Conservation tillage has been promoted as a solution to counteract constraints caused by intensive agriculture. In this work the effects of two conservation tillage systems, reduced tillage (RT) and no-tillage (NT) were compared to the traditional tillage (TT) in a long(15 years, RT) and short-term experiment (3 years, NT). Both experiments were carried out under semi-arid, rainfed agriculture ...

There is interest in reducing or even eliminating tillage in organic production systems. In this special Issue, research teams in Europe and North America summarize recent and on-going efforts to develop conservation-tillage systems that can be used on commercial organic farms. While progress is being made in the development of organic no-tillage (no-till) systems, considerable work still needs...

Many sustainable agronomical practices can be adopted to contain environmental risks of crop production and, at the same time, sustain yield and quality. In this framework, the aim of this research was to study the effects of continuous cropping (CC) and crop rotation, tillage and fertilization strategies on durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) production. The responses of soil properties we...

efficient energy use in agriculture sector is one of the prerequisites to sustainable agriculture, because it allows financial savings, fossil resources preservation along with decreasing trend of air pollution. this research was conducted at the agricultural research field of zanjan university to determine the level of input energy in different tillage systems in forage maize production when i...

Sweetpotatoes, Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam. (Convolvulaceae), are typically grown on bare soil where weeds and erosion can be serious problems. Conservation tillage systems using cover crop residues as mulch can help reduce these problems, but little is known about how conservation tillage affects yield and quality of sweetpotato or how these systems impact populations of beneficial and pest insec...

The objectives were to promote farmer adoption of reduced and modified tillage (RT) systems and to investigate the efficacy of deep zone tillage systems to reduce the disease severity in crops affected by Phytophthora capcisi. It was our intent to evaluate the ability of reduced tillage (RT) systems to ameliorate large fluctuations in water supply, which may result from climate change and, in p...

ern Tennessee (Stevens et al., 1992; Bradley, 1993; Triplett et al., 1996), conservation tillage practiced on silty clay Yield reductions from no-tillage cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) soils in northern Alabama resulted in 8 to 15% yield jeopardized adoption of conservation systems in the Tennessee Valley region of north Alabama in the early 1990s. We conducted a study from reductions compared ...

The paper presents comparison of three soil tillage systems in maize, winter wheat and soybean growing on anthropogenic Albic Luvisol in north-west Slavonia, Croatia, during 1996-1999. Tillage systems and implements were: 1. conventional system (CT)-plough, disc-harrow and combined implement, 2. conservation system (RT)-chisel plough and multitiller, 3. no-till system (NT). The aim of testing w...

Agriculture is the single biggest user of land and water in Morocco; however its performances are still low due to high rainfall variation and rates of soil productivity depletion. Increasing concerns about soil and environment quality degradation have raised the need to review existing tillage management systems and develop new systems for seed-bed preparation. Consequently, No-tillage is foun...

Microbial diversity can be used to assess the impact of agricultural practices on the long-term sustainability of cropping systems. The aim of this study was to investigate changes in soil bacterial diversity as a result of the impact of different soil tillage and crop rotation systems in an oxisol of southern Brazil. Bacterial diversity was examined in the 010 cm layer in two field experiments...