Investigating the Effects of Conservation and Reduced Tillage Systems on Soil Quality Indices

Soil quality as "the capacity of a specific kind of soil to function, within natural or managed ecosystem boundaries, to sustain plant and animal productivity, maintain or enhance water and air quality, and support human health and habitation. Soil quality cannot be directly measured, but it can be inference from the integration of soil physical, chemical and biological properties. This study was conducted to compare the effects of conservative, reduced, and conventional tillage on soil quality indices. Tillage treatments were no tillage, disc plow tillage, combination tillage, and conventional tillage, which have been performed for five years. The results showed that no tillage, disc plow tillage and combination tillage improved the integrated quality index of the soil (IQI) respectively as 32.79%, 21.78% and 16.82%, for the depth of 0-10 cm, 18.94%, 15.74%, 14.76% for the depth of 10-20 cm, and 17.32%, 11.62%, 16.82% for the depth of 20-30 cm as compared to conventional tillage. Also, nemero quality index (NQI) of the soil was improved in all conservation treatments as compared to conventional tillage. Also, it was revealed that the soil quality decreased as the soil depth increases. Regarding to the research findings, the no tillage system, due to improvement of the soil quality, is recommended as a beneficial practice for farmers to manage the soil in the proposed and similar areas.