ABSTRACT:

Tillage practices exert tremendous effects on soil conditions and are important to crop production.Appropriate tillage results in improved soil condition while inappropriate tillage damages the soil,hence the need to investigate its effects on soil in order to improve yield and cash return. Thisexperiment was conducted at the Institute of Agricultural Research (IAR) farm Samaru, AhmaduBello University Zaria, Kaduna state with the aim of studying the effect of tillage practices on someselected soil chemical properties, penetration resistance and maize yield parameters. Thetreatments consisted of three levels of tillage practices (conventional (CT), minimum (MT) and zerotillage (ZR) replicated 3 times and arranged in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD). Dataon soil pH, organic carbon (OC), total nitrogen (TN), number of cobs, stover yield, grain weight,1000 grain weight and soil penetration resistance at 0, 10, 20 and 30cm were collected. The resultobtained revealed significant effects of tillage practices on soil chemical properties, penetrationresistance at all depths and yield parameters. Minimum tillage has highest value of soil parameters(pH, OC, and TN) while conventional has highest value for penetration resistance and yieldparameters. From the findings of this study, it can be concluded that minimum tillage improved soilcondition and maize yield. It is also recommended that minimum tillage be adopted in the studyarea.