Effects of reduced tillage on (cash) crop yields, soil quality and other ecosystem services : results from 2009 till 2022 of the long term experiment BASIS, the Netherlands

Decreasing soil quality, worsened by climate change-related weather extremes, is prompting the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture's aim for sustainable management of all agricultural soils by 2030. One proposed practice for this goal is reduced tillage, which offers potential benefits such as improved soil structure and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. However reduced tillage comes with potential drawbacks such as topsoil compaction and yield reduction. While global meta-analyses mainly focus on effects of reduced tillage in North and South American cash crops, like grains, maize and soy, this lon... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Dekkers, M.S.
Trip, Martine
van Balen, Derk
Huizinga, Kris
Haagsma, Wiepie
Sprangers, Timo
Wesselink, Marie
Dokumenttyp: report
Erscheinungsdatum: 2023
Verlag/Hrsg.: Wageningen Plant Research
Schlagwörter: Life Science
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-27223995
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : https://research.wur.nl/en/publications/effects-of-reduced-tillage-on-cash-crop-yields-soil-quality-and-o

Decreasing soil quality, worsened by climate change-related weather extremes, is prompting the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture's aim for sustainable management of all agricultural soils by 2030. One proposed practice for this goal is reduced tillage, which offers potential benefits such as improved soil structure and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. However reduced tillage comes with potential drawbacks such as topsoil compaction and yield reduction. While global meta-analyses mainly focus on effects of reduced tillage in North and South American cash crops, like grains, maize and soy, this long-term Dutch farming systems experiment called BASIS is unique in its focus on Dutch small seeded, root and tuber crops. The BASIS experiment, established in 2009 by Wageningen University and Research in Lelystad, consists of three organic and two conventional fields with common Dutch crop rotations. In BASIS we experiment with three tillage systems: conventional tillage with mouldboard plough (CT), reduced tillage with sub-soiling (RTS), and reduced tillage without sub-soiling (RT). Reduced tillage with shallow ploughing was added (RT/SPL) later in the experiment. The experiment employs controlled traffic farming (CTF) and is a randomized complete block design with four replicates per tillage system and field. In the BASIS experiment a system approach is used; this allowed for the experiment to be optimized during the project period. Effects of reduced tillage on ecosystems services such as yield, yield quality and soil quality were investigated. Overall, reduced tillage systems showed comparable or higher marketable yield for most crops, except for fineseeded crops like carrots and onions. The Twinrotor tiller seems a viable option in reduced tillage systems to create a finer seedbed and reduce the yield gap of carrots between reduced and conventional tillage. The influence of extreme weather conditions on reduced tillage effects varied, with yields sometimes higher and sometimes lower compared to conventional tillage. ...