Abstract
Research results still vary, especially between locations, on the effects of agricultural practices on soil chemical properties and crop yield, and not all reasons for the variation are fully understood. Thus, this study investigated the influence of tillage, cover crop and crop rotation management practices on selected soil chemical properties. The study was conducted on a silt-loam soil in central Missouri during the 2011 to 2013 growing seasons. The soil was managed by moldboard plow tillage at two levels (tillage [till] vs. no-tillage [NT]). Cover crop management included cereal rye (Secale cereale) at two levels (cover crop [CC] vs. no cover crop [NC]). The main crops that were grown were a corn (Zea mays L.) and soybean (Glycine max L.) rotation. The soil samples were collected each year at 0–10 cm, 10–20 cm, 20–40 cm and 40–60 cm depths for the analysis of soil chemical properties. The results showed that after 3 years of study, the relative increase in percent soil organic matter (OM) was 4% under the no-till management as compared with moldboard plow tillage. In addition, the relative change in the percentage of OM was 8% greater in the CC management compared with NC. Furthermore, the results show a significant improvement (p = 0.0304) in total carbon with a combination of no-till management and a corn/soybean rotation as compared with continuous corn and soybean. The interaction effects of the management practices on the soil chemical properties were difficult to predict throughout the study.
Highlights
Soil and crop management practices such as tillage, cover cropping and crop rotation can affect soil quality and soil health indicators [1,2,3], the soil pH and organic matter levels, and these properties can determine the chemical state of a soil
There was no significant difference between the tillage practices for the bulk density; both the volumetric and gravimetric water contents were significantly higher under NT compared with the tillage management [26]
This study was conducted to investigate the effects of tillage, cover crop and crop rotation management practices on the chemical properties of the soil
Summary
Soil and crop management practices such as tillage, cover cropping and crop rotation can affect soil quality and soil health indicators [1,2,3], the soil pH and organic matter levels, and these properties can determine the chemical state of a soil. Several authors [7,8,9,10,11,12] have pointed out that no-tillage (NT) can act as a sink of C, based on the increase of organic carbon (OC) content in the upper 20 cm of the soil. Evaluating two long-term (18 and 20 years old) tillage sites in Michigan, Senthilkumar et al [13] found a greater loss of soil C when conventional tillage (CT) was used as compared to NT. They noticed that in some cases, NT increased the soil C content
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