Effect of Plough and Conservation Tillage on Soil Moisture in Ecotone Between Agriculture and Animal Raising of North China

In the arid areas of ecotone between agriculture and animal husbandry of north China,soil water is crucialto the plant growing and vegetationrestoration.The conservation farming should be introduced in this area.In order to evaluatetheeffect of different tillage types on soil moisture,the research analysed the temporal and spatialvariations of soil moisture under plough tillage and no-tillage.The soil moisture within 0-80cm was measured in short term of two years.The results indicated:(1) In general,the changes of soil moisture content corresponded to the amount of precipitation during the growth season.Including the rainfall,the moisture in the soil before sowing was a vital element whatever the tillage type was.(2) The water storage capacity of no-tillage was more than plough tillage.There were two layers of specialvariations of profile soil moisture within 0-80cm: water loss layer within 0-30cm and water storage layer within 30-80cm.(3) UsingSPSS software to simulatethe relationship between soil moisture content and soil depth,the correlation was obvious and the equation type was cubic parabolic curve.