Abstract
The presented research aimed to study primary tillage impact on spring barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) yield, carried out on light chestnut soils under semiarid rainfed conditions in the foothill zone of Trans-Ili Alatau, Kazakhstan.The barley field experiments comprised three tillage methods, viz., traditional, minimum, and zero-tillage.The minimum and zero-tillage tillages clearly emerged with increased plant biomass (11.15 and 8.87 t/ha, respectively) compared with traditional plowing (7.62 t/ha); they also enhanced the 1000-kernel weight (32.2 and 31.9 g) versus 28.0 g for traditional, respectively.During the growing season, the agrochemical analysis revealed the decline of nitrate nitrogen contents in all variants from 26-25 to 17-15 mg/kg, which may be due to its intensive use by plants.Moreover, the available phosphorus and exchangeable potassium were characteristically higher values than the minimum and no tillage (364-357 mg/kg), whereas with the traditional plowing, this figure was 302 mg/kg, enunciating a more efficient use of nutrients under resource-saving technologies.A comparative assessment of grain yield showed the highest productivity was successful with minimum tillage (2.53 t/ha), which exceeds the traditional plowing (2.07 t/ha) by 0.46 t/ha and no tillage (1.85 t/ha) by 0.68 t/ha.However, the no-tillage was evidently with greater variability in the grain yield in crop seasons.