Impact of conventional and conservation tillage practices in rice mustard black gram cropping system on soil quality

Abstract

newline An investigation entitled Impact of conventional and conservation tillage practices in rice-mustard-black gram cropping system on soil quality was conducted at Experimental Field Division of Soil Science and Agriculture Chemistry, SKUAST-Jammu, during the two successive years 2021-2022 and 2022-2023.The treatment comprises of four levels of tillage viz., T1(Zero tillage), T2 (Conventional tillage), T3 (Zero tillage + straw addition) and T4 (Conventional tillage + straw incorporation and five levels of fertilizer doses i.e. F1 (100% RDF), F2 (100% RDF + Microbial consortia), F3 (100% RDF+25% starter dose of N), F5 (75% RDF+FYM at5t/ha) and F5 (75% RDF +Microbial consortia) constituting 20 treatment combinations replicated thrice in factorial randomized block design. Results indicated that zero tillage with straw addition (ZT+SA) and conventional tillage with straw incorporation (CT+SI) significantly improved soil pH, infiltration rate, water stable aggregates, cation exchange capacity, and enzyme activities compared to conventional tillage (CT) and zero tillage (ZT) alone. These practices also led to higher levels of organic carbon, nitrogen, sulphur, and other essential nutrients in the soil. Yield and yield attributing characters were highest under CT+SI, followed by ZT+SA, CT, and ZT, with the lowest values observed under ZT. Nutrient uptake, especially nitrogen was found highest in CT+SI, followed by other tillage practices, whereas phosphorus, and potassium, was highest under ZT+SA followed by CT+SI, ZT, and CT. The F3 nutrient dose (100% RDF+25% starter dose of nitrogen) consistently resulted in higher nutrient uptake and yields across all crops. Overall, conservation tillage practices along with straw incorporation, particularly CT+SI and ZT+SA, proved to be more effective in improving soil health and crop productivity compared to conventional tillage or no tillage alone. newline newline