Diurnal fluctuations in hydro‐thermal regime of a tropical alfisol as influenced by methods of land development and tillage systems

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Abstract
The nature of diurnal fluctuations in soil moisture profile, moisture potential profile, and soil temperature regime was investigated for soils under five different methods of land clearing and post clearing tillage systems on an Alfisol in south‐west Nigeria. The treatments consisted of manual clearing with terraced conventional tillage, manual clearing with no tillage/mulch, shear blade – no tillage/mulch, tree pusher – terraced conventional tillage, and traditional clearing and management. Soils under no‐tillage mulch and traditional managements had more favourable hydrothermal regime than mechanically cleared plowed treatments. Compared with traditional farming, the maximum soil temperature at 5 cm depth was more by 2°C for tree pusher conventional tillage, 1.5°C for manual clearing conventional tillage and 0.7°C for manual clearing no‐tillage and shear blade no‐tillage, respectively. Water loss in the 1 to 4 cm depth increment in 24 hours was 2.9 mm for the manual clearing conventional tillage, 3.1 mm for the tree pusher conventional tillage, 2.0 mm for the manual clearing no tillage and 2.2 mm for the traditional clearing and management.