TITLE:
Change of Tillage Layer Thickness of Farmland in Anhui Province of Eastern China
AUTHORS:
Yuxin Ma, Decheng Li, Ganlin Zhang, Xusheng Li, Yuguo Zhao, Jinling Yang, Feng Liu, Mingsong Zhao, Shanquan Li, Changlong Wei, Fan Yang, Laiming Huang
KEYWORDS:
Tillage Layer Thickness, Farmland, Influential Factor, Anhui Province
JOURNAL NAME:
Agricultural Sciences,
Vol.5 No.5,
April
3,
2014
ABSTRACT: Tillage layer thickness (TLT) of farmland could be regarded as one of
physical indexes in assessing soil productivity and quality. In recent years,
tillage layer shallowing was found in China in various regions, mainly due to
the adoption of non-tillage or rotary tillage practices, but only little rough
and non-quantitative information is available so far on the issue. This
research took Anhui, a typical agricultural province in Eastern China as an
example and compared the TLTs of 87 typical profiles on provincial scale and
210 on county scale from 1980s to 2010s. The results showed that TLTs of 3.7%
and 17.2% of samples in 1980s and 2010s respectively were larger than 20 cm.
From 1980s to 2010s the mean TLT increased from 16.3 to 17.4 cm on the
provincial scale and from 15.0 to 15.5 cm on the county scale respectively. In
the middle and southern regions the mean TLTs increased by 0.4-0.7 cm on
the provincial scale and 0.3-3.2 cm on the county scale respectively, but decreased by 2.0 cm in northern region on the county scale. The
mean TLT increased by 0.8 cm for paddy-field and 1.4 cm for dry-land on the
provincial scale. TLT was influenced comprehensively by the factors of soil
texture, the depth of rotary tillage and the farming positivity of the farmers.
Generally, TLT of farmland with coarse soil texture was higher than that of
farmland with fine soil texture, in 1980s TLT in region of poor-economic
condition usually was deeper than in region of good-economic condition, and the
adoption of rotary tillage led widely TLTs of farmlands to about 15 cm in
2010s.