Cover crops reduce soil resistance to penetration by preserving soil surface water content

•Reduction of soil strength by cover crops was not consistent within the year.•On an annual base cover crops affected soil strength by modifying soil water content.•Barley mulch increased water content, thus reducing soil strength before maize sowing.•The grass barley cover crop reduced soil strengt...

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Vydáno v:Geoderma Ročník 386; s. 114911
Hlavní autoři: Gabriel, José Luis, García-González, Irene, Quemada, Miguel, Martin-Lammerding, Diana, Alonso-Ayuso, María, Hontoria, Chiquinquirá
Médium: Journal Article
Jazyk:angličtina
Vydáno: Elsevier B.V 15.03.2021
Témata:
aeration
Arid irrigated agrosystems
barley
Conservation agriculture
cover crops
fallow
field experimentation
germination
Hordeum vulgare
mulches
penetrometers
reduced tillage
Residue mulch
resistance to penetration
Soil crust
soil strength
soil water
soil water content
sowing
Spain
surface water
Vicia
water content
Spain
CC
Conservation agriculture
Residue mulch
BF
Arid irrigated agrosystems
Soil crust
RP
SWC
ISSN:0016-7061, 1872-6259
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Shrnutí:•Reduction of soil strength by cover crops was not consistent within the year.•On an annual base cover crops affected soil strength by modifying soil water content.•Barley mulch increased water content, thus reducing soil strength before maize sowing.•The grass barley cover crop reduced soil strength more than legume vetch.•A combination of cover crops and reduced tillage diminished the risk of soil crusting. Replacement of bare fallow in rotations by cover crops is a promising tool to reduce crusting, although the interactions with the soil moisture and the effect of the cover crop species are still not well understood. The objective of this work was to determine how cover crops modify the soil surface response to penetration and their relation with the soil water content. Two winter cover crops, barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) and vetch (Vicia sp. L.), were compared with a bare fallow treatment in a 10-year field experiment in central Spain. Soil resistance to penetration and soil water content were intensively measured (76 sampling dates) at two surface depths, using two types of surface penetrometers. Under the barley cover crop, the number of very dry events was reduced by around 20%, compared to the bare fallow. The soil resistance to penetration was closely related to the surface soil water content (R2 = 0.65) and cover crops affected it through soil moisture modification. In this line, the greater mulch provided by barley cover crop respect to vetch, increased the soil water content prior to main crop seeding, resulting in less resistance to penetration during this critical period. The good performance of barley resulted in a reduction of more than 60% of the soil resistance to penetration between the 3rd and 8th year of the experiment (7.2–2.9 kg cm−2, respectively). Even under bare fallow, soil strength was decreased after ten years with reduced tillage. Therefore, the maintenance of cover crop residues over surface soil together with reduced tillage enhanced the soil surface conditions and steadily reduced the risk of crust formation. Expected enhancement of main-crop germination, water infiltration, soil aeration and erosion mitigation may be attained by cover-cropping in degraded soils.
Bibliografie:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:0016-7061
1872-6259
DOI:10.1016/j.geoderma.2020.114911