. Experimental treatments were three-tillage practices—conventional tillage (CT), Minimum tillage (MT), and no tillage (NT)—and irrigation cutting at pollination, milky and seed dough developmental stages along with full irrigation were randomized in the main and subplots, respectively in a randomized complete block design arranged as split-plot with three replications. Wheat, Sirvan cultivar was sown in permanent plots during 2017–2020. Several agronomic traits including day to physical maturity, harvest index, thousand grain weight, and grain yield were measured during growing season and after harvest. The physical and chemical soil properties including soil bulk density, water infiltration, organic carbon, and nitrate content were also measured. Results showed that soil bulk density and water infiltiration were affected by tillage systems. MT system had lower soil bulk density at both soil layer (0-10 and 10-20 cm), and higher water infiltration (1.15 mm/min). Wheat grain yield under MT and NT systems was 14 and 20.4 % lower than CT system. Deep plowing and removing crop residue in CT system led to decrease soil organic matter by 6.2 and 13 % as compared to MT and NT, respectively. According to days to physiological maturity, and wheat grain yield was not significantly different between irrigation cutting of dough stage and full irrigation treatments, irrigation can be stopped at the end of grain filling without significant reduction in wheat growth duration, and grain yield under water limitation.
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