Abstract. Conservation agriculture (CA) relies on two key practices to improve agricultural sustainability—reduced tillage and cover crop usage. Despite known soil physics benefits (reduced soil compaction and strength, enhanced soil porosity and permeability), inconsistent reports on short-term CA results have limited its adoption in European agroecosystems. To elucidate the short-term effects, a three-year experiment in the low-lying Venetian plain (Northern Italy) was undertaken. Bulk density, penetration resistance, and soil hydraulic measures were used to evaluate results obtained by combining three tillage intensities (conventional tillage (CT), minimum tillage (MT), no tillage (NT)) with three winter soil coverages (bare soil (BS), tillage radish cover crop (TR), winter wheat cover crop (WW)). Among the tillage methods and soil layers, CT, on average, reduced BD (1.42 g cm⁻³) and PR (1.64 MPa) better in the 0–30 cm tilled layer. Other treatments yielded higher values (+4 % BD and +3.1 % PR) in the same layer. Across the soil profile, reduced tillage coupled with WW improved soil physics even below the tilled layer, as evidenced by root growth-limiting threshold declines (−11 % in BD values > 1.55 g cm⁻³ and −7 % in PR values > 2.5 MPa). Soil hydraulic measures confirmed this positive behaviour; NT combined with either BS or WW produced a soil saturated conductivity of 2.12 × 10⁻⁴ m s⁻¹ (four-fold that of all other treatments). Likewise, sorptivity increased in NT combined with BS versus other treatments (3.64 × 10⁻⁴ m s⁻¹ vs an all-treatment average of 7.98 × 10⁻⁵ m s⁻¹). Our results suggest that despite some measure declines due to reduced tillage, the strategy enhances soil physics. In the short term, cover crop WW moderately increased physical soil parameters, whereas TR had negligible effects. This study demonstrates that CA effects require monitoring several soil physical parameters.

中文翻译：

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向保护性农业过渡：耕作强度和覆盖率如何影响土壤物理参数

摘要。保护性农业 (CA) 依靠两个关键实践来提高农业可持续性——减少耕作和覆盖作物的使用。尽管已知土壤物理益处（降低土壤压实度和强度，增强土壤孔隙度和渗透性），但关于短期 CA 结果的不一致报告限制了其在欧洲农业生态系统中的采用。为了阐明短期影响，在低洼的威尼斯平原（意大利北部）进行了为期三年的试验。通过将三种耕作强度（常规耕作 (CT)、最少耕作 (MT)、免耕 (NT)）与三种冬季土壤覆盖（裸土 (BS) )、耕作萝卜覆盖作物 (TR)、冬小麦覆盖作物 (WW))。在耕作方法和土层中，CT、^-3 ) 和 PR (1.64 MPa) 在 0-30 cm 耕层中更好。其他处理在同一层产生更高的值（+4% BD 和 +3.1% PR）。在整个土壤剖面中，减少耕作加上 WW 改善了土壤物理特性，甚至在耕层以下，根生长限制阈值下降（BD 值 > 1.55 g cm ^{-3 为}-11 %，PR 值 > 2.5 为 -7 %兆帕）。土壤水力措施证实了这种积极的行为；NT 与 BS 或 WW 结合产生 2.12 × 10 ^-4  m s ^-1的土壤饱和电导率（所有其他处理的四倍）。同样，与其他处理相比，NT 结合 BS 的吸附性增加（3.64 × 10 ^-4  m s ^-1与所有处理平均值 7.98 × 10 ^-5  m s ^{-1 相比}）。我们的结果表明，尽管由于减少耕作而导致一些测量下降，但该策略增强了土壤物理。在短期内，覆盖作物 WW 适度增加了物理土壤参数，而 TR 的影响可以忽略不计。这项研究表明 CA 效应需要监测几个土壤物理参数。