Soil and Water Losses as Affected by Tillage and Manure Application

Abstract

Little data are available on conservation tillage under field conditions characteristic of a dairy operation. Thus, simulated rainfall was used to compare soil and water losses among conventional, chisel, and no‐till systems for corn both with and without surface‐applied manure prior to tillage. Rainfall was applied at several times during the growing season of 1978 and 1979. A portion of the previous year's crop residue was removed in 1978 and all the residue was left in 1979. A tillage × date interaction was observed for runoff losses in both years of the experiment. Significantly lower runoff occurred for the conventional and chisel systems relative to the no‐till system immediately after planting. At later sampling periods, runoff significantly increased for the conventional system and runoff losses approached that from no‐till. In contrast, lower runoff losses occurred for the chisel system relative to the other tillage systems. This was most apparent in 1979 when more residue was partially incorporated or left on the soil surface. Surface spread manure decreased runoff for all tillage treatments at the September 1978 sampling period and at both sampling periods in 1979. The results indicated the greatest response with the chisel system. In 1978 and 1979, a tillage × manure interaction was observed for soil loss. In 1978, little difference in soil loss was observed among unmanured tillage treatments. However, the application of manure reduced soil losses for chisel and no‐till systems relative to the conventional system. In 1979, soil losses were lower from unmanured chisel and unmanured no‐till treatments than from the unmanured conventional treatment. Soil losses were significantly lower from the manured chisel treatment than all other treatments.

Management of Urea-Containing Fertilizers for No-Tillage Corn Using Nitrogen Stabilizers and Coated-Granule Technology

“…These advantages include reduction of soil losses (Mueller et al, 1984), increased water-use efficiency (Bennett et al, 1973, Phillips et al, 1980, and improved soil quality (Havlin et al, 1990, Cassel et al, 1995. The 88 W. B. Gordon large amount of residue left on the soil surface in no-tillage systems can make nitrogen (N) management difficult.…”

Nutrient value of alum-treated poultry litter for land application

“…Therefore, evaluation of the nutrient value of alum-treated poultry litter for land application warrants systematic studies. Application rate is a key factor in determining nutrient runoff losses from land-applied animal manures (Mueller et al, 1984;Edwards et al, 1994;Harmel et al, 2004). It is recommended that poultry litter be applied at rates matching crop requirements for P (NRCS, 1999), with additional N applied from other sources to meet crop N needs (Harmel et al, 2004).…”

Nonpoint source (NPS) model simulation of tillage effects on water quality

“…Conservation tillage produces either decreased (Andraski et al, 1985;Blevins et al, 1990) or increased (Lindstorm and Onstad, 1984;Mueller et al, 1984;Yoo and Touchton, 1989) surface runoff compared to that of conventional tillage under different field conditions. Conservation tillage, however, has been found to be effective in reducing soil erosion and nutrient losses in most cases (Angle et al, 1984;McGregor and Green, 1982).…”