ABSTRACT:
No-till cropping systems have become very common in North America over the past two decades. The effects of no-till on stream quality, however, have not been studied at watershed scales. We measured habitat and stream water quality and sampled the benthic macroinvertebrate community in 32 small (100 to 1400 ha, 247 to 3,460 ac) subwatersheds that exhibited a gradient of the proportion of land under no-till cropping systems to determine relationships between the use of no-till and stream quality. Increased use of no-till systems resulted in improvements in habitat and water quality and the benthic macroinvertebrate community. Based on these results we concluded that increased use of no-till cropping systems by farmers has a positive effect on the quality of streams in agroecosytems.
Footnotes
Adam G. Yates and Robert C. Bailey work in the Department of Biology at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada. John A. Schwindt works for the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority in London, Ontario, Canada.
- Copyright 2006 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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