Long‐term effects of lantana residue additions on water retention and transmission properties of a medium‐textured soil under rice–wheat cropping in northwest India

Hydraulic properties of soils after rice cropping are generally unfavourable for wheat cultivation. Poor drainage, delayed planting and oxygen stress in the root zone may adversely affect the wheat crop after lowland rice cultivation. We studied long‐term effects of lantana ( Lantana spp. L.) residue additions at 10, 20 and 30 t ha −1 yr −1 (fresh biomass) on physical properties of a silty clay loam soil under rice–wheat cropping in northwest India. At the end of ten cropping cycles, soil water retention, infiltration rate, saturated hydraulic conductivity and drying rate of soil increased significantly with lantana additions. The available water capacity (AWC), on volume basis, declined at rice harvest (from 22.0 to 18.8–20.9%), but increased at wheat harvest (from 12.9 to 13.4–15.0%) after lantana treatment. The volumes of water transmission (>50 μm) and storage pores (0.5–50 μm) were greater, while the volume of residual pores (<0.5 μm) was smaller in lantana‐treated plots than in controls at both rice and wheat harvest. Infiltration rate in the lantana‐treated soil was 1.6–7.9 times that of the control (61 mm d −1 ) at rice harvest, and 2–4.1 times that of the control (1879 mm d −1 ) at wheat harvest. Thus lantana addition improved soil hydraulic properties to the benefit of the wheat crop in a rice–wheat cropping sequence.