A field experiment was conducted at Tamaya district, El-Fayoum
Governorate, Egypt during two successive to seasons of 2008-2009/2009-
2010 to evaluate the effect of either no- or conventional tillage practices as
solely treatments or applied mineral N and P fertilizers alone or conjunction
with some local natural amendments, i.e., gypsum, farmyard manure and
filter mud for ameliorating some soil properties, i.e., organic matter content,
pH, infiltration rate and moisture retention as well as grain yield of wheat
(Triticum aestivum L., Sakha 69 cv.) plants as a next crop after rice (Oryza
sativa L., Giza 176 cv.) and irrigated with a low quality of irrigation water.
The obtained results showed that in case of no-tillage, the rice plant
residues of 10 cm height were left, and in turn caused an increase in each of
soil organic matter content and infiltration rate vs a parallel decrease in soil
pH value. The corresponding increase of soil organic matter content at the
end of experiment reached 0.519 %, as a mean value for no-tillage vs 0.455
% in case of the conventional tillage in soil depth of 0-15 cm. Such
pronounced increase in soil organic matter content positively reflected on
wheat grain yield. Moreover, the grain yield was maximized with increasing
the applied doses of N and P fertilizers. These increases achieved an
usefulness at no-tillage practice as compared to the conventional one during
the first season of 2008-2009, while an opposite trend was occurred at the
next season of 2009-2010.
Practically, 32.44 cm irrigation water was used per year in case of notillage practice vs 39.66 cm in case of the conventional one, with superiority
for no-tillage that could be saved 7.22 cm of irrigation water. Finally, the
results emphasized the necessity of using 120 kg N + 25 kg P2O5/ha as
fertilizer doses with farmyard manure or filter mud or gypsum under notillage practice for improving soil organic matter content and sustaining
wheat-rice cropping sequence under the prevailing conditions of using low
quality of irrigation water.