Effects of conservation tillage drills on soil quality indicators in a wheat–oilseed rape rotation: organic carbon, earthworms and water‐stable aggregates

Abstract

The effects of five conservation tillage drills with crop residue levels covering between 17% and 79% of the soil, and tillage depths ranging from 25 mm to 200 mm, were examined over three years. The tillage systems ranged from a relatively disruptive Farm System to a Low Disruption system, with three intermediate treatments labelled Sumo DTS, Claydon, and Mzuri. The study involved field sites on a clay or clay loam soil, where winter wheat and oilseed rape were grown in rotation. In the clay field, the Mzuri and Low Disruption treatments, which produced the highest residue coverage, showed the greatest increase in surface total soil organic carbon (1.1 and 0.48 Mg C ha -1 respectively) between year 1 and 3. The least disruptive tillage system also resulted in the highest density of earthworms (181-228 m -2 ), and the most disruptive system produced the lowest densities (75-98 m -2 ). In the third year, the least disruptive system also showed a higher proportion of water

A Decade of Climate-Smart Agriculture in Major Agri-Food Systems: Earthworm Abundance and Soil Physico-Biochemical Properties

“…The very low abundance of EWs under farmers' practices in rice fields was confirmed by Singh et al [29] in which they outlined that EWs were more abundant at the margins of the paddy fields in India, but no EWs were observed inside the fields. Our results were also confirmed by the findings of Giannitsopoulos et al [64] who found that the highest EWs' density (181-228 m −2 ) was achieved under the least destructive tillage, while the most disruptive tillage yielded the lowest densities (75-98 m −2 ).…”

“…Several studies reported a significant correlation between soil OC and EWs' abundance [26,42,61,65]. Giannitsopoulos et al [64] estimated that for every 10% increase in crop residue retention on the soil surface, EWs' density could increase by 15 indv. m −2 .…”

“…Similar results were reported by other researchers [15,19,20] in which they reported that EWs' abundance is affected by crop residues amount and TOC in the soil. Irrespective of food "OM" quantity, the quality of crop residues also plays an important role whereas the C/N ratio of maize residues (43)(44)(45)(46)(47)(48)(49)(50) is lower than rice residue (58)(59)(60)(61)(62)(63)(64)(65), implying that maize residue is a favorable food source of EWs relative to rice residues. Abail and Whalen [55] reported that EWs' biomass and density were higher under crop residues with a lower C/N ratio.…”

Sustainable soil use and management: An interdisciplinary and systematic approach

“…Thus earthworm activity can render soil environments that are more amenable to microbial activity and diversity (Eriksen-Hamel et al, 2009). Conservation tillage practices that involve crop residue return to surface soils can increase earthworm numbers by hundreds of thousands per hectare (Barthod et al, 2018;Giannitsopoulos et al, 2020) 5.2. Ecosystem services Soils provide vital ecosystem services, rendering both economic and societal benefits (Adhikari and Hartemink, 2016;Dominati et al, 2010;Pavan and Ometto, 2018;Su et al, 2018).…”

Three-Year Investigation of Tillage Management on the Soil Physical Environment, Earthworm Populations and Crop Yields in Croatia

“…The soil cover protects soil agronomic structure [17]. According to results from eight experimental years, Dekemati et al (2019a) [18] pointed out that deep tine cultivation (DC) provided significantly higher crumb ratio (80.5%) as compared to ploughing (P) (70.0%), however there was no difference between DC and shallow tine cultivation (SC).…”