THE IMPORTANCE OF CROPS AND CROP RESIDUES IN PREVENTING THE SOIL LOSS BY WATER EROSION OUT OF THE VEGETATION SEASON

Abstract

Water erosion is one form of physical soil degradation. As a result of climate change, global warming and changes in the distribution of atmospheric precipitation are also taking place in Slovakia. In the southern, warmer regions, snowfall decreases during the winter at the expense of rain precipitation. During the winter period outside the main crop growing season, arable land is often without a vegetation cover to protect the soil structure from the action of the kinetic energy of falling rain. For this reason, the need to protect the soil surface from the erosive effect of water also comes to the fore during the winter season. This study presents the results of rain simulations using the Eijkelkamp rainfall simulator on arable land in the Nitra-Drazovce area in Slovakia in March 2017, specifically focusing on medium-textured soil. The simulations compared two soil cover types: bare soil without crop residues and soil with 40% of cover consisting of previous crop residues (spring barley) among which winter wheat was grown in narrow rows. During each simulation, the surface runoff was collected in the numbered collectors. In the laboratory, we calculated the height of the surface runoff and after filtering the detached soil we also determined the amount of soil loss. The differences between the observed values were tested for statistical significance by one-way Anova and Tukey HSD test. The results indicated that while there were no significant differences in surface runoff height, soil loss was 50% lower in plots with soil cover compared to bare soil. The presence of soil cover significantly reduced the detachment and transport of soil. These findings highlight the importance of maintaining high-quality soil cover throughout the year to combat water erosion and preserve soil productivity.