Effect Of Tillage Methods On Soil Physical, Chemical Properties,Growth And Development Of Summer Maize(Zea Mays L.)

Experiment was conducted in Shenzhou experimental station of Hebei AgriculturalUniversity during2012-2013by field experiment using three summer maize hybrids,Jingdan28, Xundan20and Xianyu335. Four tillage styles of sub-soiling, plowing tillage,alternate year sub-soiling and rotary tillage were studied. The object of this experiment wasto study the effects of soil tillage methods on single plant production potential with steadycurrent plant population and improved capacity of unit area land in keeping and supplyingthrough rational soil tillage. The main results were showed as follows:1. Soil physical and chemical properties could be effectively improved by sub-soilingand plowing tillage. The results showed that compared with rotary tillage, soil compactnessunder10cm layer was reduced significantly at20%more by sub-soiling, alternate yearsub-soiling, and plowing tillage methods, and soil moisture content at different growthstages was improved2.6%～12.1%, and the highest increase range was between20cm to60cm soil layer, the peak was17.6%. Soil available potassium content showed obviousvertical distribution, compared with the rotary tillage, it increased46.7mg/kg between20-40cm soil layer at mature stage.2. The sub-soiling and plowing tillage can promote the development of maize roots.Sub-soiling and alternate year sub-soiling can significantly increase the root dry weight;the number of primary and nodal root increase23.8%～32.2%compared with rotarytillage; root vertical distribution move down and maintain a higher level of root length,surface area and root volume in20cm underground and deeper soil layer.3. N,P,K uptake and utilization and dry material accumulation and distribution ofsummer maize could be effectively improved by sub-soiling and plowing tillage.The contents of N, P, and K in different organs and the amount of uptake after silking stageare increase, transportation amount of leaf stored nutrient significantly decrease withsub-soiling, plowing tillage and alternate year sub-soiling; help to maintain leaf area indexat middle and later filling stages, LAI of5.7～6.4in silking stage and3.7～4.3at theend of milking stage; dry material accumulation increase7.8%～18.1%, and the drymaterial allocation proportion among the maize ear also increased.4. The sub-soiling and plowing tillage are beneficial to potential yield increase ofsingle plant. Sub-soiling and plowing tillage can increase average filling rate, and the biggest increases in upper grain, increase0.04～0.10g/d compared with rotary tillage;the grains number per spike and1000-grain weight improve2.5%～9.1%and the numberof abortive grains number reduce3.5～10.4, which was in favor of the single plant yieldincrease and the grain output per hectare can be increased4.1%～9.3%.5. Compared with plowing tillage, sub-soiling cannot disrupt plough layer soil andreduce amount of the ground breaking, the number of agricultural machinery productionand soil water evaporation after plowing tillage was reduced, and the sub-soiling have alonger actuation duration. Therefore, the most appropriate treatment for recommendationwas the alternate year sub-soiling in northern areas of Huang-Huai-Hai region.