Rainfall Intensification Enhances Deep Percolation and Soil Water Content in Tilled and No-Till Cropping Systems of the US Midwest

The effects of tillage and crop rotation on the soil carbon, the soil bulk density, the porosity and the soil water content were evaluated during the 6th season of an on-going field trial at the University of Fort Hare Farm (UFH), South Africa. Two tillage systems; conventional tillage (CT) and no-till and crop rotations; maize (Zea mays L.)-fallow-maize (MFM), maize-fallow-soybean (Glycine max L.) (MFS); maize-wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)-maize (MWM) and maize-wheat-soybean (MWS) were evaluated. The field experiment was a 2 × 4 factorial, laid out in a randomised complete design. The crop residues were retained for the no-till plots and incorporated for the CT plots, after each cropping season. No significant effects (P > 0.05) of the tillage and crop rotation on the bulk density were observed. However, the values ranged from 1.32 to1.37 g/cm3. Significant interaction effects of the tillage and crop rotation were observed on the soil porosity (P < 0.01) and the soil water content (P < 0.05). The porosity for the MFM and the MWS, was higher under the CT whereas for the MWM and the MWS, it was higher under the no-till. However, the greatest porosity was under the MWS. Whilst the no-till significantly increased (P < 0.05) the soil water content compared to the CT; the greatest soil water content was observed when the no-till was combined with the MWM rotations. The soil organic carbon (SOC) was increased more (P < 0.05) by the no-till than the CT, and the MFM consistently had the least SOC compared with the rest of the crop rotations, at all the sampling depths (0–5, 5–10 and 10–20 cm). The soil bulk density negatively correlated with the soil porosity and the soil water content, whereas the porosity positively correlated with the soil water content. The study concluded that the crop rotations, the MWM and the MWS under the no-till coupled with the residue retention improved the soil porosity and the soil water content levels the most.

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Enhancing Soil Water Content for Increased Food Production in Semi-Arid Areas of Kenya Results From an On-Farm Trial in Mwala District, Kenya

Journal of Agricultural Science ◽

10.5539/jas.v6n4p125 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 6 (4) ◽

pp. 125 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Anne Karuma ◽

Peter Mtakwa ◽

Nyambilila Amuri ◽

Charles K. Gachene ◽

Patrick Gicheru

Keyword(s):

Soil Moisture ◽

Water Content ◽

Soil Water ◽

Soil Water Content ◽

Water Conservation ◽

Crop Yields ◽

Conservation Tillage ◽

Cropping Systems ◽

Soil Conditions ◽

Tillage Methods

Soil water conservation through tillage is one of the appropriate ways of addressing soil moisture deficit in rainfed agriculture. This study evaluated the effects of tillage practices on soil moisture conservation and crop yields in Mwala District, Eastern Kenya during the long rains (LR) and short rains (SR) of 2012/13. Six tillage systems: Disc plough (MB), Disc plough and harrowing (MBH), Ox-ploughing (OX), Subsoiling – ripping (SR), Hand hoe and Tied Ridges (HTR) and Hand hoe only (H) and, three cropping systems namely, sole maize, sole bean and maize - bean intercrop, were investigated in a split-plot design with four replicates. Data on soil water content was monitored at different weeks after planting and the crop yields at end of each growing season. A three-season average shows that soil water content and crop yields were higher in conventional tillage methods compared to the conservation tillage methods. Long term tillage experiments are thus required at different locations, under various environmental and soil conditions to validate the study findings.

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Systems for Returning Conservation Reserve Program Land to Wheat (Triticum aestivum) Production

Weed Technology ◽

10.1017/s0890037x00043839 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 286-292 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Case Medlin ◽

Thomas F. Peeper ◽

James H. Stiegler ◽

John B. Solie

Keyword(s):

Triticum Aestivum ◽

Water Content ◽

Soil Water ◽

Soil Water Content ◽

Conservation Reserve Program ◽

Tillage Systems ◽

Wheat Production ◽

No Till ◽

Seedbed Preparation ◽

Moldboard Plow

Experiments were conducted near Duke and Forgan, OK, on land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve program (CRP) that had been seeded to Old World bluestem (OWB) to evaluate tillage systems for returning CRP grassland to winter wheat production. Glyphosate controlled OWB 72% or less in no-till (NT) wheat. Disk tillage (DT) and moldboard plow tillage (MPT) for wheat seedbed preparation controlled OWB 87 and 99%, respectively, at Forgan and 96 and 100%, respectively, at Duke. At Forgan, OWB control in NT was higher when glyphosate was applied in July than when applied in May. Soil water content to a depth of 120 cm at planting was as high in DT and MPT without herbicide as in NT with 1,680 g ae/ha glyphosate. Within NT and MPT, glyphosate did not consistently increase soil water content compared to the respective nontreated checks. In DT, soil water content to a depth of 120 cm was greater following glyphosate at 1,680 g/ ha than without glyphosate. Wheat density was greater in DT and MPT than in NT. Compared to the NT no herbicide treatment, tillage tripled wheat yields. Wheat yields were often greater where glyphosate was applied before tillage. No-till wheat production immediately after CPR in Oklahoma without prior destruction of accumulated OWB residue does not appear feasible.

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Modelling Projected Changes in Soil Water Budget in Coastal Kenya under Different Long-Term Climate Change Scenarios

Water ◽

10.3390/w12092455 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (9) ◽

pp. 2455

Author(s):

Cornelius Okello ◽

Nicolas Greggio ◽

Beatrice Maria Sole Giambastiani ◽

Nina Wambiji ◽

Julius Nzeve ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Content ◽

Soil Water ◽

Soil Water Content ◽

Water Budget ◽

Clay Soil ◽

Soil Column ◽

Climate Change Scenarios ◽

Deep Percolation ◽

Rcp 8.5

The possible impacts that climate change will have on soil water budget and specifically on deep percolation, runoff and soil water content have been investigated using HYDRUS, a methodology based on numerical modelling simulations of vertical water movement in a homogenous soil column on a flat surface. This study was carried out on four typical soil types occurring on the Kenyan coast and the adjacent hinterlands of up to an elevation of 200 m above sea level (m a.s.l.) covered by five weather stations (two dry and three wet stations). Results show that deep percolation and runoff are expected to be higher in 2100 for both Relative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 2.6 and 8.5 scenarios than they were for the reference period (1986–2005). The average deep percolation is expected to increase by 14% for RCP 2.6 and 10% for the RCP 8.5, while the average runoff is expected to increase by 188% and 284% for the same scenarios. Soil water content is expected to either increase marginally or reduce depend in the same scenarios. The average soil water content is also expected to increase by 1% in the RCP 2.6 scenario and to decrease by 2% in the RCP 8.5 scenario. Increase in deep percolation through clay soil is expected to be the largest (29% in both scenarios), while sandy and sandy clay soil are expected to be the least influenced with an average increase of only 2%. Climate change is expected to impact runoff mostly in sandy soils, whereas the least affected would be clay loam soils. These results further support the assertion that the change in climate is expected to impact the recharge of aquifers by triggering an increase in infiltration under both scenarios.

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The Structure and Diversity of Nitrogen Functional Groups from Different Cropping Systems in Yellow River Delta

Microorganisms ◽

10.3390/microorganisms8030424 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 (3) ◽

pp. 424 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Huan He ◽

Yongjun Miao ◽

Lvqing Zhang ◽

Yu Chen ◽

Yandong Gan ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Water Content ◽

Soil Water ◽

Soil Water Content ◽

Yellow River ◽

Cropping Systems ◽

Yellow River Delta ◽

N Cycling ◽

River Delta ◽

Ammonia Oxidizer ◽

Rotation System

The Yellow River Delta (YRD) region is an important production base in Shandong Province. It encompasses an array of diversified crop systems, including the corn–wheat rotation system (Wheat–Corn), soybean–corn rotation system (Soybean–Corn), fruits or vegetables system (Fruit), cotton system (Cotton) and rice system (Rice). In this study, the communities of ammonia oxidizer–, denitrifier– and nitrogen (N)–fixing bacteria in those cropping systems were investigated by Illumina Miseq sequencing. We found that Rice soil exhibited significantly higher diversity indices of investigated N–cycling microbial communities than other crop soils, possibly due to its high soil water content. Wheat–Corn soils had higher abundances of nitrification gene amoA and denitrification genes nirK and nirS, and exhibited higher soil potential nitrification rate (PNR), compared with Soybean–Corn, Cotton and Fruit soils. Consistently, redundancy analysis (RDA) showed that soil water content (SWC), electrical conductivity (EC), and total nitrogen (TN) were the most important influencing factors of the diversity and structure of the investigated N–cycling microbial.

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The sensitivity of CRNS and Sentinel-2 products to detect differences in soil water content along a toposequence with two contrasting parent materials

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-5003 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Leticia Gaspar ◽

Trenton Franz ◽

Ivan Lizaga ◽

Borja Latorre ◽

Ana Navas

Keyword(s):

Soil Moisture ◽

Water Content ◽

Soil Water ◽

Soil Water Content ◽

Parent Material ◽

Low Permeability ◽

Parent Materials ◽

The Us ◽

Neutron Sensors ◽

Sentinel 2

Soil moisture controls hydrological processes in natural and agricultural systems. A clear understanding of their temporal dynamics and spatial variability is essential to control soil degradation processes, irrigation management and water use efficiency. In recent years, the measurement of soil water content (SWC) with ground-based neutron sensors and remote sensing products have become promising non-invasive methods for different spatial scales. In this study, we are investigating the sensitivity of using cosmic ray neutron sensor (CRNS) and Sentinel-2 SWC index for quantifying different dynamics of soil moisture along a toposequence with underlying contrasting parent materials. For this study, three sites were selected in the upper section (US) soils on limestones correspond to Muschelkalk facies, and another three in the lower section (LS) siliciclastic materials composed of low-permeability marls and claystone formation with primarily silty clay texture (Keuper facies). During two surveys, which correspond to wet (spring 2018/05/05) and dry conditions (summer 2018/08/05), a set of soil moisture data were obtained by using i) portable CRNS backpack, ii) satellite-based information and iii) HS200 sensor Delta-T Devices. The physical composition of the studied soils reflects the clear difference in parent material, with mean content of soil organic carbon of 6% in US against 1% in LW, while the mean clay content was lower in US (21%) than in LS (26%). The infiltration measurements also show different responses for water infiltration capacity, with a much higher mean value of hydraulic conductivity for the soils in the US (317 mm per day), reflecting the karst features, than in the LS (35 mm per day) corresponding to the siliciclastic materials. Our results show similar trends during the two surveys, obtaining significantly lower soil water content on limestones at the US where infiltration processes prevailed thus facilitating leaching and limiting runoff. In contrast, the higher soil water content was on siliciclastic soils at the LS where the low permeability of soils due to the clayed substrate promoted increased runoff. Focusing on the comparison of soil moisture data obtained during the wet and dry surveys, a soil characteristic dependency is observed, with a more different soil moisture state on siliciclastic soils (LS) between the two surveys than for the soils on limestones. Our preliminary results pinpoint that CRNS, Sentinel-2 index and field data captured soil moisture dynamics along the toposequence and demonstrated the sensitivity of neutron sensors and remote sensing products to investigate the effect of parent material on soil water content at sampling scale.

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Influence of Crop Growth Stages and Management Practices on Soil Water Content at Different Soil Depths under Dryland Conditions

Journal of Agricultural Science ◽

10.5539/jas.v9n11p88 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 9 (11) ◽

pp. 88

Author(s):

E. T. Sebetha ◽

A. T. Modi

Keyword(s):

Water Content ◽

Soil Water ◽

Soil Water Content ◽

Soil Depth ◽

Cropping Systems ◽

Block Design ◽

Gravimetric Method ◽

Crop Growth ◽

Growth Stages ◽

Crop Growth Stages

Soil water loss through evaporation plays a role on low crop productivity and this is due to poor cropping systems and soil surface coverage. The study was carried out at three locations of North-West province of South Africa, which were Potchefstroom, Taung and Rustenburg during 2011/12 and 2012/13 planting seasons. The experimental design was a factorial experiment laid out in a randomised complete block design (RCBD) with three replicates. The experiment consisted of five cropping systems, which were monocropping cowpea, monocropping maize, cowpea followed by maize in rotation, maize followed by cowpea in rotation and intercropping maize-cowpea. The three crop growth stages compared in this study were before tasselling/flowering, during tasselling/pod formation and during physiological maturity of maize and cowpea. Soil was sampled for the 0-0.15, 0.15-0.3, 0.3-0.6 and 0.6-0.9 m depth increments and soil water content determined using the Gravimetric method. The crop growth stage before tasselling/flowering in maize/cowpea had significantly (P < 0.05) higher water content of 10.2, 10.8, 12.5 and 13.3% at the depth of 0-0.15, 0.15-0.3, 0.3-0.6 and 0.6-0.9 m respectively. Soil collected at Rustenburg and Potchefstroom had significantly (P < 0.05) higher water content of 13.5 and 10.2; 15.9 and 10.9; 18.3 and 12.8; 18.4 and 14.5% at the depths of 0-0.15, 0.15-0.3, 0.3-0.6 and 0.6-0.9 m respectively. Monocropping cowpea plots had significantly (P < 0.05) higher water content of 12.4% than other cropping systems at the soil depth of 0.3-0.6 m. Monocropping plots of cowpea had the ability to hold soil water and this depends on the type of cowpea cultivar and canopy cover. The stage before tasselling/flowering of maize-cowpea (V10/Vn) was found to have high soil water content. Soil water content differs across locations due to different soil physical properties.

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Effects of Tillage on Sicklepod (Cassia obtusifolia) Interference with Soybeans (Glycine max) and Soil Water Use

Weed Science ◽

10.1017/s0043174500026618 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 34 (1) ◽

pp. 143-149 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Philip A. Banks ◽

Timothy N. Tripp ◽

Jerry W. Wells ◽

John E. Hammel

Keyword(s):

Glycine Max ◽

Water Content ◽

Soil Water ◽

Soil Water Content ◽

Water Use ◽

Water Loss ◽

Field Experiments ◽

Soil Water Depletion ◽

Cassia Obtusifolia ◽

No Till

Field experiments were conducted during 1980, 1981, and 1982 to evaluate the effect of tillage and sicklepod density on sicklepod (Cassia obtusifoliaL. # CASOB) interference with soybeans [Glycine max(L.) Merr.] and soil water use. In the absence of sicklepod, soybean yields were similar in nontilled plots covered with a straw mulch and in conventionally tilled plots with no mulch in all years. In the presence of sicklepod, higher soybean yields were obtained with the non-tilled-mulched plots than with the tilled plots at corresponding sicklepod densities and sicklepod fresh weights. Early soil water loss was greater in the tilled plots with increasing sicklepod density causing lower soil water content in both tillage treatments. Soil water depletion was greater in the no-till treatments during the soybean pod-filling stage.

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