Abstract
Best management practices (BMPs) can mitigate erosion and nutrient runoff. We evaluated runoff losses for silage corn management systems using paired watershed fields in central Wisconsin. A two-year calibration period of fall-applied liquid dairy manure incorporated with chisel plow tillage (FMT) was followed by a three and a half-year treatment period. During the treatment period FMT was continued on one field, and three different systems on the others: (a) fall-applied manure and chisel tillage plus a vegetative buffer strip (BFMT); (b) a fall rye cover crop with spring manure application and chisel tillage (RSMT), both BMPs; a common system (c) fall manure application with spring chisel tillage (FMST). Year-round runoff monitoring included flow, suspended sediment (SS), total phosphorus (TP), dissolved reactive phosphorus (DRP), ammonium (NH4+-N), nitrate, and total nitrogen (TN). Results showed BFMT reduced runoff SS, TP, and TN concentration and load compared to FMT. The RSMT system reduced concentrations of SS, TP, and TN, but not load because of increased runoff. The FMST practice increased TP, DRP, and NH4+-N loads by 39, 376, and 197%, respectively. While BMPs showed mitigation potential for SS, TN, and TP, none controlled DRP, suggesting additional practices may be needed in manured corn silage fields with high runoff potential.
Highlights
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.Corn silage is an important crop to dairy producers in the US and globally
Our results indicate that fall manure application with spring chisel tillage (FMST) is not an advisable practice, given its much higher risk of surface runoff dissolved reactive P (DRP) loss, as evidenced by the large total and dissolved P load increases (Table 4; Figure 3), especially in snowmelt runoff
Fall manure application and incorporation via chisel plow or other tillage is a common practice on many dairy farms in central WI and other parts of the US
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.Corn silage is an important crop to dairy producers in the US and globally. While dairy manure application on silage fields provides needed nutrients and is a source of organic matter for soil quality, it contributes to runoff P and N losses and greenhouse gas emissions [8] Nutrient management practices such as manure application methods, tillage practices, cover crops, and grass buffers can reduce erosion and P transport in corn production systems [1,2,3,5,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17], it is important to recognize that they can have differential effects on sediment and P transport. While plant buffer species did not affect N removal, buffers > 50 m removed N more consistently than 0 to 25 m wide strips
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