Long-Term Effects of Cover Crops on Crop Yields, Soil Organic Carbon Stocks and Sequestration

Kenneth Olson,James M Lang,Stephen A Ebelhar

doi:10.4236/ojss.2014.48030

Kenneth Olson, James M Lang + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.4236/ojss.2014.48030

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Abstract

A 12-year cover crops study on the effects on SOC sequestration, storage, retention and loss and corn and soybean yields was conducted in southern Illinois. The use of cover crops for the maintenance and restoration of soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil productivity of previously eroded soils were evaluated. No-till (NT), chisel plow (CP), and moldboard plow (MP) treatment plots with and without cover crops were established in 2001. The plot area was on sloping with a moderately well drained, eroded soil. The average annual corn and soybean yields were statistically the same for NT, CP, and MP systems with and without cover crops. By 2012, the cover crop treatments had more SOC stock than that without cover crops for the same soil layer and tillage treatment. The NT, CP, and MP treatments all sequestered SOC with cover crops. A pre-treatment SOC stock baseline for rooting zone was used to validate the finding that cover crops sequestered SOC in the topsoil, subsoil and root zone of the NT, CP and MP treatments during the 12-year study. Additional sequestered SOC was lost as a result of being transported off of the plots and retained in lower slopes, transported to the stream or released to atmosphere.

Highlights

Cover crops have been proposed in the US to increase soil organic carbon (SOC) stock of eroded and degraded soils and to sequesterHow to cite this paper: Olson, K., Ebelhar, S.A. and Lang, J.M. (2014) Long-Term Effects of Cover Crops on Crop Yields, Soil Organic Carbon Stocks and Sequestration
Chappell et al [2] found that measuring SOC stocks over an entire carbon estimation area (CEA) over a period of time was a prerequisite to demonstrating that SOC has been stored in the CEA
Quantifying SOC movement due to erosion will avoid mistaken assessments of the performance of management practice. It will encourage adoption of the management practices that store SOC to be consistent with approaches to soil conservation

Summary

Introduction

Cover crops have been proposed in the US to increase SOC stock of eroded and degraded soils and to sequesterHow to cite this paper: Olson, K., Ebelhar, S.A. and Lang, J.M. (2014) Long-Term Effects of Cover Crops on Crop Yields, Soil Organic Carbon Stocks and Sequestration. Cover crops have been proposed in the US to increase SOC stock of eroded and degraded soils and to sequester. (2014) Long-Term Effects of Cover Crops on Crop Yields, Soil Organic Carbon Stocks and Sequestration. The use of cover crops in intensive row crop rotations with different tillage treatments has been found to sequester SOC [1]. By measuring the impact of soil erosion, transport and deposition can the true impact of management practice on SOC be quantified. Quantifying SOC movement due to erosion will avoid mistaken assessments of the performance of management practice. It will encourage adoption of the management practices that store SOC to be consistent with approaches to soil conservation

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