Purpose: to study the influence of soil cultivation methods on soil moisture-temperature regime and the winter wheat yield under conditions of insufficient and unstable moisture. Materials and methods: the study of various primary soil tillage methods was carried out under the conditions of long-term stationary experience in 2017–2019 on the isolated field of Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution “Asovsliy Scientific Centre “Donskoy” (southern zone of Rostov region). The cultivated crop is Stanichnaya variety winter wheat, the predecessor is peas. The experimental site soil is ordinary calcareous heavy loamy chernozem. The studied tillage methods are surface, shallow, moldboard and zero (direct seeding). The method for determining the relative humidity and soil temperature in an autonomous mode was based on the use of Watch Dog 1400 Micro meteorological stations (recorders) from Spectrum Technologies, Inc., the soil moisture and temperature sensors were located at a depth of 30 cm. At the same time, the air humidity and temperature and the accumulation precipitation were monitored. Results: it was found that in the southern zone of Rostov region, zero tillage throughout the entire observation period provides high moisture conservation, preventing soil overheating, at the same time allowing to obtain a consistently high yield of winter wheat, which compares favorably with other tillage methods. Conclusions: comparison of various tillage methods with leading in all indicators zero tillage allowed to establish that, on average, with surface tillage, soil moisture is lower by 17.75 %, soil temperature is higher by 4.12 %, and yield is lower by 8.37 %. With shallow tillage, the soil moisture is 20.12 % lower, the soil temperature is 12.19 % higher, and the yield is 12.14 % lower. With the moldboard method, soil moisture is lower by 13.19 %, the soil temperature is higher by 11.48 %, and the yield is lower by 5.44 %.
Influence of soil tillage and weed suppression on winter wheat yield
