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. 2021 Feb 25;11(1):4611.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-84191-z.

Tillage effects on soil properties and crop yield after land reclamation

Zhe Liu  1   2   3   4 , Shiliu Cao  1 , Zenghui Sun  5   6   7   8 , Huanyuan Wang  1   2   3   4 , Shaodong Qu  1   2   3   4 , Na Lei  1   2   3   4 , Jing He  1   2   3   4 , Qiguang Dong  1   2   3   4
Affiliations

Tillage effects on soil properties and crop yield after land reclamation

Zhe Liu et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Tillage treatments have an important effect on soil microstructure characteristics, water thermal properties and nutrients, but little is known in the newly reclaimed cultivated land. For the reason, a long-term field study was to evaluate the tillage effects on soil physicochemical properties and crop yield in newly reclaimed cultivated land via the macroscopic and microscopic analysis. Three tillage treatments were tested: continuous conventional moldboard plow tillage (CT), sub-soiling/moldboard-tillage/sub-soiling tillage (ST) and no-tillage/sub-soiling/no-tillage (NT). Under CT, the microstructure was dominated by weakly separated plates structure and showed highest bulk density (BD) (1.49 g cm-3) and lowest soil organic matter (SOM) (3.68 g kg-1). In addition, CT reduced the capacity of soil moisture retention and temperature maintenance, resulting in aggregate structure deterioration and fragility. Unlike CT, the soil was characterized by moderately separated granular structure and highly separated aggregate structure under conservation tillage practice of ST and NT. NT was associated with the highest soil moisture content (20.42%), highest quantity of macroaggregates (> 0.25 mm) by wet-sieving (34.07%), and highest SOM (6.48 g kg-1) in the surface layer. Besides, NT was better able to regulate soil temperature and improved the values of geometric mean diameter. Under NT and ST, a stable soil structure with compound aggregates and pores was formed, and the maize yield was increased by 12.9% and 14.9% compared with CT, up to 8512.6 kg ha-1 and 8740.9 kg ha-1, respectively. These results demonstrated the positive effects of NT and ST on soil quality and crop yield in newly reclaimed cultivated land.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
SOC and TN concentration in different tillage treatments. CT continuous conventional moldboard-tillage, NT no-tillage/sub-soiling/no-tillage, ST sub-soiling/moldboard-tillage/sub-soiling tillage, SOM soil organic matter, TN total nitrogen. Different lowercase letters represent significant differences between different tillage treatments in the same soil layer.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Aggregate size distribution under different tillage treatments. CT continuous conventional moldboard-tillage, NT no-tillage/sub-soiling/no-tillage, ST sub-soiling/moldboard-tillage/sub-soiling tillage. Different lowercase letters represent significant differences between different tillage treatments in the same particle-size aggregates.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Comparison of tillage treatments on BD and SMC at different soil layers. CT continuous conventional moldboard-tillage, NT no-tillage/sub-soiling/no-tillage, ST sub-soiling/moldboard-tillage/sub-soiling tillage, BD soil bulk density, SMC soil moisture content. Different lowercase letters represent significant differences between different tillage treatments in the same soil layer.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Comparison of tillage treatments on soil temperature at different soil layers. CT continuous conventional moldboard-tillage, NT no-tillage/sub-soiling/no-tillage, ST sub-soiling/moldboard-tillage/sub-soiling tillage.
Figure 5
Figure 5
SEM images of soil under different tillage treatments. CT continuous conventional moldboard-tillage, NT no-tillage/sub-soiling/no-tillage, ST sub-soiling/moldboard-tillage/sub-soiling tillage, SEM environmental scanning electron microscope. Images were observed at the voltage of 10 kV with 1000 magnification times.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Location maps of the sampling site in the Shaanxi Province The map was produced using ESRI ArcGIS software (version 10.3; http://www.esri.com/sofware/arcgis/arcgis-for-desktop).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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