Decreased foliar nitrogen and crop yield in organic rainfed almond trees during transition from reduced tillage to no-tillage in a dryland farming system
Open accessAbstract
Sustainable farming practices can be beneficial or detrimental to crop production in the short-term, which will strongly determine their appeal to farmers. We evaluated the effects of several sustainable practices on soil properties, plant nutrition and ecophysiology and crop yield in a semiarid agroecosystem. A three-year randomised experiment was conducted in a rainfed almond grove where the initial soil management was reduced tillage. Two alternative treatments were evaluated: reduced tillage plus green manure and no-tillage. The following soil and plant parameters were measured once per year: soil organic carbon, total nitrogen and Polsen; foliar N, P, δ13C and δ15N and crop yield. We found that soil bulk density increased significantly with no-tillage. Leaf δ15N was positively associated with soil fertility, foliar nutrient concentrations and crop yield across treatments. Leaf δ13C, Nfoliar and crop yield were strongly positively associated across treatments in every year of the study. Reduced tillage treatments displayed higher leaf δ15N, δ13C, Nfoliar and crop yield than the no-tillage treatment, indicating a sharp decrease in the leaf nitrogen status and intrinsic water use efficiency of almond trees during the transition from reduced tillage to no-tillage. In semiarid agroecosystems where soils are prone to compaction, some tillage is required to maintain optimal crop production in rainfed almonds.
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Previous studies in Mediterranean European almond plantations found larger yield gaps for NT (-63% and -28%) over 10-12 years compared to our short-term study.
“previous studies in Mediterranean European almond plantations showed contrasting results to what Giller et al. (2009) suggest, as they found over a longer time scale (10-12 years) larger yield gaps for NT (-63% and -28%) compared to our short-term study”
From Almond farm profitability under agroecological management in south-eastern Spain: Accounting for externalities and opportunity costs (2020) · cites this paper as Martínez-Mena et al., 2013
Section 3.3 reports lower almond yields under no-tillage: cumulative production over three years was twice as high under reduced tillage. The paper’s Discussion identifies its study period as three years, not 10–12, and the cited passages do not report yield gaps of −63% or −28%. (LLM, conf=0.87)
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- Authors
- Martínez-Mena, M., Garcia-Franco, N., Almagro, M., Ruiz-Navarro, A., Albaladejo, J., de Aguilar, J. M., Gonzalez, D., & Querejeta, J. I.
- Affiliations
- Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (ES)
- Venue
- European Journal of Agronomy
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2013-08
- Volume
- 49
- Pages
- 149-157
- ISSN
- 1161-0301 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1993216205
- Cited by
- 47
- References
- 52
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 2
- FWCI
- 5.31
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Licence
- cc-by-nc-nd
- Locations
- European Journal of Agronomy (publishedVersion)
- DIGITAL.CSIC (Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil Management and Crop Yield
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Agricultural Science and Fertilization
- Keywords
- almond, no-tillage, reduced tillage, leaf nitrogen content, leaf nitrogen isotopes, leaf carbon isotopes, crop yield, soil organic carbon, soil nitrogen, green manure, soil bulk density, soil compaction, water use efficiency, rainfed agriculture, semi-arid agroecosystems, sustainable agriculture
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