ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Effects of Soil Conservation Management
Systems on Soil Enzyme Activities
under Wheat Cultivation
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Department of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, Igdır University Faculty of Agriculture, 76000, Igdır, Turkey
Submission date: 2022-06-03
Final revision date: 2022-10-20
Acceptance date: 2022-11-15
Online publication date: 2022-12-29
Publication date: 2023-02-23
Corresponding author
Erhan Erdel
soil science and plant nutrition, ığdır üniversity, ataturk mah 938 sk no 1/10 76000 ıgdır, 76000, ıgdır, Turkey
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2023;32(2):1105-1111
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ABSTRACT
Soil management systems such as conservation tillage practices and the cultivation of cover
crops have various positive effects on soil environment. These practices help to increase or maintain
an adequate level of soil organic matter, thus improve soil properties. The aim of the study was to
determine the effects of cover crops and tillage systems on soil enzyme activity (urease, alkaline
phosphatase, catalase) at different soil depths following wheat. According to the results, the cover
crops affected all the enzyme activities while tillage systems affected only urease activity in the soil.
The highest urease (8.09 and 6.90 μg g N soil-1 h-1), alkaline phosphatase (74.53 and 69.08 μg g
p-nitrophenol soil-1 h-1) and catalase (41.56 and 48.62 ml O2 3 min-1 g soil-1) activities were observed
in common vetch plots in minimum and conventional tilled plots. Another observation was that
enzyme activities were decreased with the increase of soil sampling depths. These results showed that
the incorporation of cover crops into rotations may increase soil enzyme activities and common vetch
can be used as an alternative cover crop.