Information About:
Mailing Address:
Dept. of Crop & Soil Sciences
116 ASI Building
University Park, PA 16802-3504
Phone: +1-814-865-6541
Fax: +1-814-863-7043
David Sylvia, Department Head
Cover Crops and Conservation Tillage for Soil Erosion Control on Cropland
Table of Contents
Reduce Surface Water Pollution — Benefits of Cover Crops
Due to the almost total elimination of surface water runoff from the continuous presence of ground covers, the loss of nutrients and pesticides by this route is almost eliminated (See Table 1).
Table 1. Average water, soil and cyanazinea (Bladex) runoff losses from a 14% slope planted to conventional and no-till corn with and without a birdsfoot trefoil or crownvetch living mulch from May through October for 3 growing seasons (1977-79). Hall et al. (1984)
|
| CTb |
NT-CSM |
NT-BFT |
NT-CV |
- Cyanazine pre emergence @ 2.0 lb a.i./A on CT, 4.0 lb a.i./A on
NT.
- CT = conventional tillage-rototilled, NT-CSM = no-till in corn
stover mulch, NT-BFT = no-till in CSM + birdsfoot trefoil living
mulch, NT-CV = no-till in CSM + crownvetch living mulch.
- Data collected from seeding to harvest of corn.
- Reduction relative to the CT cropping system which received
half the cyanazine rate.
|
| Water run off (gal/A) |
61,000 c |
6,270 (90%)d |
2,670 (96%) |
2,000 (97%) |
| Eroded soil (lb/A) |
12,690 |
375 (97%) |
50 (99.6%) |
18 (99.9%) |
| Cyanazine loss in runoff water (% of appl.) |
2.4 |
0.31 (87%) |
0.12 (95%) |
0.12 (95%) |
Cyanazine loss in sediment
(% of applied) |
0.2 |
0.01 (95%) |
0.0 (100%) |
0.0 (100%) |
| Total cyanazine loss (%) |
2.6 |
0.32 (88%) |
0.12 (95%) |
0.12 (95%) |