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IMPACT OF NO-TILL AND
CONVENTIONAL TILLAGE PRACTICES ON SOIL CHEMICAL
PROPERTIES
I. AZIZ1., N. BANGASH2, T. MAHMOOD2
AND K.R. ISLAM3
Abstract:
There is a global concern about progressive increase in the emission of
greenhouse gases especially atmosphere CO2. An increasing
awareness about environmental pollution by CO2 emission has
led to recognition of the need to enhance soil C sequestration through
sustainable agricultural management practices. Conservation management
systems such as no-till (NT) with appropriate crop rotation have been
reported to increase soil organic C content by creating less disturbed
environment. The present study was conducted on Vanmeter farm of The
Ohio State University South Centers at Piketon Ohio, USA to estimate the
effect of different tillage practices with different cropping system on
soil chemical properties. Tillage treatments were comprised of
conventional tillage (CT) and No-till (NT).These treatments were applied
under continuous corn (CC), corn-soybean (CS) and
corn–soybean-wheat-cowpea (CSW) cropping system following randomized
complete block design. No-till treatment showed significant increase in
total C (30%), active C (10%), and passive salt extractable (18%) and
microwave extractable C (8%) and total nitrogen (15%) compared to
conventional tillage practices. Total nitrogen increased significantly
23 % in NT over time. Maximum effect of no-till was observed under
corn-soybean-wheat-cowpea crop rotation. These findings illustrated that
no-till practice could be useful for improving soil chemical properties.
Key words:
Tillage systems,
Nitrogen, Total carbon, Active carbon,
Passive
organic carbon, Crop rotations.
1Dept. of Agronomy, PMAS Arid Agriculture University,
Rawalpindi, Pakistan,
2Department of Environmental Sciences, PMAS Arid Agriculture
University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan,
3Soil and Water Resources, Ohio State University South
Centers, Piketon, Ohio, USA, and Soil Drainage Research, USDA-ARS, Columbus, Ohio, USA
*Corresponding author e-mail:
irfaz15@yahoo.com
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