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Long-term Cover Crop Use and Soil Health Study

Oct 13, 2017

Objectives

Determine the effect of continuously using cover crops for 4 or 5 years on soil health, measured as potentially mineralized nitrogen (PMN) and permanganate oxidizable carbon (POXC).
The study site was a continuous corn silage system with fall manure application and no further N added. Treatments included rye as a cover (chemically terminated) or a forage (harvested) crop and no cover crop
We measure PMN from soils collected throughout the growing season. The PMN was then compared to the plant N uptake and yield to evaluate seasonal soil N supply.

Results

There were no statistical differences in PMN among cover crop treatments at any time point in the 2015 season.
PMN for both the no cover crop and rye forage treatments decreased over the growing season, while the PMN for rye cover did not.
In 2015, there was a reduction in plant N uptake from no cover to rye as cover treatment and even less in te rye as forage treatment
In 2016 the corn in the no cover treatment took up twice as much nitrogen as corn in the rye as forage treatment. Thus rye as a cover or as a forage decreased N uptake and corn yield.
Together, this suggests that the plants are taking up different amounts of N and that some factor other than N availability that is causing differences in plant N uptake.
There were no statistical differences in POXC among cover crop treatments at any time point in the 2015 or 2016 season.

Figure 1:Rye as a cover plot (left) and rye as a forage crop (right) in June

Figure 2: Rye as a cover plot (left) and no cover plot (right) in June

Source: uwex.edu

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