Management of crop residues and soil organic matter is of primary importance in maintaining soil fertility and productivity and in minimizing agricultural impact on the environment. Our objective was to determine the effects of traf®c and tillage on short-term carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O) ̄uxes from a representative soil in the southeastern Coastal Plain (USA). The study was conducted o...

Rice receives a large amount of water during land preparation and the growing period, causing poor crop water productivity and lower net benefits. In wheat, excessive tillage operations delay its sowing, resulting in low yields and net returns. Dry seeding of rice and zero tillage in wheat can be expected to reduce water inputs and tillage costs compared with the conventional system of rice-whe...

As a conventional farming practice, tillage has lasted for thousands of years in Loess Plateau, China. Although recent studies show that tillage is a prominent culprit to soil carbon loss in croplands, few studies have investigated the influences of tillage on the responses of soil CO2 efflux (SCE) to soil temperature and moisture. Using a multi-channel automated CO2 efflux chamber system, we m...

In arable cropping systems, reduced or conservation tillage practices are linked with improved soil quality, C retention and higher microbial biomass, but most long-term studies rarely focus on depths greater than 15 cm nor allow comparison of microbial community responses to agricultural practices. We investigated microbial community structure in a long-term field trial (12-years, Lincoln, New...

Few experiments in the coastal plain region of the southeastern United States have reported the effect of long-term tillage and tillage intensity on chemical soil quality indicators. The purpose of this study was to determine the 17-year influence of four tillage systems on chemical soil quality indicators in a Benndale fine sandy loam (coarse-loamy, siliceous, semiactive, thermic, Typic Paleud...

Soil nitrate-nitrogen (NO3-N) data arranged on a three-dimensional grid were analyzed to compare tillage effect on the spatial distribution of residual NO3-N in the soil profile of agricultural plots drained by subsurface tiles. A three-dimensional median-based resistant (to outlier(s)) approach was developed to polish the spatially located data on soil NO3-N affected by directional trends (non...

Tillage has long been an essential component of traditional agricultural systems. Broadly defined, tillage is the mechanical manipulation of the soil and plant residues to prepare a seedbed for crop planting. The benefits of tillage are many: it loosens soil, enhances the release of nutrients from the soil for crop growth, kills weeds, and regulates the circulation of water and air within the s...

This study was designed to investigate the effects of different tillage systems on some parameters such as soil salinity (pH, EC, SAR), soil density and nutrients in a nested experimental design with three treatments (no tillage, reduced tillage and conventional tillage) and three replications. Chenaran city fields were selected as the case study areas. Result of the statistical analysis indica...

In this study the influence of three different tillage systems in combination with eight varying weed treatments applied within the establishment year and its effect on the final above ground leafless biomass production (after the third growing season) of short rotation coppice poplar is presented. The three tillage systems included variants with ploughing and harrowing, variants with cultivati...