DSpace Repository

Winter barley performance under different cropping and tillage systems in semiarid Aragon (NE Spain)

Show simple item record

dc.creator Moret-Fernández, David
dc.creator Arrúe Ugarte, José Luis
dc.creator López Sánchez, María Victoria
dc.creator Gracia Ballarín, Ricardo
dc.date 2008-06-11T13:21:11Z
dc.date 2008-06-11T13:21:11Z
dc.date 2007-01
dc.date.accessioned 2017-01-31T01:39:33Z
dc.date.available 2017-01-31T01:39:33Z
dc.identifier European Journal of Agronomy, Volume 26, Issue 1, January 2007, Pages 54-63
dc.identifier 1161-0301
dc.identifier http://hdl.handle.net/10261/4997
dc.identifier 10.1016/j.eja.2006.08.007
dc.identifier.uri http://dspace.mediu.edu.my:8181/xmlui/handle/10261/4997
dc.description The definitive version is available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/11610301
dc.description Winter barley is the major crop on semiarid drylands in central Aragon (NE Spain). In this study we compared, under both continuous cropping (BC) (5–6-month fallow) and a crop–fallow rotation (BF) (16–18-month fallow), the effects of three fallow management treatments (conventional tillage, CT; reduced tillage, RT; no-tillage, NT) on the growth, yield and water use efficiency (WUE) of winter barley during three consecutive growing seasons in the 1999–2002 period. Daily precipitation measurements and monthly measurements of soil water storage to a depth of 0.7 m were used to calculate crop water use (ET) and its components. The average growing season precipitation was 195 mm. Above-ground dry matter (DM) and corresponding WUE were high in years with high effective rainfalls (>10 mm day−1) either in autumn or spring. However, the highest values of WUE for grain yield were mainly produced by effective rainfalls during the time from stem elongation to harvest. Despite the similarity in ET for the three tillage treatments, NT provided the lowest DM production, corresponding to a higher soil water loss by evaporation and lower crop transpiration (T), indicated by the lowest T/ET ratio values found under this treatment. No clear differences in crop yield were observed among the tillage treatments in the study period. On average, and regardless of the type of tillage, BF provided the highest values of DM and WUE and yielded 49% more grain than BC. These differences between cropping systems increased when water-limiting conditions occurred in the early stages of crop growth, probably due to the additional soil water storage under BF at sowing. Although no significant differences in precipitation use efficiency (PUE) were observed between BC and BF, PUE was higher under the BC system, which yielded 34% more grain than the BF rotation when yields were adjusted to an annual basis including the length of the fallow. The crop yield under BF was not dependent on the increase in soil water storage at the end of the long fallow. In conclusion, this study has shown that, although conventional tillage can be substituted by reduced or no-tillage systems for fallow management in semiarid dryland cereal production areas in central Aragon, the practice of long-fallowing to increase the cereal crop yields is not longer sustainable.
dc.description This research was funded by the Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología of Spain (grants AGF98-0261-C02-02 and AGL 2001-2238-C02-01 and PNFPI predoctoral fellowship awarded to the first author) and the European Union (FEDER funds).
dc.description Peer reviewed
dc.format 215329 bytes
dc.format application/pdf
dc.language eng
dc.publisher Elsevier
dc.rights openAccess
dc.subject Barley
dc.subject Fallow
dc.subject Conservation tillage
dc.subject Dryland farming
dc.subject Water use efficiency
dc.title Winter barley performance under different cropping and tillage systems in semiarid Aragon (NE Spain)
dc.type Artículo


Files in this item

Files Size Format View

There are no files associated with this item.

This item appears in the following Collection(s)

Show simple item record

Search DSpace


Advanced Search

Browse

My Account