Residue burning is a quick, labor-saving practice to remove residue that is viewed as a nuisance by producers in the most southern provinces of Iran. However, residue burning has several adverse environmental and ecological impacts. The burning of dead plant material adds considerable amount of CO 2 and particulate matter to the atmosphere and can reduce a lot of returned needed C and other nutrients to the soil. Whereas, crop residues incorporation can improve soil quality and reduce air pollution on a long term basis. However, where residues have been soil incorporated, farmers often have concern for reduced soil fertility from nutrient immobilization and problems for cultivation associated with slow rates of residues decomposition. The experiment was conducted as strip split plot with four replications. Horizontal plots were three crop residues rates (0, 750 and 1500 kg ha -1), vertical plots consisted of two dryland current barley cultivars (CVs) (Afzal and Reyhan), and sub-plots were three N rates (0, 40, and 80 kg N ha -1). Number of spike per plant, grains per spike, grains per plant and 1000-grain weight of both CVs significantly increased by N and residue rates increasing in both years. The lowest grain yield was obtained from 1500 kg ha -1 residue incorporation without N application showing the soil N imbalance. The optimum crop growth and the highest grain yield was achieved from the highest crop residues and N rates, indicating that the most reliable system for dryland barley production in the region is complete residues incorporation into the soil following disking, seeding with chisel seeder and application of 80 kg N ha -1.
