Winter cover crops as a best management practice for reducing nitrogen leaching

摘要

The role rye as a winter cover crop to reduce nitrate leaching was investigated over a three-year period on a loamy sand soil. A cover crop was planted after corn in the early fall and killed in late March or early April the following spring. No-tillage and conventional tillage systems were compared on large plots with irrigated corn. A replicated randomized black design experiments was conducted on small plots to evaluated a rye cover crop under no-tillage and conventional tillage and with commercial fertilizer, poultry manure and composted poultry manure as nitrogen fertilizer sources.