Fertility and heavy metal pollution in silage maize soil irrigated with different levels of recycled wastewater under conventional and no-tillage practices

Abstract Irrigation with recycled domestic wastewater has been known to obtain positive effects on improving soil fertility, but it may also become a risk factor in case of causing an increase in soil salinity and/or heavy metal concentration of soil. No-tillage can retain soil moisture, helping to reduce irrigation water necessity, and thus lower amounts of heavy metals and salts are added to soil under wastewater irrigation conditions. The objective of this study was to analyze the effects of wastewater irrigation at different levels of on silage maize cultivation under conventional tillage and no-tillage conditions by comparing to full irrigation with fresh water. The two-year experiment was planned according to the split-plots design in the random blocks with three replications. The results indicated that full irrigation with wastewater increased soil salinity, organic matter content, total nitrogen, plant available phosphous, exchangeable cations, exchangeable sodium percentage and soil essential and non-essential heavy metal contents, but decreased soil pH and lime content. Increasing rates in organic matter content, total nitrogen, plant available phosphorus and exchangeable potassium were higher, but in electrical conductivity, and heavy metal accumulation were lower in soil under no-tillage as compared to conventional tillage. Contamination and enrichment factors and geographic accumulation index showed that non-essential heavy metal contamination due to cadmium and nickel, increased in full irrigation with wastewater. Irrigation with wastewater also increased heavy metal accumulation in silage maize. No-tillage can be a recommendable water management practice considering that the risks of soil salinity and heavy metal accumulation can be reduced and that soil fertility can be increased. Also, in reducing the risk of accumulation of cadmium and nickel in soil, 33% deficit irrigation with wastewater can make no-tillage more available.