123A bstract. One of the major problems of rice cultivation in Guilan is traditional rice cultivation along with autumn tillage and burning last year's residual, which besides wasting this valuable organic source is followed by environmental pollution in September and October each year. This study aimed to evaluate three different methods of tillage as far as soil physical properties and rice growth under crop residual burning and conservation conditions are concerned. Therefore, an area of 1,800 square meters was chosen in Islamabad Village, Pirbazar District, Rasht. A factorial experiment was designed and conducted in a randomized complete block design with 6 treatments in 3 replications and in 18 plots (each plot = 10 × 10 square meters). Treatments included tillage factor with no-tillage, autumn and winter tillage methods; and residue management factor included crop residual burning and conservation. The results showed that the amount of soil organic matter in residual burning and residual conservation was 2.18% and 2.69%, respectively, showing a 0.51% increase in organic matter. The amount of organic matter in no-tillage method (2.20%) showed a significant decrease of 0.32% and 0.38% compared with autumn tillage (2.52%) and winter tillage (2.58%), respectively. Surface water infiltration in soil before performing treatments was 2.01 mm per minute, which was significantly increased by 2.81 mm per minute in crop resid-