engleski

Impact of different tillage systems and crop rotations on earthworm communities and soil characteristics

Increasing degradation of agricultural soils urges the need for following the principles of sustainable soil management. The importance of soil organisms for soil health and, consequently, sustainable agriculture in the future became widely acknowledged. FAO’s Status of the world’s soil resources in 2015 concluded that the loss of soil biodiversity is considered one of the main global threats to soils in many regions of the world. Conservation tillage has been associated with numerous soil quality parameters improvements including increased earthworm activity and biomass. Moreover, under conservation tillage earthworms can play a more important role by exploiting their abilities of bioturbation and impact on nutrient cycling. A long term experiment including three types of tillage (conventional tillage (ST), conservation tillage A (deep), conservation tillage B (shallow) and additional agrotechnical measures (liming, fertilizers, soil enhancer (Geo 2 ) and a crop rotation was carried out at the Čačinci location in Croatia. After four years the impact on earthworm communities and soil physico-chemical characteristics was assessed. The treatments with conventional/standard tillage system was the most detrimental for an earthworm community, both in terms of species number and biomass. Additionally, preliminary results on the first year of experiment on the second location will be presented, where the identical experimental will be carried out for four years.

conservation tillage ; sustainable agriculture ; crop residue

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