African Journal of
Microbiology Research

  • Abbreviation: Afr. J. Microbiol. Res.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN: 1996-0808
  • DOI: 10.5897/AJMR
  • Start Year: 2007
  • Published Articles: 5235

Effect of different soil tillage methods on rhizobial nodulation, biyomas and nitrogen content of second crop soybean

Kemal Dogan, Ismail Celik, Mustafa Gok and Ali Coskan*
Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi, Ziraat Fakültesi Toprak Bölümü 32260 Çünür / Isparta,TÜRKÄ°YE.
Email: [email protected]

  •  Accepted: 15 July 2011
  •  Published: 30 September 2011

Abstract

The effects of different soil tillage methods on rhizobial nodulation, biomass yield (root, shoot and nodule) and nitrogen content of soybean as a second crop have been investigated. The experiment was conducted as a field trial in Cukurova Region, Turkey in 2008. Six different tillage methods have been studied in this research. These methods were conventional tillage with residue (CTR), conventional tillage with burnt residue (CTBR), reduced tillage with heavy disking (RTHD), reduced tillage with rotary tiller (RTR), no- tillage with heavy disking (NTHD) and no tillage with direct seeding (NTDS). At the stage of inflorescence, nodulation was investigated in the root, shoot, and nodule samplings by determining the weights of the samples and analyzing them for nitrogen contents. The results have been statically analyzed by using MSTAT-C package programme. According to the results of the study, under the conventional methods in which deep tillage operations are applied to soil, it has been found out that nodule formation and plant nitrogen contents have been negatively affected. The differences among the applications were found to be statistically significant. In general, the best nodulation has been obtained with NTDS and RTHD plots. Moreover, the effects of other tillage methods on some parameters related with rhizobiyal N2-fixation have caused to considerable decrease on the parameters mentined above.

 

Key words: N2-fixation, soil tillage methods, microbial activity.