Minimum tillage: experiment results and conclusions |
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Sprouting and branching are used to calculate the density of the wheat plants per m². The three technologies resulted in considerable variations in term of sprouting observations. Minimum tillage has the highest sprouting intensity but lower branching number while the ploughed stubble fallowing is optimum for both sprouting intensity and branching number. The inter-annual variation is high.
Grain yield and height of plant is the best for stubble fallowing while the number of grains in ear and weight of 1000 grains do not considerably vary. In terms of harvesting index and number of grains in m², minimum tillage and stubble fallowing have clear advantages upon ploughed stubble fallowing (see table below).
Income is based on grain and straw yield, whose amount varies significantly according to the technology applied. From the viewpoint of net economic income, the Stubble farming has clear advantage compared to other technologies (Table below) with a net income of %44. The other two technologies are close to each other.
Stakeholders generally approve the effectiveness of the technologies tested. The yileds are comparable although slightly lower. However the treatment includes a fallow period which for the irrigated areas is not present. Thus land is taken out of production which is considered very negative. This is not compensated by the net gain in income of the treatment because of lower labour and operational costs. This will be different for each farmer, depending on the degree of mechanization. The end result is therefore that the technology is not readily accepted because the benefits are not sufficiently clear cut. This may change if irrigating with groundwater becomes too costly. The experiment shows that rainfed agriculture is possible in principle while having a positive effect on wind erosion (at least visually).
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Study sites

Acknowledgement
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The DESIRE project was
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Contract no: 037046 GOCE
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