Tillage Systems

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Now we will look at soil cultivation systems, crop cultivation technologies, plant protection systems, which are also an integral part of the new farming system. For landscape adaptation of agriculture, you always need to know why this or that element of the system is needed.

The soil cultivation system creates favorable conditions for the growth and development of plants and solves the following main tasks: retains moisture in the soil, improves its respiration, enriches the lower layers with oxygen. It keeps the arable layer in a fertile state and allows timely sowing of the necessary crops, care for them and harvesting, and also provides plants with protection from weeds, diseases and pests.

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You can, of course, manually select from the soil all the roots and rhizomes of weeds, caterpillars and pupae, affected leaves and fruits, but this is not available to all gardeners. The system of soil cultivation at a specific site allows to comprehensively solve many agrotechnical problems.

The cultivation system depends on the texture of the soil, the biology of the individual crops, the current state of the soil in horticulture and the climatic conditions in the area. Light soils - sandy and sandy loam - require fewer operations, and heavy soils - clay and loamy - need to be loosened more often and organic and mineral fertilizers should be used systematically, and in higher doses. These fertilizers reduce the cohesion of the soil and make the cultivation process easier.

The processing system consists of three units-modules: autumn processing (summer-autumn), spring (pre-sowing) and processing during the growing season (plant care). Let's consider them separately.

In horticulture, autumn tillage is not given due attention, because of this, the soils are severely depleted in nutrients, overgrown with malicious root suckers, rhizome weeds, and are affected by many plant diseases and pests. In the fields overgrown with root-sprouting (sow-thistle, thistle, bindweed and others), rhizome (wheatgrass, coltsfoot and others) weeds, after harvesting, it is necessary to immediately peel the soil (cultivation, tillage with a hoe). Peeling is most effective if it is performed earlier, in August or early September. To do this, a hoe, a hoe, loosen the soil to a depth of 10-12 cm, cut the weeds into small pieces and thereby create favorable conditions for their germination.

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After 2-3 weeks, when numerous shoots of weeds appear, fall plowing is carried out (digging with a shovel to the full depth of the arable layer with rotation of the layer) with harrowing with a rake. At the same time, they try to bury all the shoots of weeds deeper, so that they suffocate from lack of oxygen, become exhausted when trying to get out into the light. The combination of stubble plowing and deep plowing (this is autumn cultivation) helps to effectively fight not only weeds, but also simultaneously destroy diseases and plant pests, and the soil retains its fertility.

If there are no root-sprouting and rhizome weeds, then the fall is raised without prior peeling. In some cases, plowing is transferred to spring. Spring plowing (digging) is recommended in the fields allocated for potatoes when organic fertilizers are applied in the spring, as well as in floodplain lands flooded with hollow waters.

The best fall treatment is early fall during the warmer months. The direction of stubble cultivation and digging of the soil should be changed annually, which makes it possible to level out the microrelief and maintain a uniform depth of the arable layer throughout the entire plot. With a long warm autumn, weeds can germinate again. In this case, additional loosening is carried out, destroying the weeds by new peeling.

Fertilizers are not applied during autumn tillage! After all, weeds, fed with fertilizers, come to life and do not die. In addition, fertilizers are completely unnecessary at this time, since there are no cultivated plants, the crop has already been harvested. In addition, in the fall, fertilizers are easily washed out with rains into the lower layers of the soil, polluting the groundwater, they are lost uselessly in the form of gaseous products or turn into difficultly soluble compounds.

Therefore, the autumn period of fertilization in the landscape farming system is not acceptable, all fertilizers need to be applied only in the spring during spring treatments, then they are better preserved in an easily accessible form and are actively absorbed by plants. Fertilizers are also not applied in winter, since during this period there are no living plants, and there is no need to fertilize water or snow.

Spring tillage

Spring tillage is needed to preserve moisture, apply fertilizers and create a loose fertile arable layer for sowing plants and growing future crops. In addition, spring treatment allows better control of weeds and plant pests. The first and obligatory method is early spring harrowing. It disrupts the capillary structure of the soil, reduces the capillary rise of water to the surface and thereby reduces evaporation, preventing the soil from drying out, saving moisture reserves for seed germination and initial vegetative growth.

In areas where it has not been carried out, in one sunny day, up to 4 kg of moisture is lost from each square meter. In addition, harrowing evens out the surface, improves the quality of further pre-sowing treatments, since wet soil is easily crumbled and easily processed. On heavy soils, the plow should be harrowed to a depth of at least 4-5 cm, in two tracks crosswise to each other. With an uneven onset of physical ripeness of the soil on the site, harrowing is carried out selectively and in several steps.

Following harrowing, cultivation is carried out - loosening the soil with a hoe or flat cutter. The depth of loosening on light sandy, loose soddy or peaty soils, free from weeds, is 6-8 cm, on heavy clayey, loamy soils, at least 10-12 cm. Cultivation significantly improves the quality of subsequent treatments.

After harrowing and cultivation, shallow plowing or digging of the soil is carried out with the introduction of the entire complex of fertilizers. Organic, lime and mineral macro- and micronutrient fertilizers are scattered over the soil surface (spreading), and then covered by plowing (shoveling) with a seam turnover to a depth of 18 cm.

When developing an adaptive landscape system for 3-5 years, individual fertilization is applied on each square meter (see table), achieving an increase and leveling of fertility. After the soil fertility is leveled and all the "cells" in the garden plot on the cartogram turn blue, the new adaptive landscape system can be considered mastered.

The name of indicators	Technologies
	traditional (B)	intense (B)	adaptive landscape (A)
Doses and ratio of fertilizers in agriculture
Doses of organic fertilizers, kg / m²	0-4	4-8	8-12
Doses of lime materials, kg / m2	0-0.3	0.3-0.6	0.6-1.0
Doses and ratios of NхРхК, g ai / m2 for grain and leguminous crops	0-2x4.5x2	3х5х3	4х6х4
carrots	0-8x6x10	10x8x12	12x10x14
cabbage	0-6x8x8	10x12x14	12x12x15
potatoes	0-7x5x7	8x6x8	8x7x9
Doses of magnesium fertilizers, g / m2	0	2	6
Application, g d.w. / m² - boric	0	0.5	1.5
copper	0	0.5	1.5
molybdenum	0	0.1	0.5
cobalt	0	0.5	one

When plowing, when winter plowing has been carried out on the field, which is why spring plowing is called plowing, fertilizers can be applied in other ways as well - locally, line or tape. When applied locally, fertilizers come in contact with a smaller volume of soil, while the intensity of chemical reactions of fertilizers with the soil slows down, fertilizers are better preserved and for a longer time in a water-soluble state, more accessible to plants.

However, these techniques are more time consuming than wide spreading for plowing, they require a more accurate dosage of fertilizers. For line or band application, fertilizers are placed compactly with a line or tape at the bottom of the furrow with a distance of 15-20 cm between them.

If fertilizers are applied using a plant feeder, then the distribution of fertilizers in the topsoil is called spot distribution. At the same time, tapes, lines and dots with fertilizers should be at a depth of 15-18 cm and at a distance of no more than 15-20 cm from each other. This gives the gardener the right to reduce the dose of fertilizers by 30%, while maintaining their effectiveness, ecological and landscape cleanliness and safety.

On the fields not plowed since autumn, after harrowing, spring deep plowing is carried out to the full depth of the arable horizon. It allows the entire arable horizon to be loosened. To preserve moisture, spring plowing should be carried out with mandatory harrowing of the field. Under it, it is necessary to add all the fertilizers and substances necessary for plants - lime, organic, mineral macro- and microfertilizers. Soil cultivation during the growing season (plant care) in an adaptive landscape system is traditional for the corresponding crop.

For example, for potatoes after air-thermal heating of tubers at a temperature of + 6 … + 8 ° C, sorting of tubers (there should be no sick at all, damaged tubers, substandard according to technology A should be no more than 3%, according to technology B - 5%, according to technology B - no more than 9%), the soil temperature when planting in the ridges should be at least 6 ° С, on a flat surface - at least 10 ° С. Cutting the ridges is carried out with a row spacing with technology A - 90 cm, with technology B - 75 cm, with technology B - 70 cm and the tubers are planted. Then, inter-row cultivation of the potato field is carried out.

To combat weeds, the aisles are cultivated, the rows of potatoes are spud twice, the plantings are treated with drugs to protect plants from diseases and pests. During harvesting of potatoes, tubers are sorted. The soil content on them should exceed 3%, rotten tubers - no more than 1%. Ripening of tubers during the treatment period takes place at a temperature of + 16 … + 18 ° C for 15 days. Then a bulkhead of tubers is carried out and diseased specimens are removed, then the potatoes are placed for storage at a temperature of + 3 … + 4 ° C.

Read all parts of the article about adaptive landscape farming:

• What is adaptive landscape farming

• Components of an adaptive landscape farming system

• Devices and methods in an adaptive landscape farming system

• Summer cottage farming: mapping fields, observing crop rotation

• Determining the structure of crops and crop rotations

• Fertilizer system as a basic element of summer cottage farming

• What fertilizers are needed for various vegetable crops

• Tillage systems

• Technologies of adaptive landscape farming system

• Black and pure fallow