The Effect of Cover Crop on Soil Carbon and Soil Water Retention in Topographically Diverse Terrain

The Effect of Cover Crop on Soil Carbon and Soil Water Retention in Topographically Diverse Terrain PDF Author: Jordan Beehler
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781369436204
Category : Electronic dissertations
Languages : en
Pages : 56

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The Effect of Cover Crop on Soil Carbon and Soil Water Retention in Topographically Diverse Terrain

The Effect of Cover Crop on Soil Carbon and Soil Water Retention in Topographically Diverse Terrain PDF Author: Jordan Beehler
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781369436204
Category : Electronic dissertations
Languages : en
Pages : 56

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Book Description


Effect of Topography and Soil Properties on Spatial Variability of Soil Carbon(C) Loss in Different Crop Management Systems of a Long-term Experiment

Effect of Topography and Soil Properties on Spatial Variability of Soil Carbon(C) Loss in Different Crop Management Systems of a Long-term Experiment PDF Author: Senthikumar Subramanian
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : No-tillage
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Journal of Soil and Water Conservation

Journal of Soil and Water Conservation PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Soil conservation
Languages : en
Pages : 818

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Book Description
Vol. 25, no. 1 contains the society's Lincoln Chapter's Resource conservation glossary.

Interactive Effects of Cover Crops and Topography on Soil Organic Carbon and Mineral Nitrogen

Interactive Effects of Cover Crops and Topography on Soil Organic Carbon and Mineral Nitrogen PDF Author: Moslem Ladoni
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781321628401
Category : Electronic dissertations
Languages : en
Pages : 116

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Cover Crops and Sustainable Agriculture

Cover Crops and Sustainable Agriculture PDF Author: Rafiq Islam
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1000407144
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 534

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Book Description
This book will not serve as the "encyclopedia of cover crop management," but it’s close. The benefits of a wide range of individual cover crops and blends/mixes for specific agronomic crop rotations and geographic locations are included. Descriptions, photographs, and illustrations show how cover crops look in the field, including plant height, leaf architecture, and rooting patterns. Long term benefits are described for soil health, soil structure, water quality, nutrient contributions, soil biodiversity, air quality and climate change. In addition to the "whys" of cover crop use, the book includes details on the "hows:" how to choose cover crops for specific applications and locations; how (and when) to plant; how to manage and maintain the cover for maximum benefit; and how and when to terminate. Planting options include: drilling/planting between rows of an agronomic crop at planting time, or when the crop is short (i.e. corn in early June); "aerial" seeding with an airplane or high-clearance machine shortly before the crop reaches maturity; and drilling/planting immediately after harvest of the agronomic crop. Selected cover crops (blends) can help with pest and disease management. Cover crops are an economic input with an expected return on investment, similar to pesticides and fertilizer. As part of a continuous no-till system, cover crops provide long-term biological, chemical and structural benefits. The resulting increase in soil organic matter means the agronomic crop yields benefit from better water infiltration and water holding capacity, greater availability of nitrogen and other nutrients, deeper rooting, and increased soil microbial activity in the root zone.

Cover Crops for Sustainable Farming

Cover Crops for Sustainable Farming PDF Author: Eric Justes
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9402409866
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 106

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Book Description
This study, based on a literature review and simulations, shows the efficiency of cover crops at catching nitrate in most agriculture situations. It also analyzes both the negative impacts they can have and the ecosystem services they can provide. The introduction of a cover crop between two main crops helps catch the soil mineral nitrogen before the period of drainage and consequently reduces nitrate leaching and nitrate concentration in the drainage water. This study allows quantifying the efficiency of cover crops at catching nitrate and optimizing their implantation conditions over a large range of French pedoclimatic conditions. The presence of high nitrate levels in surface and ground waters, due to excessive nitrogen fertilization and natural production of nitrate by soil organic matter mineralization, is a double challenge for public health and environment protection.

Effect of Different Cover Crop Species on Crop Production and Soil Health

Effect of Different Cover Crop Species on Crop Production and Soil Health PDF Author: Mingwei Chu
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cover crops
Languages : en
Pages : 97

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Book Description
Integration of cover crops (CCs) can provide several benefits to row crop production systems. Comprehensive studies to understand the effectiveness of a mixture of CCs versus single or double species CCs are limited. In this study, we evaluated the effect of single and double species CCs, and the soil health mix (SHM, a combination of five species recommended by the United States Department of Agriculture) on soil quality attributes and crop production in western Tennessee. The results showed an increase in soybean yield after 3-years of SHM treatment, which corresponded with significantly higher soil moisture content and soil inorganic nitrogen content compared to less diverse CC treatments and no-cover control. Overall the multi-species SHM showed potential for enhancing soil quality and crop yield. The Haney's soil health test is a new approach to quantify the soil health status with heavy emphasis on soil biological properties. It introduced a new extractant for determining soil available nutrients, H3A; a new method of soil respiration measurement using Solvita gel system; and two new soil bioavailability parameters: water extractable organic carbon (WEOC) and water extractable organic nitrogen (WEON). The final Haney soil health score is calculated from the Solvita respiration, WEOC and WEON. In this study, components in Haney's soil health test were evaluated to test their effectiveness in Tennessee soils. The H3A extractant showed significant but weak correlation with the traditional extractants such as Mehlich-1 and Mehlich-3. The Solvita test did not provide a reliable estimation of potential mineralizable nitrogen, however, it correlated with many soil properties including soil carbon and nitrogen pools as well as the WEOC and WEON. Although the soil health score showed some extent of sensitivity to long-term cover crop treatments, it did not capture the variation in soil health status after 4 years of cover cropping with different species of cover crops. This study is a first step towards simultaneous suitability evaluation of a suite of CCs for improving the sustainability of the agricultural belt of Tennessee. More similar studies are needed to help farmers make informed decisions of CC species selection for their cropping systems.

Change in Soil Characteristics After Incorporating Cover Crops in the Crop Rotation

Change in Soil Characteristics After Incorporating Cover Crops in the Crop Rotation PDF Author: Sukhdeep Singh
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic dissertations
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Cover crops have the potential to improve soil-based ecosystem services by increasing vegetation cover and plant diversity, improving soil quality, increasing soil carbon and nitrogen stocks, and enhancing microbial activity. Planting cover crop mixtures in the cash crop rotation has been proposed to overcome possible cash crop productivity losses during the organic transition period. The first objective of this study was to examine the effects of three cover cropping systems on soil properties of potential importance for crop performance and cash crop yield following three years of an organic transition period prior to planting organic corn (Zea mays L.). The three-year crop rotation was a corn -soybean (Glycine max L.)-winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) rotation (CSWR). Four cover cropping systems were studied including a traditional cover crop system (TR), a mixture of cold susceptible cover crop species (WK), a mixture of cold tolerant species (WH), and a no-cover control (NC). Split block experiments were setup in four fields with contrasting topographical positions, namely depression, slope, and summit in each field. After the three-year transition period, there was no difference in particulate organic matter (POM), microbial biomass carbon, nitrogen mineralization rate, soil ammonium contents, and organic corn yield following the transition period, across the cover crop treatments. However, soil moisture, soil nitrate content, soil carbon mineralization rate, and aboveground plant biomass were significantly affected by cover crop treatments. Field topography influenced organic corn yield after the transition period, with the highest yiels in field depressions. The second chapter focused on a meta-analysis from 15 field studies that estimated the change in soil carbon sequestration due to cover crops and tillage systems. Four systems were compared: conventional tillage without cover crop (CT-NC), conventional tillage with cover crop (CT-CC), no-tillage without cover crop (NT-NC), and no-tillage with cover crop (NT-CC). NT-CC systems had the highest soil carbon sequestration whereas CT-NC had the lowest soil carbon sequestration. Tillage had a stronger influence on carbon sequestration compared to cover crops. In conclusion, cover crops have the potential to improve crop growth and important soil characteristics during the organic transition period and providing increased ecosystem services when combined with no-tillage.

Cover Crops for Clean Water

Cover Crops for Clean Water PDF Author: William Leonard Hargrove
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
The proceedings of this conference deal with the role of cover crops in water quality management, including reducing water runoff, soil erosion, agrichemical lost in runoff, and nitrate leaching to groundwater

Cover Crop Effects on the Carbon Cycle

Cover Crop Effects on the Carbon Cycle PDF Author: Anna Marie Cates
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
Cover crops, or the practice of adding an unharvested crop to an annual crop rotation, are increasing in popularity and widely recommended to help retain soil, water, and nutrients on agricultural land. However, the ability of cover crops to improve soil health and sequester soil C remains unknown. Cover crops are thought likely to increase soil C because they add diversity in C inputs and increase the total growing season, but the magnitude and probability of this effect in different systems is critical for informing our understanding of cover crop efficacy and making recommendations to growers. In addition, cover crops may impact biogeochemical cycling and soil processes via changing the abiotic environment. Motivated by the need for detailed evidence of cover crop efficacy at multiple scales, I combined field-based evaluation of cover crop effects on the C cycle with an investigation into mechanisms of C storage under varying abiotic conditions. In Chapter 1, I review establishment constraints and variability in production to argue that cover cropping in northern climates requires specific agronomic systems and "buy-in" from farmers and government agencies. In Chapter 2, I used a biometric approach to the net ecosystem C balanced (NECB) of maize-cover crop and found that grain maize's NECB hovered near zero, suggesting that with or without cover crops the systems had marginal ability to increase soil C. Silage maize's NECB was always negative, despite greater rye biomass. In Chapter 3, I carried out a litterbag experiment on maize residue decomposition, soil or litter microbial decomposer community and analyzed particulate organic matter (POM) and potentially mineralizable C (PMC) as indices of active C. We found that cover crops did not alter microbial composition or maize residue decomposition rate. We observed increases in PMC and POM-C with cover crops, which were correlated with total NPP. In Chapter 4, we report on a laboratory incubation evaluating whether temperature and moisture effect on physical protection of decomposing plant litter C. We found that higher temperatures increased C mineralization, shifted bacterial composition, and decreased efficiency of conversion of litter C to soil C, but dry conditions increased soil aggregation.