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Topography Mediates the Influence of Cover Crops on Soil Nitrate Levels in Row Crop Agricultural Systems

Supplying adequate amounts of soil N for plant growth during the growing season and across large agricultural fields is a challenge for conservational agricultural systems with cover crops. Knowledge about cover crop effects on N comes mostly from small, flat research plots and performance of cover...

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Autores principales: Ladoni, Moslem, Kravchenko, Alexandra N., Robertson, G. Phillip
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4658186/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26600462
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0143358
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author Ladoni, Moslem
Kravchenko, Alexandra N.
Robertson, G. Phillip
author_facet Ladoni, Moslem
Kravchenko, Alexandra N.
Robertson, G. Phillip
author_sort Ladoni, Moslem
collection PubMed
description Supplying adequate amounts of soil N for plant growth during the growing season and across large agricultural fields is a challenge for conservational agricultural systems with cover crops. Knowledge about cover crop effects on N comes mostly from small, flat research plots and performance of cover crops across topographically diverse agricultural land is poorly understood. Our objective was to assess effects of both leguminous (red clover) and non-leguminous (winter rye) cover crops on potentially mineralizable N (PMN) and [Image: see text] levels across a topographically diverse landscape. We studied conventional, low-input, and organic managements in corn-soybean-wheat rotation. The rotations of low-input and organic managements included rye and red clover cover crops. The managements were implemented in twenty large undulating fields in Southwest Michigan starting from 2006. The data collection and analysis were conducted during three growing seasons of 2011, 2012 and 2013. Observational micro-plots with and without cover crops were laid within each field on three contrasting topographical positions of depression, slope and summit. Soil samples were collected 4–5 times during each growing season and analyzed for [Image: see text] and PMN. The results showed that all three managements were similar in their temporal and spatial distributions of NO(3) (—)N. Red clover cover crop increased [Image: see text] by 35% on depression, 20% on slope and 32% on summit positions. Rye cover crop had a significant 15% negative effect on [Image: see text] in topographical depressions but not in slope and summit positions. The magnitude of the cover crop effects on soil mineral nitrogen across topographically diverse fields was associated with the amount of cover crop growth and residue production. The results emphasize the potential environmental and economic benefits that can be generated by implementing site-specific topography-driven cover crop management in row-crop agricultural systems.
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spelling pubmed-46581862015-12-02 Topography Mediates the Influence of Cover Crops on Soil Nitrate Levels in Row Crop Agricultural Systems Ladoni, Moslem Kravchenko, Alexandra N. Robertson, G. Phillip PLoS One Research Article Supplying adequate amounts of soil N for plant growth during the growing season and across large agricultural fields is a challenge for conservational agricultural systems with cover crops. Knowledge about cover crop effects on N comes mostly from small, flat research plots and performance of cover crops across topographically diverse agricultural land is poorly understood. Our objective was to assess effects of both leguminous (red clover) and non-leguminous (winter rye) cover crops on potentially mineralizable N (PMN) and [Image: see text] levels across a topographically diverse landscape. We studied conventional, low-input, and organic managements in corn-soybean-wheat rotation. The rotations of low-input and organic managements included rye and red clover cover crops. The managements were implemented in twenty large undulating fields in Southwest Michigan starting from 2006. The data collection and analysis were conducted during three growing seasons of 2011, 2012 and 2013. Observational micro-plots with and without cover crops were laid within each field on three contrasting topographical positions of depression, slope and summit. Soil samples were collected 4–5 times during each growing season and analyzed for [Image: see text] and PMN. The results showed that all three managements were similar in their temporal and spatial distributions of NO(3) (—)N. Red clover cover crop increased [Image: see text] by 35% on depression, 20% on slope and 32% on summit positions. Rye cover crop had a significant 15% negative effect on [Image: see text] in topographical depressions but not in slope and summit positions. The magnitude of the cover crop effects on soil mineral nitrogen across topographically diverse fields was associated with the amount of cover crop growth and residue production. The results emphasize the potential environmental and economic benefits that can be generated by implementing site-specific topography-driven cover crop management in row-crop agricultural systems. Public Library of Science 2015-11-23 /pmc/articles/PMC4658186/ /pubmed/26600462 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0143358 Text en © 2015 Ladoni et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Ladoni, Moslem
Kravchenko, Alexandra N.
Robertson, G. Phillip
Topography Mediates the Influence of Cover Crops on Soil Nitrate Levels in Row Crop Agricultural Systems
title Topography Mediates the Influence of Cover Crops on Soil Nitrate Levels in Row Crop Agricultural Systems
title_full Topography Mediates the Influence of Cover Crops on Soil Nitrate Levels in Row Crop Agricultural Systems
title_fullStr Topography Mediates the Influence of Cover Crops on Soil Nitrate Levels in Row Crop Agricultural Systems
title_full_unstemmed Topography Mediates the Influence of Cover Crops on Soil Nitrate Levels in Row Crop Agricultural Systems
title_short Topography Mediates the Influence of Cover Crops on Soil Nitrate Levels in Row Crop Agricultural Systems
title_sort topography mediates the influence of cover crops on soil nitrate levels in row crop agricultural systems
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4658186/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26600462
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0143358
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