Physical and hydraulic properties of soils under a long-term tillage practices in Hadejia Local Government Area, Jigawa State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study was conducted to determine the effects of different tillage practices on some physical and hydraulic properties of soils in Hadejia Local Government Area of Jigawa state during the 2017 cropping season. The field experiment was laid in a Randomized Complete Block (RCB) Design in factorial arrangements with 4 treatments for tillage practices-TP (Zero tillage-ZT, Minimum tillage-MT, Conventional tillage-CT and Deep tillage-DT) and sampling depth-SD (5 cm, 15 cm, 25 cm and 35 cm) all were in four replicates. Data collected were analyzed using the generalized linear model of Statistical Analyses System (SAS 9.4) for the ANOVA. The results showed that there were significant differences (p<0.05) in the main effect of TP and SD as well as in the interaction effect between TP and SD on soil bulk density (Bd), saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ksat), volumetric moisture content (VWC) at different soil water potentials and plant available water (PAW). Greater Bd and Ksat were observed in DT which differed significantly (p<0.05) from other TP while the lowest was found in ZT with 6.5% reduction than DT. The result further showed no significant difference in terms of PAW (p>0.05) between the TP at the average depth of 15 and 25 cm, but they (TP) differed significantly at the average depth of 5 and 35 cm with the highest in ZT. Higher soil moisture content retained at all soil water pressure was found in ZT which differed significantly (p<0.01) form other TP. The research concluded that the best TP to be adopted in Hadejia in terms of improvement in physical and hydraulic properties is ZT practice.

Keywords

• Conventional tillage
• deep tillage
• minimum tillage
• sampling depth
• tillage practices
• zero tillage

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