The ability of tillage implements to maintain surface residue coverage is largely dependent on the implement’s main active component. Two categories of tillage implements were compared to determine their ability to maintain grain sorghum (non–fragile) surface residue coverage when operating at two different tillage depths for fall and spring tillage. Chisel–type implements were found to bury su...

Soil management practices that maintain crop residue cover and reduce tillage improve soil structure, increase organic matter content in the soil, positively influence water infiltration, evaporation and soil temperature, and play an important role in fixing CO2 in the soil. Consequently, good residue management practices on agricultural land have many positive impacts on soil quality, crop pro...

Crop residues on the soil surface protect the soil against erosion, increase water infiltration and reduce agrochemicals in runoff water. Crop residues and soils are spectrally different in the absorption features associated with cellulose and lignin. Our objectives were to: (1) assess the impact of water on the spectral indices for estimating crop residue cover (fR); (2) evaluate spectral wate...

Agricultural crop rotations have been shown to increase soil carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and microbial biomass. The mechanisms behind these increases remain unclear, but may be linked to the diversity of crop residue inputs to soil organic matter (SOM). We used a residue mixture incubation to examine how variation in longterm diversity of plant communities in agroecosystems influences decompositi...

a 2-years (2007-2009) field study was carried out at the college of agriculture, shiraz university, to evaluate the influence of crop residues management and nitrogen (n) rates on soil quality and barley grain protein under dryland conditions. the experiment was conducted as strip split plot with four replications. horizontal plots were three crop residues rates (0, 750 and 1500 kg ha-1), verti...

ABSTRACT- Crop residue is applied to amend soil properties and increase crop yield. In this study, the effects of rapeseed residues and different rates of nitrogen on grain yield and yield components of sunflower and weed dry matter were investigated. The experiment was conducted at the Experimental Farm of College of Agriculture, Shiraz University, located at Badjgah, Shiraz, Iran in 2007-2008...

Single and dual crop coefficient methods are used in conjunction with grass reference evapotranspiration (ETo) to estimate actual crop evapotranspiration (ETc). However, the impact of soil surface residue cover on the accuracy of ETc estimated with these methods is not well understood. The objective of this study is to evaluate and compare the accuracy of the FAO-56 single crop coefficient (sin...

Because tillage promotes the germination of many weed species and freshly killed plant material favours the growth of microbial pathogens, we hypothesised that the incorporation of green crop residue should temporarily reduce weed seedling emergence relative to unamended soil. Soil with field-incorporated green crop residue was compared with non-amended soil in glasshouse experiments by sowing ...

Objective: Returning crop residue to the soil exerts favorable effects on physical and chemical properties of soil. In fact, the plant residues can affect soil conditions such as pH and important role in soil fertility and cycling of elements in the soil may have. In addition to the role of the organic matter from decomposition of crop residue in increasing the concentration of micronutrients i...