The influence of previous crops and tillage on available moisture reserves of chernozem typical for growing spring barley

Abstract

The unstable yield of agricultural crops arises due to insufficient soil moisture supply at crucial moments of plant emergence and growth, complicating agriculture and exposing it to the risk of crop losses. The purpose of the study is to determine the impact of the soil tillage system and previous crops on the productivity of spring barley plants. This was a long-term stationary experiment (2021-2023) with the application of statistical data processing. The influence of four previous crops was investigated – grain maize (control), soybeans, winter rapeseed, and sunflower – and three main soil tillage methods. It is established that the highest significant moisture reserves in the 0-100 cm soil layer at the sowing period were formed when spring barley was placed after soybeans, exceeding the control variant (grain maize) by 3.2 mm in 2021, 3.6 mm in 2022, and 3.4 mm in 2023, and after winter rapeseed by 8.5 mm, 6 mm, and 5.7 mm, respectively, over the years. The use of shallow no-till cultivation provided an advantage over the control (ploughing) in all years of observation: by 2.2 mm in 2021, 1.8 mm in 2022, and 8.8 mm in 2023. During the sowing period of the studied crop, the control surpassed only surface no-till cultivation by 2.7 mm in 2022. The optimal option should be considered the combination of soybeans as a previous crop with shallow no-till soil cultivation at 14-16 cm, which ensured moisture reserves during the earing period of the crop in 2021 – 75.1 mm, in 2022 – 93.2 mm, and in 2023 – 92.2 mm, and at the time of harvest, these indicators were 60.7 mm, 67.3 mm, and 60.0 mm, respectively. The grain yield of spring barley under this option was the highest in the experiment, averaging 7.26 t/ha, which is 27.3% higher than the control. The results of the study can be used to realise the genetic potential of spring barley plants to form stable productivity