Abstract

Shallow cultivation to a depth of 5-7 cm has in the last years become a realistic alternative to common ploughless tillage (cultivation depth 1 0-15 cm), especially in Great Britain, France and Germany. Shallow cultivation means avoiding unnecessary soil loosening, preserving the soils natural structure, increasing activity in the top layer and decreasing fuel consumption with less power requirement. Two years ago VäderstadVerken AB developed a tillage tool for shallow cultivation called Rexius Carrier with System Disc. The tool consists of a heavy roller and a front tool called Systern Disc. The front tool includes two rows of concave, close mounted discs, which combined with a trave1ing speed of 10-14 km/h leaves a well leveled, 100 % work through, top layer. The aim of this thesis was to test shallow cultivation with Rexius Carrier under Swedish conditions, as autumn cultivation and as spring cultivation after a catch crop. This thesis includes the results of three different series of field experiments. The first, "Minimized autumn tillage to a spring crop", R2-4122, was started in the autumn 2000. The result of the trial showed the highest yield for mouldboard ploughing and the lowest for the shallow cultivation, with deeper ploughless tillage in between. The second series, "Spring seeding without autumn tillage, including a catch crop", R2- 4123, was started in the spring of 2001. The series contained three experiments on sites with different clay contents, and compared autumn and spring ploughing with ploughless tillage to different depths and with different tillage intensities. The shallow cultivation performed well in this comparison. Despite a less suitable seedbed, plant establishment and crop yield in the shallow cultivated plots was nearly as high as for autumn ploughing. The weed population was greatly reduced in the shallow cultivated plots. The spring ploughed plots had less sui1able seedbed properties, poorer germination, more weed and lower crop yield than autumn ploughed plots. The third series, "Shallow cultivation to winter seed", started in the autumn of 200 1. In this series conventional mouldboard ploughing was compared with shallow cultivation with Rexius Carrier, chisel ploughing with and without roller and heavy disc harrow with and without roller. Before the second cultivation the germination of weeds and volunteers was counted, without any differences between different treatments. Before the seeding, the amount of straw and stubble on the surface was compared using digital image analysis. No differences between the treatments were found. After the seeding, the seedbed properties and the plant establishment was determined. Due to the large amount of rain that fell in the autumn, which had an equalizing effect on the analyzed parameters, no significant differences between the treatments were found. The trials has shown that only shallow cultivation before seeding can give good opportunities for the following crop. The trial R2-4123 showed that shallow spring cultivation after a catch crop can maintain harvest yield compared to conventional mouldboard ploughing. Shallow autumn cultivation has a future as an alternative to conventional methods. The plant establishment were quite comparable despite the large amount of rain that fell in the autumn

Keywords

jordbearbetning; grund bearbetning; plöjningsfri bearbetning; bearbetningsdjup; fältförsök; Rexius Carrier

Published in

Meddelanden från Jordbearbetningsavdelningen
2002, number: 39
Publisher: Institutionen för markvetenskap, Avdelningen för jordbearbetning

UKÄ Subject classification

Agricultural Science

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/30028