Effects of Conventional and Reduced Tillage Methods on Some Traits of Wheat in Cotton-Wheat System

Abstract

Tillage is one of the most important agronomical practices especially for plant height (PH), grain yield (GY) and yield components in wheat production. This study was carried out in 2007-08 and 2008-09 growing seasons in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, to investigate response of five wheat cultivars (Adana, Ceyhan, Dogankent, Menemen and Yuregir) to conventional (CT) and reduced tillage (RT) systems after cotton harvest for PH, number of fertile spikes per m2 (SM), spike length (SL), number of fertile spikelets spike-1 (SS), number of grains spike(-1) (GS), 1000-kernel weight (KW) and GY components. The soil was ploughed at a depth of 25-30 cm in CT system, while it was not used in RT. The results indicated that all traits had greater values in 2008-09 than in 2007-08 except KW and GY. The tillage systems significantly affected PH, SM, SL, SS, GS and GY except KW. Over the two years, values of all traits in CT were higher than those of RT. There was a significant and positive correlation for GY, SS, GS and KW between CT and RT. The cultivars were affected by year and tillage system. Dogankent cultivar had better performance and stable for most of the traits compared to others under CT and RT in both years.