The impacts of no-tillage and conventional tillage on some hydraulic characteristics of topsoil in the Mediterranean Climate

Soil tillage is the guiding component of soil management and consequently has far-reaching implication for agroecosystems. Understanding structures and functions of soil under conventional tillage and no-tillage is an essential requirement for any future farming concepts. Tillage greatly affects soil structure in topsoil and, to a certain degree, in the subsoil. It can change soil behaviour at the topsoil with regard to infiltration, runoff, etc. Several methods have been developed to study hydraulic characteristics of topsoil. In this study Beerkan method, which is a simple in situ method using a single ring infiltration, was used to better understand tillage and no-tillage impacts on transmission properties of topsoil. This method depends on an algorithm namely BEST. This study was carried out at Lavalette experimental station in Montpellier in the South of France. Two different tillage measurement series were done. The first series was performed after harvest of durum wheat and the second one was performed after sowing. By using those two series as input data, BEST model can estimate saturated hydraulic conductivity, sorptivity, the mean characteristics of hydraulically functional pore size and capillary length. The results indicate that after harvest hydraulic properties of topsoil were not significantly different. However after sowing, saturated hydraulic conductivity was significantly higher (p<0.05).