Modification of Tillage Implements for Alley Cropping System

Abstract

Sustainable alley agriculture in the agro-forestry cropping system becomes a great challenge due to the lack of suitable land preparation, using the conventional tillage system “The three-bottom disc plough”. This research is an attempt to modify the conventional tillage implement for better use in agroforestry system. The modified Tillage System, in comparison with 3-bottom disc plough, showed significantly lower tractor actual speed, higher wheel slippage, effective field capacity and higher draught requirements. For the secondary operations, no significant differences were detected between modified tandem and the offset disc harrow, except for the tractor actual speed, where the offset disc harrow resulted in significant higher speed. Moreover, the modified tillage implements shows lower un-ploughed length area within the alley, and two meters increase in the preparation of the available cultivated area compared to the conventional system, and significantly lower bulk density at crop emergence stage only. The modified implements resulted in higher initial and final infiltration rate after seedbed preparation and at harvest in comparison with the conventional system. With regards to crop yield, the modified tillage system resulted in significant higher grain yield in the first and second seasons, in comparison with the use of the conventional tillage system.

Keywords: draught requirements, tillage implements, alley cropping, soil cold size, bulk density, superficial lateral root, infiltration rate