Past agricultural management practices have contributed to the loss of soil organic carbon (SOC) and emission of greenhouse gases (e.g., carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide). Fortunately, however, conservation-oriented agricultural management systems can be, and have been, developed to sequester SOC, improve soil quality, and increase crop productivity. Our objectives were to (i) review literature...

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...

Conservative agriculture is considered as an alternative to tackle the need for increased agricultural production based on sustainable agriculture activities with the aim of increasing production and product stability along with preserving the environment. Tillage is one of the most important factors affecting soil structure. Selection of appropriate tillage systems varies according to the cond...

Agriculture is facing a major challenge nowadays: to increase crop production for food and energy while preserving ecosystem functioning and soil quality. Argentine Pampas is one of the main world producers of crops and one of the main adopters of conservation agriculture. Changes in soil chemical and physical properties of Pampas soils due to different tillage systems have been deeply studied....

Coarse-textured surface horizons are common in highly weathered southeastern US coastal plain soils. These soils have historically been managed under conventional tillage practices, but conservation tillage management practices are increasing. Although clay (<2 �m) contents are low in these surface horizons (typically <100 g kg−1), the reactive nature of this fraction tends to play a dominant r...

Increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration has led to concerns about potential effects on production agriculture as well as agriculture’s role in sequestering C. In the fall of 1997, a study was initiated to compare the response of two crop management systems (conventional and conservation) to elevated CO2. The study used a split-plot design replicated three times with two management systems as m...

This paper established a conservation tillage evaluation model based on projection pursuit to evaluate the soil composite achievement of conservation tillage. After optimizing the project direction, the multi-dimension data of the seven evaluation indices are synthesized to one dimension, and the author could evaluate each item with the projection data easily, which avoided the jamming of weigh...

Soil microorganisms are important for climate regulation as well as for plant nutrition. In agricultural soils the microorganisms are affected by management choices, like which type of tillage that is used. Moldboard plowing, the most common tillage practice, increases mineralization which leads to soil organic carbon (SOC) loss, and may thus reduce soil quality. Conservation tillage practices ...

No-tillage cultivation offers significant advantages over con­ ventional tillage in terms of water, energy, and particularly soil conservation (Francis et al., 1987). However, continuous no-tillage farming on sandy Ultisols may lead to high bulk density that has a pronounced effect on soil strength due to traffic compaction and lack of plowing (NeSmith et al., 1987). This increase in soil stren...

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...