Influence of Tillage Systems on the Productivity of Wheat Varieties in the Conditions of Balkh Afghanistan

Abstract

In Afghanistan, the greatest challenges in agriculture system are major soil erosion, high soil moisture loss, and farming of the same crop every year leads to drop in fertility level of the soil. Conservation Agriculture defined by three principles namely minimum soil disturbance, crop rotation and permanent soil cover. A field experiment was conducted during winter and summer season of 2018 at research farm of Dehdadi, Balkh, Afghanistan. The experiment was laid out in a split plot design, comprising ten treatment combinations. The main factor was conservation agriculture and conventional agriculture with sub factor by five varieties of wheat (Moqawium, Baghlan, Chunt, Darlaman and local).The main objective of this study is to compare and determine the performance of new wheat varieties under conservation and conventional agriculture, for improving and identifying it’s effect on wheat yield and wheat varieties under conservation agriculture. The result indicated that different soil conservation practice could cause significant changes in term of wheat growth and yield attributes like bundle weight and yield of wheat and among wheat varieties Chunte variety significantly difference on number of tillers, bundle weight, straw yield, yield and thousand wheat kernel as compare to local wheat variety. In short time there was not any difference in soil chemical and physical of soil in term of pH, OC, N, P and K, but in long term there will be minor changes occur, so we do recommend conserving to improve the soil fertility and cultivate the chunte variety for more yield.