Soil and Crop Responses to Alternative Tillage Practices

This chapter suggests that tillage systems behave variably for different crops and under different soil types. The conventional system uses the moldboard plow for primary tillage and disk and tine harrows and rollers for seed bed preparation. This system is considered to have an important effect on degrading soil physical and chemical properties, and on enhancing water and wind erosion. Conservation tillage (CT) systems aim to reduce the degrading effect of conventional tillage (CnT). The chapter presents analogous experiments conducted on two contrasting soils of the Pampa Humeda, i.e., a Typic Argiudoll in Pergamino and a Typic Hapludoll in Los Toldos. Both experiments included five tillage systems (CnT, ChT, RT, NT and CoT) in two crop rotations, i.e., wheat/soybean-com, during 10 yr in Pergamino and 9 yr in Los Toldos, and continuous wheat/soybean for 6 yr at both sites.