ABSTRACT:
Five tillage systems were used on two Blackland Prairie soils in Mississippi. Monocrop soybeans were grown with four systems ranging from zero tillage to conventional tillage plus fall chisel plowing. A double-crop of soft red winter wheat and soybeans was the fifth system. One soil was a Leeper silty clay loam with less than 1% slope, the other an upland soil, Brooksville silty clay, with a 3% slope. Relative crop yields as a function of tillage were similar on both soils. There was no soybean yield response to fall chisel plowing. Minimum tillage and zero tillage reduced soybean yields significantly. The double-crop treatment produced the highest net return and was the most soil-conserving practice on the upland soil. Soil loss with the double-crop treatment averaged 2.48 tons/ha/year, compared to 6.53 and 40.13 tons/ha/year for the zero tillage and bare fallow reference plot, respectively. The double-crop treatment also produced the least runoff (11.48 cm/year), which was 10% of the average annual rainfall. Of the five tillage systems studied, only the fall chisel treatment resulted in erosion rates greater than the soil loss tolerance of 9.1 tons/ha/year for the Brooksville soil.
Footnotes
J. E. Hairston is an assistant professor of agronomy, J. C. Hayes is an assistant professor of agricultural and biological engineering, and L. L. Reinschmiedt is an associate professor of agricultural economics at Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, 39762. J. O. Sanford is a research agronomist with the Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State. This article is a contribution from the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station and ARS, USDA. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute endorsement or recommendation for use.
- Copyright 1984 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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