Influence of soil treatments and soil mulching on water consumption for a cotton yield unit

The field experiment on efficiency of soil treatments (conventional and alternate tillage) and amount of crop residue retention (25, 50 and 100% of crop residue produced in the corresponding plot of the experiment) in the winter wheat - summer golden gram - cotton cropping system was carried on the old irrigated typical chernozem of the Tashkent region, Uzbekistan. The study results showed compaction of 030 and 30-50 cm soil layers with summer golden gram grown under permanent beds compared to conventional soil tillage. Despite of amount of crop residue retained for mulching the grain yield of summer golden gram was 1.1 to 1.2 t ha-1 under conventional tillage and 1.0 to 1.1 t ha-1 under alternate tillage. The highest seed cotton yield was reached with 100% residue retention for both conventional and alternate tillage. In that, the seed cotton yield was higher for 0.38 t ha-1 under conventional tillage in comparison with alternate tillage.