The Characteristics of Soil Nutrients and Soil Enzyme Activities During Wheat Growth Stage Under Different Tillage Patterns

This study was aimed to select the optimum tillage pattern by investigating the dynamic changes of different tillage patterns on soil nutrients, microbial biomass, and enzyme activities during different wheat growth stages in fluvo-aquic soil in Huang-Huai Plain.

The field experiment was carried out from 2016 to 2019. Five rotation tillage modes were set as: (1) Continuous Rotary Tillage (RT-RT-RT); (2) Deep tillage-Rotary tillage-Rotary tillage (DT-RT-RT); (3) Deep tillage-Rotary tillage-Shallow rotary tillage (DT-RT-SRT); (4) Deep tillage-Shallow rotary tillage-Shallow rotary tillage (DT-SRT-SRT); (5) Deep tillage-Shallow rotary tillage-Rotating tillage (DT-SRT-RT). Three years is a cycle. In the third year of the 3-year cycle, i.e. 2019, 0-40 cm soil layer samples were taken at the wheat greening stage (GS), jointing stage (JS), filling stage (FS), and maturity stage (MS). The contents of alkali hydrolyzed nitrogen (AN), available phosphorus (AP), available potassium (AK), soil microbial biomass carbon (SMBC), soil microbial biomass nitrogen (SMBN), and the activities of urease, invertase, and neutral phosphatase in different soil layers were measured and analyzed.

All soil indicators were decreased with the soil depths during the whole wheat growth stage. Compared with RT-RT-RT, the increment of available nutrients contents at 20-40 cm soil layer were significantly higher than those at 0-20 cm soil layer under the treatments with deep tillage combined with rotary tillage or shallow rotary tillage, but which presented few effects on soil microbial biomass and enzyme activities under soil layers compared with the effects on soil available nutrients. The dynamic changes of each soil indicators under different treatments during the wheat main growth stages were consistent with the growth and fertilizer requirements of crops. The AP, AK, SMBC, SMBN, urease, neutral phosphatase activities were showed an “N” type trend and reached to peak at the jointing stage. The sucrase activity was gradually increased with the growth stage. In 0-20 cm soil layer, the contents of AN, AP and AK under DT-SRT-RT treatment at the jointing stage were significantly higher than that under other treatments, and the highest value were 91.74 mg·kg^-1, 27.17 mg·kg^-1 and 139.81 mg·kg^-1, respectively. The AN and AP were significantly affected by rotation tillage patterns and soil depths. While the AK was affected by wheat growth stages, soil layers, and rotation tillage patterns, but the interaction among them was not obvious. During the whole growth period, compared with RT-RT-RT, in 0-40 cm soil layer, the SMBC and SMBN content under DT-RT-RT and DT-SRT-RT treatments were higher. The DT-SRT-RT treatment could significantly increase the activities of soil urease, invertase and neutral phosphatase, and their growth rates were between 3.79%-27.69%, 12.29%-36.10% and 8.61%-35.91%, respectively. In the whole wheat growth period, the soil microbial biomass and enzyme activities were significantly affected by different soil depth and rotation tillage mode, but the interaction between them on SMBN content, invertase, and neutral phosphatase activity was not significant. The wheat yield under the other treatments in 2019 was higher than that under RT-RT-RT, and the highest one was 6 557 kg·hm^-2 under DT-SRT-RT.

During this experimental period, in Fluvo-aquic soil in Huang-Huai Plain, the DT-SRT-RT treatment had the best effect on improving available nutrients contents, SMBC, SMBN, and soil enzyme activity, thereby further ensuring the high yield of wheat.