Effects of no-tillage on dryland soil water infiltration characteristics under rotation in Loess Plateau

In order to investigate effects of no-tillage combined with rotation on the time-space variation characteristics of soil water infiltration in dry-farming land during 2005-2010, effects of conventional tillage (T) was compared with no-tillage with low stubble (NL), no-tillage with high stubble (NH), low stubble with mulching (NLS), high stubble with mulching (NHS) on soil water infiltration characteristics under three crop rotation patterns(oat-soybean-corn、soybean-corn-oat, corn-oat-soybean) in Qingshuihe county of Inner Mongolia. The results showed that no-tillage and rotation, especially the combined tillage measure improved the soil water infiltration capacity obviously and the effects of no-tillage with oat-soybean-corn pattern were best. When soil water content in 0-20cm soil layer was high(low), soil water initial infiltration rate was low(high), but soil water stable infiltration rate had the same trend with soil water content and the soil water stable infiltration rate decreased with the depth of soil layer increased. After two rotation cycles, the soil water initial infiltration rate of NL, NH, NLS and NHS decreased by 18.6%, 24.93%, 27.31% and 29.95% respectively, and the soil water stable infiltration rate of them increased 22.22%, 34.61%, 82.05% and 104.70% compared to that of T. So no-tillage combined with rotation can improve soil water infiltration characteristics obviously.