Use of conservation tillage to retard erosive effects of large storms
ABSTRACT:
Water erosion on Typic Hapludult soils of the Southern Piedmont may exceed the soil loss tolerance (T)value because of a few low-return-frequency storms. A 19-year watershed data set was used to determine the erosion retarding effect of double-cropped conservation tillage systems on 11 low-return-frequency storms. These large storms, exceeding 100 mm of rainfall or an erosion index of 1,000 MJ mm(ha-h)−1, occurred between June 1972 and June 1991. Intensive conservation tillage management improved soil carbon, water stable aggregates, and rainfall retention. Runoff plot data collected and used in part for the development of the universal soil loss equation model during a previous 20-year hydrologic period (1940–1959) also authenticates the occurrence of low-return-frequency storms and their accelerated erosive effects following conventional tillage. Conservation tillage technologies were essential to successfully inhibit destructive soil erosion resulting from low-return-frequency storms occurring on the Southern Piedmont.
Footnotes
G. W. Lungdale is a soil scientist at the Southern Piedmont Conservation Research Center, Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Watkinsville, Georgia 30677. W. C. Mills is a hydraulic enginee; and A.W. Thomas is an agricultural engineer at the Southeast Watershed Research Laboratories, ARS, USDA, Tifton, Georgia 31793.
- Copyright 1992 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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