The effect of crop rotation and soil tillage on winter wheat yield

Wheat (Triticum) is one of the three most important field crops used for food in the world, as well as in Latvia.The two-factorial trial was conducted at the Research and Study farm 'Pēterlauki', Latvia, with the aim to find out the effect of soil tillage and crop rotation on winter wheat grain yield formation.Two soil tillage systems (conventional and reduced), and three crop rotations with different winter wheat (Triticum aestivum) proportion in it (100, 67 and 25%) and different fore-crops (wheat, oilseed rape (Brassica napus ssp.oleifera), faba bean (Vicia faba)) were used.Long-term trial was started in 2009, however, the data from 2016/2017, 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 growing seasons was used for this report.The highest average wheat yield was harvested in 2017 (7.17 t ha -1 ), and it was significantly (p<0.001) higher than yields in 2018 and 2019 (on average 6.18 t ha -1 and 5.68 t ha -1 , respectively).Crop rotation with winter wheat proportion 25%, in which faba bean was wheat fore-crop, showed the highest average grain yield (7.35 t ha -1 ), but the lowest yield was obtained in rotation with 100% wheat proportion (on average 5.52 t ha -1 ).Crop rotation scheme had a significant influence on the yield (p<0.001) and 1000 grain weight (p<0.001).Forecrop influenced the yield (p<0.001), number of spikes per 1 m 2 (p<0.001), and number of grain per spike (p=0.008)significantly.Soil tillage did not affect the studied parameters importantly.Conditions of the trial year affected all parameters significantly.