engleski

Investigation of reduced soil tillage for some arable crops in eastern Croatia I Possibilities of rational soil tillage for winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) in Baranja region

During of recent twenty years, reduced soil tillage for the main arable crops (winter wheat, barley, maize, soybean) on the arable land of the main agricultural region in the Eastern Croatia, has been paid more and more attention to, mainly relating to economical and energetical aspects (expense, high fuel- consuming production). Research works and large scale production in this area have proved some possibilities, but regarding to wide spectrum of soil types (chernosem, eutric cambisol, lessive soils, lessive-pseudogley, primary- pseudogley, alluvial and humogley near rivers Sava, Drava and Danube), more complex experiments are needed. Within that purposes, a new experiments have been established, and part of results, regarding winter wheat, is presented in this paper. Stationary investigations with winter wheat – maize – soybean crop rotation have been carried out on chernosem soil type, on the arable land of agricultural state farm “Belje” (“Kneževo” unit) in Baranja, near Hungarian border. The experiments were started in 1998, with the following soil tillage treatments for w. wheat after maize: 1) Conventional, standard soil tillage comprising ploughing (25-30 cm), diskharrowing, classical seed-bed preparation by combination seed harrow (spike tooth-harrow + rotary harrow) and sowing ; 2) Only diskharrowing and seed-bed preparation followed by sowing, like at var. 1 ; 3) Diskharrowing combined by loosening of chisel ploughing (by subsoiler chisels up to 30 cm deep for winter wheat, 40 cm spacing between chisels) and seed- bed preparation, like at var. 1 ; 4) Only roughly diskharrowing, without fine seed-bed preparation, and sowing by No-till planter John Deere 750A. The basic plot size was 900 m2 (18x50), the trial was as monofactorial, carried out as randomised plots in four replications. Fertilisation was uniform for the whole trial and based on 174 kg N, 105 kg P2O5 and 70 kg K2O/ha. Variety “Demetra” (creation of the Agricultural Institute Osijek) was sown with 700 germinating kernels per square meter, on November 17 1998 (optimum sowing time). Plant protection against weeds, diseases (Erisiphe graminis, Fusarium graminearum) and pests (Lema melanopus) has been uniformed, and carried out by standard pesticides. Climatically, the year 1998/99 was pretty unfavourable for winter wheat large- scale production (wet autumn and winter, surplus rainfall in May and June, attack of spike diseases) and the grain yields were as average. The standard, conventional tillage gave 5.95 ; var. 2 = 6.11 ; var. 3 = 5.85 ; and var. 4 = 6.02 t/ha. The differences among tillage treatments were non-significant (LSD0.05=0.65 t/ha). It could be concluded that, according to grain yields, all tillage treatments are acceptable at the Baranja’s chernosem, thus providing more sustainable winter wheat production through lower fuel-consumption and higher tillage efficiency.

reduced tillage ; winter wheat ; standard conventional tillage ; diskharrowing ; diskharrowing and chisel ploughing ; no-tillage

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