Effect of drought stress on yield and yield components of hulless barley under different tillage methods

This experiment was conducted to study the effect of drought stress using four different tillage methods on yield and yield components of hullessbarley in Gorgan, Iran region. The experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design with split plot arrangement with three replications was carried during 2012-13 growing season. The main factor for different methods of tillage was including moldboard plow, chisel plow, disc plow and no-tillage and sub- factor was including irrigation at ear emergence stage amount 100, 75 and 50 percent of field capacity and no irrigation. Results showed that drought stress caused a delay in the occurrence of phenological stages and reduces plant height, spike length, grain weight, grain and biological yield and harvest index. Tillage with chisel reduces days to the occurrence of phenological stages. This treatment also resulted in increasing yield per spike, number of grains per spike and number of grains per square meter. Plant height was significantly lower in disc plow and no-tillage treatments than chisel and moldboard plow. Conservation tillage reduced thousand green weights but this reduction was not significant. Biological and grain yield and harvest index was maximized chisel plow treatment and its difference with other methods was significant.