ABSTRACT:
Winter legume cover crops can be chemically killed and used as a mulch for no-till corn, supplying part of the corn's N requirement while also providing the usual advantages associated with a mulch. Hairy vetch (Vicia villosa Roth), big flower vetch (Vicia grandiflora W. Koch var. Kitailbeliana), crimson clover (Trifolium incarnatum L.), rye (Secale cereale L.), and corn (Zea mays L.) residue, each in combination with three levels of fertilizer N, were compared as sources of N for no-till corn. The combination of hairy vetch and 100 kg ha−1 of fertilizer N consistently gave highest grain yields and economic returns, fields with this treatment increased relative to the other treatments during the 5-year experiment, indicating increased soil productivity. Soil erosion was controlled within tolerance limits, based on universal soil loss equation estimates. No legume by itself provided adequate N for the corn. A combination of an adapted legume cover crop and N fertilizer in a no-till system offers a way to control soil erosion with corn production on sloping soils in the Southeast while maintaining or increasing yields, income, and soil productivity.
Footnotes
W. W. Frye is a professor. Department of Agronomy, University of Kentucky, Lexington, 40546-0091. W. C. Smith, now deceased, was an agricultural economist, and R. J. Williams is an agricultural economist with the Tennessee Valley Authority. This article is a contribution from the Tennessee Valley Authority, Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and the Department of Agronomy, University of Kentucky, Lexington. Published with the approval of the director of the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station as Journal Paper No. 84-3-125.
- Copyright 1985 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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