DEVELOPMENT AND PRODUCTIVITY OF FABA BEAN (VICIA FABA L.) UNDER DIFFERENT TILLAGE AND BIOLOGICAL DIVERSIFICATION CONDITIONS

Abstract

A short-term field experiment was carried out at the Experimental Station of the Academy of Agriculture of Vytautas Magnus University (VDU, 54º52′N, 23º49′E) in 2023, aiming to investigate the development and productivity of bean crops in different tillage systems at different biodiversity conditions. Bean development was studied in control fields without any biological preparation and in fields where a biological preparation was applied in five different tillage systems: (1) deep ploughing (23-25 cm), (2) shallow ploughing (12-15 cm), (3) deep cultivation (23-25 cm), (4) shallow cultivation (10-12 cm), and (5) sowing in stubble on no-till land. The results showed that the biological preparation tended to positively affect most of the parameters tested in almost all tillage backgrounds, except for sowing in uncultivated stubble. It can be assumed that the cold spring and the lack of water during the growing season had the greatest negative impact on the efficiency and effectiveness of the biological product, and that, given that no-tilled soil warms up more slowly, sowing into stubble did not provide the optimum conditions for the activity of the micro-organisms either.