Abstract
ABSTRACT Cover crops are of fundamental importance for the sustainability of the no-tillage system, to ensure soil coverage and to provide benefits for the subsequent crop. The objective of this study was to evaluate the production of biomass and the content and accumulation of nutrients by winter cover crops. The experimental design used in the experiment was a randomized complete block with four replications and six treatments: oilseed radish, vetch, black oats, vetch + black oats, vetch + oilseed radish and fallow. Black oat, oilseed radish in single cultivation and black oat + vetch and vetch + oilseed radish intercroppings showed higher dry matter production. Vetch + oilseed radish intercropping demonstrates higher performance regarding cycling of nutrients, with higher accumulations of N, P, K, Ca, Mg, S, Cu, Zn, Fe, Na and B.
Highlights
In southern Brazil, as the so-called “modern” technologies have expanded in agriculture, cover crops and green manures had been left out
Among the plants used as green manure, legumes present the advantage of symbiotically associating themselves with the nitrogen fixing micro-organisms, increasing levels of that macronutrient in the straw (Perin et al, 2004)
Regarding grasses intercropped with legumes, nutrient uptake and mineralization rates are higher due to the presence of legumes, the straw of these plants is more interesting for the composition of a crop rotation system or as contribution to nutrition in agro-ecological systems
Summary
In southern Brazil, as the so-called “modern” technologies have expanded in agriculture, cover crops and green manures had been left out. Regarding grasses intercropped with legumes, nutrient uptake and mineralization rates are higher due to the presence of legumes, the straw of these plants is more interesting for the composition of a crop rotation system or as contribution to nutrition in agro-ecological systems. The capacity of those species to cycle the available nitrogen in soil and/or to fix atmospheric nitrogen, the high nitrogen demand of grasses and the high cost of nitrogen fertilizers contribute to the inclusion of these species in rotation with corn (Giacomini et al, 2004). Green manures are of great importance to agriculture because they promote a more rapid cycling of nutrients promoting their use by the following crop, of those elements with leaching potential such as nitrogen and exchangeable cations, or of those that may be relatively easy retained in weathered soils, such as phosphorus (Rodrigues et al, 2012)
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