The paper is focused on evaluation various soil tillage systems for maize in terms of productivity and reduction of soil erosion in the Czech Republic. The high slope of land, combined with expanding wide-row crops (when maize had the largest area) increase the risk of water erosion. Assessed yield data are from Southern Moravia in 2011-2016. Investigation of the effects of different soil tillage and silage maize stand establishment on soil and water runoff was carried out in the experimental station Lukavec near Pacov (Bohemian region). Average of six-years results showed that there are no any differences between conventional tillage (10.08 t ha^-1) and minimum tillage (10.19 t ha^-1), but year is significant. In trial, where different tillage systems were compared with/without phacelia as cover crop, according to three-year average, the highest grain yield was in chisel loosening (8.89 t ha^-1) similar to ploughing (8.85 t ha^-1). Lower yields were in no-tillage (8.61 t ha^-1) and strip-tillage (8.55 t ha^-1). Various conservation tillage systems have to be improved and modified for different soil and climate conditions. The benefit is in reduction of soil loss, which depends on crop residues coverage on soil surface. The soil sediment loss was the lowest in no-till variant (30 resp. 38 %) and less in minimum tillage (57 resp. 88 %) in comparison with ploughing (= 100 %). Decrease of soil sediment loss due to sown cover crops (Canary grass or rye) was almost less than 10 % in comparison with variant without cover crop. The results confirm the importance of soil conservation technologies (including strip-tillage) of soil tillage to reduce the risk of land degradation by water erosion.