Table 3 Root diameter, root-length density and root surface area density influenced by tillage and residue treatments at the maturity stage of spring maize.

Treatment	Root diameter (mm)				Root-length density (cm cm⁻³)				Root surface area density (cm² cm⁻³)
	2014		2015		2014		2015		2014		2015
	RR	RI	RR	RI	RR	RI	RR	RI	RR	RI	RR	RI
PT	3.31 ± 0.27b	3.75 ± 0.31b	3.42 ± 0.27b	3.68 ± 0.31b	4.10 ± 0.34a	3.55 ± 0.30a	4.13 ± 0.37a	4.55 ± 0.42a	0.81 ± 0.24b	0.98 ± 0.28b	1.00 ± 0.26b	1.09 ± 0.30c
RT	3.38 ± 0.31b	3.80 ± 0.37b	3.45 ± 0.31b	3.74 ± 0.37b	3.82 ± 0.33b	3.27 ± 0.28b	3.91 ± 0.34b	4.35 ± 0.38b	0.86 ± 0.24a	1.00 ± 0.28a	1.06 ± 0.25a	1.11 ± 0.28b
NT	3.67 ± 0.43a	4.06 ± 0.49a	3.73 ± 0.45a	4.10 ± 0.49a	3.66 ± 0.37b	3.20 ± 0.27b	3.74 ± 0.37b	4.14 ± 0.43b	0.90 ± 0.24a	1.02 ± 0.32a	1.10 ± 0.22a	1.16 ± 0.31a
Analysis of variance
T	**		**		**		**		*		***
R	***		**		***		***		***		***
T*R	ns		ns		ns		ns		ns		**

PT, RT and NT indicate plow-till, rotary-till and no-till, respectively. RR and RI indicate residue removal and residue incorporation, respectively. T and R indicate tillage and residue treatments, respectively. Values are expressed as the mean ± standard error. Different lowercase letters on mean values indicate significant differences at P < 0.05. Differences are significant at P < 0.05 between residue removal and residue incorporation under different tillage treatments except for figures marked A. *P < 0.05; **P < 0.01; ***P < 0.001; ns, not significant.

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