RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Crop yield, soil erosion, and net returns from five tillage systems in the Mississippi Blackland Prairie
JF Journal of Soil and Water Conservation
FD Soil and Water Conservation Society
SP 391
OP 395
VO 39
IS 6
A1 Hairston, J. E.
A1 Sanford, J. O.
A1 Hayes, J. C.
A1 Reinschmiedt, L. L.
YR 1984
UL http://www.jswconline.org/content/39/6/391.abstract
AB 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.