Specific features of water infiltration into soil with different management in winter and early spring period

The paper deals with the effects of agricultural soils management on surface runoff in winter and early spring period. Cryogenic processes that take place in soils can cause temporary reduction of infiltration capacity of soil. In the periods of snow-thawing and rain these phenomena induce conditions promoting the occurrence of surface runoff and floods.

Effects of agricultural soils management on surface runoffs were studied at the research station in Brno-Kníničky, Czech Republic, from 1965 to 2002. The aim of this research was to find out the differences between the winter surface runoff from experimental plots under winter wheat crop sown after plowing and under perennial forage crops without tillage. On soils without plowing, the decrease of soil infiltration rate occurred faster and was more intensive than on loose soils. During ten winter periods the average surface runoff from perennial forages was significantly higher (2.05 times) than from wheat crop (runoff coefficients 0.239 vs. 0.489).