No-till System as an Alternative for Soil Conservation Aiming at Sustainability in Tobacco Production

Aims: Tobacco cultivation is important in the income composition of family farmers. The use of soil cover plants is a practice that plays an important role in keeping the soil covered and reducing the effects of water erosion and improving the physical, chemical and biological conditions of the soil. The objective of this study was to evaluate the benefits of using different species for soil covering preceding the production of tobacco in the no-tillage system.

Place and Duration of Study: Two experiments were conducted in Jaguari-RS, in the years 2015 and 2016.

Methodology: The treatments were different species of soil cover crops, preceding the cultivation of tobacco (nicotine tabacum) as described: Black oat (Avena strigosa); Common Vetch (Vicia sativa L.); Consortium of Black Oat + vetch and white lupine (Albus L.). For both experiments, the experimental units consisted of plots of 3.5 x 3 m, comprising an area of 10.5 m2. The plant growth, production of the dry mass and decomposition of crop residues, of the cover crops, as well as weed infestation and tobacco yield were evaluated.

Results: Among the winter cover crops, black oats and white lupine stood out, as they showed fast growth and higher dry mass production, resulting in higher tobacco yield. These cover crops showed the most promising, combining the benefits to soil conservation and the sustainability of the production system.

Conclusion: In this study it was observed that the treatments with cover crops that presented the highest dry mass production were the same ones that provided the highest tobacco yield, making it possible to affirm that there is a positive relation between the production of the dry mass of precedent crop with tobacco yield.