Abstract
Elevated soil loss and runoff rates can reduce soil fertility; therefore, soil erosion control strategies must be implemented at the hillslope and watershed scale when plantations are established and the soil is bare. In this research, we propose the use of the Vicia sativa Roth. to reduce the soil losses during the first year to control the peak of soil erosion after the plantation in tilled vineyards. To test its efficiency, rainfall simulation experiments were carried out with field surveys in The Casa Pago Gran, in the Eastern Iberian Peninsula. Our results demonstrate that soil properties (organic matter and soil bulk density) and soil erosion (soil loss, runoff and sediment concentration) were significantly different between the control plot (tilled) and with cover crops along with August 2016, 2017 and 2018 measurement periods, but not during January 2016, coinciding with the initial survey before the vetch sown. Runoff initiation was delayed in 3.7 times after 3 years (from 190 till 709 s). The runoff discharge was reduced by the Vicia sativa from 32.87 till 13.68%, the sediment concentration went down from 18.54 till 3.81 gr l−1 and the soil erosion from 3.36 to 0.29 Mg ha−1 year−1. An increase in soil bulk density was registered but did not affect the runoff generation either the soil losses, that was reduced by the plant cover. We conclude that it is necessary to include soil erosion control measures such as the use of Vicia sativa to reduce soil erosion processes during the first stages of the vineyard plantations due to the soil quality improvements and the reduction in soil and water losses.
Highlights
Soil erosion has been found not sustainable in many agriculture landscapes of the world (e.g.,Bayramin et al 2006; Mohammed et al 2020b; Panagos and Katsoyiannis 2019) inducing severe land degradation processes (García-Ruiz et al 2015; Salvati et al 2016)
This was the time that the soil erosion research was spread to different parts of the world (Stamp 1938) and, plants were found to be a suitable option to control the soil losses in degraded lands
We propose in this research the use of a specific cover crop, the Vicia Sativa roth. to reduce the soil losses during the first year after the plantation to control the peak of soil erosion and, subsequently, preventing the degradation processes during the coming future years
Summary
Soil erosion has been found not sustainable in many agriculture landscapes of the world (e.g.,Bayramin et al 2006; Mohammed et al 2020b; Panagos and Katsoyiannis 2019) inducing severe land degradation processes (García-Ruiz et al 2015; Salvati et al 2016). The use of experimental research in the 1930s in the USA resulted in a better understanding of the soil erosion processes (Lutz 1935) and the initiation of the soil erosion control research (Ayres 1937) based on the understanding of soil erosion process and related mechanism (Ellison 1945). This was the time that the soil erosion research was spread to different parts of the world (Stamp 1938) and, plants were found to be a suitable option to control the soil losses in degraded lands. Soil erosion in agriculture lands was more investigated and it was found that intense ploughing (Turtola et al 2007), use of herbicides (Liu et al 2016), cultivation of steep slopes (Shi et al 2012), wrong soil managements (Mohammed et al 2020a; Li et al 2020) and subsequent soil compaction (Parker 1995; Al-Dousari et al 2019) and soil degradation (Hill et al 1995) resulted in high erosion rates
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