Tillage Effects on Soil Quality after Three Years of Irrigation in Northern Spain

Marcos Apesteguía, Iñigo Virto, Luis Orcaray, Paloma Bescansa, Alberto Enrique, María José Imaz and Douglas L. Karlen
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Marcos Apesteguía: Departamento Ciencias del Medio Natural, ETSIA, Universidad Pública de Navarra, 31006 Pamplona, Spain
Iñigo Virto: Departamento Ciencias del Medio Natural, ETSIA, Universidad Pública de Navarra, 31006 Pamplona, Spain
Luis Orcaray: Área de Innovación, Sección de Sistemas Sostenibles, Instituto Navarro de Tecnologías e Infraestructuras Agroalimentarias, 31610 Villava, Spain
Paloma Bescansa: Departamento Ciencias del Medio Natural, ETSIA, Universidad Pública de Navarra, 31006 Pamplona, Spain
Alberto Enrique: Departamento Ciencias del Medio Natural, ETSIA, Universidad Pública de Navarra, 31006 Pamplona, Spain
María José Imaz: Ekoizpen Urduña, Foru Plaza, 1, 48460 Urduña-Orduña, Spain
Douglas L. Karlen: USDA-Agricultural Research Service, National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment (NLAE), 1015 North University Boulevard, Ames, IA 50011-3166, USA

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 8, 1-20

Abstract: Irrigation is being initiated on large areas of traditionally rainfed land to meet increasing global demand for food, feed, fiber and fuel. However, the consequences of this transition on soil quality (SQ) have scarcely been studied. Therefore, after previously identifying the most tillage-sensitive SQ indicators under long-term rainfed conditions, conversion of a research site on a Haplic Calcisol in Navarre, in northeast Spain provided an ideal location to reevaluate those SQ indicators after three years of irrigated management. The Soil Management Assessment Framework (SMAF) was used to test our hypothesis that adopting irrigation could change the sensitivity and importance of non-irrigated SQ indicators. Several soil physical, chemical, and biological indicators along with crop yields were used to evaluate SQ three years after initiating irrigation on a long-term conventional tillage (CT), minimum tillage (MT) and no-tillage (NT) study where either barley ( Hordeum vulgare L.) or wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.) was being grown. The results confirmed our hypothesis that irrigation would change the relative importance of various SQ indicators and suggested that some SMAF algorithms, such as those used to assess bulk density, needed to be recalibrated for these Mediterranean soils.

Keywords: Soil Management Assessment Framework (SMAF); soil organic carbon (SOC); bulk density (BD); particulate organic matter carbon (POM-C); conventional tillage (CT); minimum tillage (MT); no-tillage (NT); barley (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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