مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - Effects of Crop Residue Burning on Soil Physical and Hydrological Properties in Semi-Arid Agricultural Production Systems

Abstract :

The effect of wheat-stubble burning on soil physical and hydrological properties is under scrutiny to develop a sound soil and water management planning in agroecosystems. The objective of this study was to compare completely-burned, moderately-burned, and unburned soil conditions for responses of soil physical and hydrological properties. The persistence of fire-induced impacts were studied in 3 hectare land for both burned and unburned conditions for two years. Results showed that saturated hydraulic conductivity significantly increased in descending order 0.81, 0.36, and 0.23 cm h^-1 for burned, moderately-burned, and unburned plots (P=0.000). Completely-burned treatments registered significantly higher Ksat (P=0.000) of 0.81 and 0.23 cmh^-1, respectively from completely-burned and unburned treatments. Fire intensity significantly reduced the pore space volume, the highest for burned and the least for the moderately-burned treatments (P 0.001). Unburned treatments had 11.5 and 9.7 % more pore spaces than completely-burned and moderately-burned plots, respectively. Residue burning significantly changed pore size distributions between three levels of treatments (P 0.045). Storage pores decreased significantly from 37.3% (unburned) to 25.8% (burned), while significantly increasing residual pores from 8.07% to 13.5 % (burned) and 12.7% (moderately-burned). To conclude, residue-retaining soil management practices need implemented in the Plain.