Under the circumstances of the current crisis that the Romanian agriculture is confronted with, winter barley cultivation is more profitable only by applying the no-tillage system by using the Gaspardo Gigante 600 sowing machine

Abstract

Plant cultivation in unploughed land, that is by using the system called no-tillage in English and respectively sans-labour in French, is now practised on hundreds of millions of hectares in the USA, Argentine, Brazil etc. For instance, in the USA the no-tillage system is practised on 35-40% of the entire arable surface. The no-tillage system is used first of all for purely ECONOMICAL reasons, as the ton of maize, soybean or wheat obtained by applying this system is 2 or 3 times cheaper than by using the classical system. The second major advantage of the no-tillage system is elimination of soil erosion. Even in Paraguay (a less developed country) the no-tillage system is practised on a surface of over 1,000,000 hectares. In Romanian agriculture, especially under the circumstances of the current economic crisis, the no-tillage system can be practised in the following ten years on at least 10,000,000 hectares, just like in Paraguay, as in Romania, in the past 40 years, the maize, wheat, barley or soybean crops cultivated in the no-tillage system have been practically equal with the ones cultivated in the classical system. In the conventional system, 12-15 works are performed between the ploughing and harvesting stages, while in the notillage system only two works are performed: sowing and harvesting. The fuel consumption and cost of the mechanical works in the no-tillage system is 2-3 times lower in the no-tillage system as compared to the conventional system. For example, in case of the winter wheat crop, the cost of the mechanical works performed amounted to RON 4,900, while in the no-tillage system it was of only RON 1,700.