Erratum for “Trade‐Offs in Cereal Rye Management Strategies Prior to Organically Managed Soybean”, by Crowley et al., Agron. J. 110:1492–1504

Abstract

https://doi.org/10.2134/agronj2017.10.0605 A mistake was made in entering the dry weight of cereal rye when calculating the variable costs and return over variable costs of the Ryelage treatment. The mistake resulted in a large overestimate of both the costs and the profitability of the Ryelage system (see corrected Tables 3 and 4, below), and affects the results of the statistical analysis comparing the profitability of the treatments. Specifically, with the error corrected, the profitability of the Ryelage treatment was not significantly different from any other treatment in either 2015 or 2016. However, there was a noticeable trend towards higher profitability in the Ryelage system compared to the Roll-down system in 2016 (Tukey's test, P = 0.098). To correct the number presented in the text on page 1501, the return over variable costs in the Roll-down system was 43% (not 27%) of the return in the Ryelage system in 2016. These revised results affect our conclusion. The Ryelage treatment did not, as we stated in our conclusion, give considerable added profit to the farmer compared to the Roll-down treatment. Thus, in a wet year, such as 2015, the Roll-down system might be the best choice given that there was no difference in profitability between the four systems, and reduced labor and some soil health advantages were observed in the Roll-down system. However, in a dry year like 2016, the Roll-down system might be the worst option, given lower yield and profitability compared with the other systems. Overall, our revised results partially support our hypothesis that compared with the No-cover control, incorporating cereal rye into a rotation prior to soybean can improve soil health, maintain weed suppression and soybean yield, and/or improve profitability, but that these benefits vary depending on management strategy. No strategy improved profitability, and no one strategy provided all of the other benefits. The Roll-down treatment improved soil health and reduced labor, but weeds were more abundant and soybean yields and profitability were lower in the second year. The Plow-down and Ryelage treatments maintained weed suppression and soybean yield, but did not significantly improve soil health and required substantially more labor.