Long-Term Winter Wheat Cropping Influence on Soil Quality ... 73(Milošev et al., 2010). Interestingly, winter wheat monoculture increases yield
in 2010 as compared with the 1991. This could be explained with substantial
effects of soil properties (i.e., moisture preservation, soil organic carbon) on
the yield formation. The preservation of SOC in wheat monoculture (Table 3),
found in the LTE, coincided with findings reported by Lithourgidis et al.,
(2006) that under continuous wheat cropping particular soil properties (such as
SOC) could be preserved. Babulicová (2008) elucidate that fertilizers
utilization of winter wheat growing in monoculture was more effective than
mineral fertilization in crop rotations. Although higher content of SOC at
WW-F in this study corresponded with higher yields of winter wheat,
long-term monoculture is not a sustainable cropping option for the wheat
production. The continuous winter wheat resulted in higher sustainability
compared with MW and MSW suggested that, in the period of 20 years,
fertilization could be more important than crop rotation when overall winter
wheat performance is discussed. By analyzing the long-term yields it was
found that there is certain stability at some level and relatively small annual
variations (Milošev, 2000; Šeremešić, 2005; Milošev et al., 2010).
Figure 3. Changes in winter wheat yield at the long term experiment.