Impacts of Varying Tillage Operations on Infiltration Capacity of Agricultural Soils

摘要

Three tillage practices, Zero Tillage (ZT), Minimum Tillage (MT) and Conventional Tillage (CT) on infiltration capacity and other physicochemical soil properties were investigated using, double ring infiltrometer at two locations which were Agricultural and Environmental Engineering (AGE) research farm and Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA)?s Teaching and Research (T and R) farm. Soil physico chemical properties determined include; bulk density, porosity, moisture content , organic matter , organic carbon, pH, sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium. Two models, Kostiakov and Philips were also used to model infiltration rates and results were compared with measured values and were subjected to statistical analysis. Linear relationship exists between infiltration rate and duration of water application and all infiltration rates decreased as time increased. High correlation (R2) values were obtained for the two farms and in the three treatments which were 0.979 and 0.984 for ZT, 0.962 and 0.996 for MT and 0.999 and 0.997 for CT for both AGE and T and R farms, respectively. Although, T and R farm has higher infiltration rates when compared with the AGE farm, Kostiakov and Philips models showed that Minimum Tillage (MT) on AGE farm was the best of all the tillage treatments considered.