Effect of reduced primary tillage on maize (zeamays l.) productivity

• Main Authors: Romaneckas, Kęstutis, Avižienytė, Dovilė, Bogužas, Vaclovas, Šarauskis, Egidijus
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: Subarctic
• Online Access: http://asu.lvb.lt/ASU:ELABAPDB2892948&prefLang=en_US

The long-term stationary field experiment was carried out at the Experimental Station of the Aleksandras Stulginskis University (ASU, 54°52' N, 23°49' E) since 1988. Investigations take 2010-2012 maize growing seasons. Soil of field experiment was light silty loam Planosol (Endohypogleyic-Eutric - Ple-gln-w) Climate of experimental site is subarctic, transitional maritime- continental. Average annual temperature is 6.2° C. The aim of the experiment was to establish the influence of reduced primary (in autumn) soil tillage on maize productivity. The plots of experiments were: 1. conventionally (22-25 cm) ploughed with a mouldboard plough; 2. shallowly (12-15 cm) ploughed with a mouldboard plough; 3. deeply (25-30 cm) tilled with a chisel cultivator; 4. shallowly (10-12 cm) tilled with a disc harrow; 5. no-tilled. 19th Baltic Agronomy Forum The results of experiment showed that, deep chiseling had stable negative influence on biometric parameters of maize canopy, no-till - mostly positive. During first two years of experiment (2010-2011) reducing of soil tillage intensity often leads high and similar maize productivity as in deeply ploughed soil. In 2012 reduced soil tillage mostly had negative significant effect on yields of maize biomass and grain, however no-till insignificantly decreased dry biomass of maize canopy and mass of 1000 kernels. Such results were influenced by the cumulative effect of three years too humid vegetation conditions and surplus water on the soil surface. There were found strong and significant relations between height of maize canopy and dry biomass of cobs, leaves and stems, total dry biomass of canopy, yield of grain and mass of 1000 kernels (r=0.905**; 0.893**; 0.920**; 0.893**; 0.713**). Variation of maize crop density from 56.0 to 75.2 thousand plants per ha had insignificant effect on maize productivity parameters.