Comparison of wheat yield between common and modern management wheat cropping systems using Geographical Information System approach

One of the important tasks of agronomy is determining those environmental factors limiting crop yield in a given area. To this end, there is no perfect method, because a lot of heterogeneity and interaction between the environment and crop management, that allows statistical analysis does not provide full. One of the methods that can be used to analyze the factors limiting the yield is prioritizing these factors through ranking. The purpose of this research was finding appropriate management practices and recommendations to increase wheat yield in inefficient agroecosystems. For this purpose, wheat yield was compared in common and modern agricultural systems to determine differences in the management of these systems. Because the difference in yield can also resulted from a reason other than differences in farm management, the statusof these systems was also investigated from the perspective of topography, climate, soil, economic and social indices.
This study was aimed to compare wheat yield in both modern and common wheat fields using Geographical Information System in the Golestan farm lands. For this, 68 and 10 fields were selected for common and modern (Nemoune field) fields respectively in growing season of 2012-2013. In order to investigate on climatic and topographic state of studied area, 51 synoptic and rain-recording stations from Golestan province and 32 synoptic stations including neighbor provinces (Mazandaran, Semnan and North khorasan), and digital elevation model (DEM, 20 m) were used. The information about farm management options and social state of farmers were obtained by personal interview or filling questionnaires.
Fields data analysis showed a significant relation between yield and other factors including irrigation, top dress times of nitrogen, micronutrients application, machinery, variety type, residue management, fungicides application, last summer and autumn rotation, professional education of farmers, and sowing date. Regression analysis results also showed nitrogen quantity in second top-dressing and land cultivation area were as the most important quantitative factors affected wheat yield. Environmental indices assessment revealed that quality of aforementioned factors was better in common fields than modern fields, while yield was higher in modern fields. Base on results, management quality is the most important factor which affects wheat yield, and improved management could enhance the yield in common fields.
So the farms that have good environmental qualities, but poor crop management, there is hope that we can increase the yield per unit area. In this context, improving the management of common agricultural farms can be considered as a long-term plan.