Influence of farming systems and soil tillage on available moisture stocks of typical black soil in spring wheat crops

• Published in: PLANT AND SOIL SCIENCE Vol. 12; no. 3; pp. 38 - 47
• Main Authors: Tanchyk, S.P., Dudka, O. A., Pavlov, O. S., Babenko, A. I.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• ISSN: 2706-7688; 2706-7696
• DOI: 10.31548/agr2021.03.038

Numerous studies by Ukrainian and foreign scientists have shown that one of the limiting factors for obtaining a stable yield of any crop is the reserves of available moisture in the soil, especially in critical periods of plant growth. The article presents the results of research on the impact of three farming systems – industrial (control), ecological and biological and four options for primary soil tillage – plowing by 20–22 cm (control), chiseling by 20–22 cm, disking by 10–12 cm, disking for 6–8 cm on the reserves of productive moisture in the soil for growing spring durum wheat. According to research, it is established that the highest moisture reserves in a meter of soil for the period of sowing wheat was obtained by combining the biological farming system and chisel tillage, which allowed to accumulate in 2018 – 199.1 mm, 2019 – 179.6 and 2020 – 159.9 mm of available moisture in the soil. The use of chisel tillage in combination with industrial and organic farming systems also provides an advantage in all years of observations over plowing combinations and both disking options with these systems. During the growing season, against the background of all studied agricultural systems, use of chiseling and disking provided the highest reserves of available moisture in the soil. However, the best option should be considered a combination of ecological farming system with chiseling by 20–22 cm, which provided for the flowering period in 2018 – 74.0 mm of moisture, 2019 – 93.7 and 2020 – 90.9 mm, and for the harvest period culture, these indicators were, respectively, 61.0, 67.7 and 61.6 mm. The grain yield of spring durum wheat in this variant was significantly the highest in the experiment and was, respectively, 4.6, 6.7 and 5.6 t/ha.