A presentation from the WCCA 2011 event held in Brisbane, Australia.

1. Comparison of different soil tillage
systems, under several crop rotations
in wheat production at Central
Anatolian Plateu in Turkey
İrfan GÜLTEKİN, R. Zafer ARISOY , Alper
TANER, Yasin KAYA, Fevzi PATİGÖÇ, Şeref
AKSOYAK
Address : P.O.Box: 125, Konya – TURKEY
http: www.bdutae.gov.tr
e-mail: irfangultekin@yahoo.com

2. Presentation parts
• Introduction of country and region
• Background
• The objectives of this study
• Materials and methods of field works and
evaluation
• Research Results
• Conclusion
• Summary

3. Introduction
Turkey is located in the northern hemisphere
between the 36º - 42º northern parallel and
the 26º - 45º eastern meridian
The country consists of seven regions, with
varying climate and topograpy

4. Introduction
The Central Anatolian Plateu (CAP)
• High plateau
average altitute 1000 m, surrounded by mountains
• The climate is continental
Summers are hot and dry
Winters are cold and snowy
Spring and fall are warm and rainy
Average annual, rainfall around 300 mm
tempereture 11 O C
evaporation 1332 mm

5. Introduction
Agricultural lands (M ha)
Total Area Sown Area Fallow Land
TURKEY 20 16.5 3.5
CAP 9 7 2
• The CAP region, about 15 % of land can be
irrigated
• Winter wheat is the main crop and wheat fallow
is the traditional rotation system
• Fallow takes 14 mounths
• Nearly 100 % of farmers apply conventional
tillage

6. Introduction
The main purpose of Tillage is expensive and
tillage is to increases yield also has a quite harmful
The current average effect on soil properties
conventional practice wheat Farmers use 35 l/ha diesel
yield is 2,3 t/ ha and 5 h/ha labor, so the
Tillage time and equipments represents 13 % of total cost
effected wheat yield Over 4.5Mha of cultivated
land in CAP is at risk of
But amount of water
erosion
(rainfall) is higher effect
75 percent of agricultural
than tillage on wheat yield
land has less than 2%
organic matter

7. Background
The advantage of No-till and reduced tillage
• Grain yields significantly greater (Hammel
1995, Papendick and Parr, 1997)
• Reduced crop production costs (Soanne and Ball
1998)
• Reduced soil erosion (Logan et al.1991, Choudhary et
al. 1997)
• Saving more precipitation for crop production
(Peterson et al. 1996, Tanaka and Anderson 1997)
• Increased organic matter content (Havlin et al.
1990, Six et al. 1999)

8. The objectives of this study
• To evaluate the effect of tillage and previous
crops on wheat yield with irrigated and non
irrigated CAP contitions
• Which is the profitable systems in CAP
conditions?
• Is there possible adopting alternative farming
practice in our conditons?

9. Materials and Methods
The field experiments were established in
2002, carried out under rainfed and irrigated
field conditions in Konya province
• The split-plot design were used with tillage
management as main plots and rotation
treatment as a sub plot, over 4 years
• Individual plot size was 10 x 8 = 80 m2 with
each plot replicated 3 times

10. Materials and Methods
Tillage management
1.Conventional tillage (CT)
2.Reduced tillage (RT)
3.No-till (NT)

11. Introduction
Conventional tillage (CT)
First mould board ploughing was used after
harvesting or in early spring at a tillage depth of
almost 25 cm, followed by two cultivator passes
before planting, with a tillage depth was almost 10
cm and sowing with a conventional seed drill

12. Research Results
Reduced tillage (RT)
Glyphosate herbicide was applied in early spring
or before planting, then rototiller was used, at a
tillage depth of almost 10 cm, before sowing
with a seed drill

13. Materials and Methods
No-till (NT)
Direct drilling was used without any prior tillage
but glyphosate herbicide was applied in early
spring or before planting

14. Materials and Methods
The rotation treatment
Irrigated conditions
a. Continuous winter wheat
b. Beans-winter wheat
c. Sugar beet-winter wheat
Rainfed conditions
a. Continuous winter wheat
b. Chickpea-winter wheat
c. Fallow-winter wheat

15. Materials and Methods
• The first tillage and herbicide applications in
fallow were performed in April when the soil
is suitable for plowing
• Residue was retained on the soil surface
• Winter wheat was generally planted at
September and was harvested in mid July
• Fertilizer application followed locally
recommended
• Providing the same amount of water on
irrigated experiment

16. Materials and Methods
The effect of tillage management and the previous
crop on winter wheat yield was determined in
2005 and 2007
• Treatment effects were compared through an
analysis of variance using ANOVA with year
effects as random
• Partial budgeting techniques were used to
calculate the variable costs of production for
each tillage system including any costs that vary
in proportion to the area planted
• The wheat prices are the regional bench-mark

17. Research Results
Rainfed Conditions
Different crop rotation mean wheat yield
1.5
1.248 1.147
1 1.037
(t/ha)
0.5
0
Fallow Wheat Chickpea

18. Research Results
Rainfed Conditions
Mean wheat yield under different tillage system
1.5
1.317
1.207
1
(t/ha)
0.907
0.5
0
CT RT NT

19. Research Results
Rainfed Conditions
Mean production value, variable costs, and
gross return from different tillage systems
450 Production value
400 Variable cost
413.07
Gross Return
372.66
350
300
297.52
279.96
(US $)
250
222.22
200
188.88
183.37
150
100
108.8
57.74
50
0
CT RT NT

20. Research Results
Irrigated Conditions
Different crop rotation mean wheat yield
6
5 5.459
5.222
4
(t/ha)
3
2
2.53
1
0
Wheat Beans Sugar beet

21. Research Results
Irrigated Conditions
Mean wheat yield under different tillage
system
5
4 4.403 4.415 4.393
3
(t/ha)
2
1
0
CT RT NT

22. Research Results
Irrigated Conditions
Mean wheat yield under different tillage
system and crop rotations
6000
5000
4000
Sugar beet
Sugar beet
(t/ha)
Beans
Wheat
Sugar beet
Beans
Beans
3000
Beans
2000 Sugar beet
Wheat
Wheat
Wheat
1000
0
CT RT NT

23. Research Results
Irrigated Conditions
Continious wheat yield
5
4
3
(t/ha)
CT
RT
2
NT
1
0
1. Year 2. Year 3. Year 4. Year

24. Research Results
Irrigated Conditions
Mean production value, variable costs, and
gross return from different tillage systems
1600 Production
1400 value
1412.8
1408.85
1405.76
1314.66
1200 Variable
1241.69
1197.74
cost
1000
(US $)
Gross
800 Return
600
197.77
171.11
400
91.11
200
0
CT RT NT

25. Conclusion
The alternative tillage treatments,
No-till and Reduced till,
could be increased yield and profitability
Right management, especially crop
rotations are necessrary
Beans + Wheat
Wheat-Wheat (No-till)

26. Summary
Less yield and high amount of protuction
value with soil degredations are major
problems for conventional tillage winter
wheat-summer fallow in CAP
The farmers need to switch from
conventional to reduced tillage or no-till
Because those new systems are
performed high yield capasity and more
profitable

27. THANK YOU