Furrow-irrigated corn residue management and tillage strategies for improved soil health

The asymptomatic host range of Fusarium virguliforme includes corn, a common crop rotated with soybean that we hypothesize may alter F. virguliforme population dynamics and disease management. A field-based approach explored the temporal dynamics of F. virguliforme colonization of corn and soybean roots under different tillage and residue managements. Experiments were conducted in IA, IN, MI, WI, and Ontario, Canada from 2016 to 2018. Corn and soybean roots were sampled at consecutive time points between 1 and 16 weeks after planting (WAP). DNA was extracted from all roots and analyzed by real-time qPCR for F. virguliforme quantification. Trials were rotated between corn and soybean, containing a two x two factorial of tillage (no-tilled or tilled) and corn residue (with or without) in several experimental designs. In 2016, low (ca. 100 fg/10 mg root tissue) F. virguliforme was detected in the inoculated IA, IN and MI locations, and non-inoculated WI corn fields. However, in 2017 greater levels of F. virguliforme DNA were detected in IA, IN and MI across sampling time points. Tillage practices showed inconsistent effects on F. virguliforme root colonization and SDS foliar symptoms among trials and locations. Yet, residue management did not alter root colonization of corn or soybean by F. virguliforme. Plots with corn residue had greater SDS foliar disease index in Iowa in 2016. However, this trend was not observed across the site-years, indicating corn residue may occasionally increase SDS foliar symptoms depending on the disease level, soil and weather factors.

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Homogenization of Rhizosphere Bacterial Communities by Pea (Pisum sativum L.) Cultivated under Different Conservation Agricultural Practices in the Eastern Himalayas

10.1101/662775 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Diptaraj Chaudhari ◽

Krishnappa Rangappa ◽

Anup Das ◽

Jayanta Layek ◽

Savita Basavaraju ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Bacterial Communities ◽

Management Practices ◽

Soil Health ◽

Agricultural Practices ◽

Amplicon Sequencing ◽

Soil Samples ◽

Residue Management ◽

Bulk Soil ◽

Rrna Gene ◽

North East

AbstractConservation agriculture offers a suitable system to harmonize agriculture with the environment, especially in fragile ecosystems of North-East India. Soil microbes play pivotal roles in ecosystem functioning and act as indispensable indicators of overall fitness of crop plant and soil health. Here we demonstrated that altercations in residue management and tillage practices lead to the development of differential bacterial communities forcing the pea plants to recruit special groups of bacteria leading to highly homogenous rhizosphere communities. Pea rhizosphere and bulk soil samples were collected, and bacterial community structure was estimated by 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing and predictive functional analysis was performed using Tax4Fun. The effect on pea plants was evident in the bacterial communities as the overall diversity of rhizosphere samples was significantly higher to that of bulk soil samples. Bacillus, Staphylococcus, Planomicrobium, Enterobacter, Arthrobacter, Nitrobacter, Geobacter, and Sphingomonas were noticed as the most abundant genera in the rhizosphere and bulk soil samples. The abundance of Firmicutes and Proteobacteria altered significantly in the rhizosphere and bulk samples, which was further validated by qPCR. Selection of specific taxa by pea plant was indicated by the higher values of mean proportion of Rhizobium, Pseudomonas, Pantoea, Nitrobacter, Enterobacter and Sphingomonas in rhizosphere samples, and Massilia, Paenibacillus and Planomicrobium in bulk soil samples. Tillage and residue management treatments did not significantly alter the bacterial diversity, while their influence was observed on the abundance of few genera. Recorded results revealed that pea plant selects specific taxa into its rhizosphere plausibly to meet its requirements for nutrient uptake and stress amelioration under the different tillage and residue management practices.

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Improvement of Soil Health and System Productivity through Crop Diversification and Residue Incorporation under Jute-Based Different Cropping Systems

Agronomy ◽

10.3390/agronomy11081622 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (8) ◽

pp. 1622

Author(s):

Mukesh Kumar ◽

Sabyasachi Mitra ◽

Sonali Paul Mazumdar ◽

Bijan Majumdar ◽

Amit Ranjan Saha ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Cropping Systems ◽

Soil Health ◽

Cropping System ◽

Residue Management ◽

Soil Parameters ◽

Data Set ◽

System Productivity ◽

Sustainability Index ◽

Residue Incorporation ◽

The Impact

Crop diversity through residue incorporation is the most important method for sustaining soil health. A field study was conducted over five consecutive years (2012–2017) to see the impact of residue incorporartions in Inceptisol of eastern India. The main plot treatments had five cropping systems (CS), namely, fallow−rice−rice (FRR), jute−rice−wheat (JRW), jute−rice−baby corn (JRBc), jute−rice−vegetable pea (JRGp), jute−rice−mustard−mungbean/green gram (JRMMu), which cinsisted of four sub-plots with varied nutrient and crop residue management (NCRM) levels, namely crops with no residue +75% of the recommended dose of fertilizers (RDF) (F1R0), crops with the residue of the previous crops +75% RDF (F1R1), crops with no resiude +100% RDF (F2R0), and crops with residue +100% RDF (F2R1). The highest system productivity was obtained for JRBc (15.3 Mg·ha−1), followed by JRGp (8.81 Mg·ha−1) and JRMMu (7.61 Mg·ha−1); however, the highest sustainability index was found with the JRGp cropping system (0.88), followed by JRMMu (0.82). Among the NCRMs, the highest productivity (8.78 Mg·ha−1) and sustainability index (0.83) were recorded in F2R1. Five soil parameters, namely, bulk density, available K, urease activity, dehydrogenase activity, and soil microbial biomass carbon (SMBC), were used in the minimum data-set (MDS) for the calculation of the soil quality index (SQI). The best attainment of SQI was found in the JRGp system (0.63), closely followed by the JRMMu (0.61) cropping system.

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Corn Residue Management and Weed Control in Close‐Drilled Soybeans 1

Agronomy Journal ◽

10.2134/agronj1979.00021962007100010019x ◽

1979 ◽

Vol 71 (1) ◽

pp. 78-80 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

R. S. Moomaw ◽

O. C. Burnside

Keyword(s):

Weed Control ◽

Residue Management ◽

Corn Residue

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Stacking Agricultural Management Tactics to Promote Improvements in Soil Structure and Microbial Activities

Agronomy ◽

10.3390/agronomy9090539 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (9) ◽

pp. 539 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

R. Michael Lehman ◽

Shannon L. Osborne ◽

Kimberly McGraw

Keyword(s):

Soil Properties ◽

Soil Structure ◽

Management Practices ◽

Cropping Systems ◽

Soil Health ◽

Field Studies ◽

Agricultural Management ◽

Residue Management ◽

No Till ◽

Management Tactics

Linking agricultural management tactics to quantifiable changes in soil health-related properties is a key objective for increasing adoption of the most favorable management practices. We used two long-term, no-till cropping studies to illustrate the variable patterns of response of soil structure indices and microbial activity to additional management tactics, including crop rotational diversity, residue management and cover cropping. We found that observable effects of management tactics on soil properties were often dependent on the current crop phase sampled, even though the treatments were well-established. In some cases, a single additional management tactic produced a response, two tactics each produced a response and sometimes there were interactions between tactics. However, importantly, we never observed a negative effect for any of the response variables when stacking soil health building practices in no-till cropping systems. The collective results from the two field studies illustrate that soil health improvements with stacking management tactics are not always simply additive and are affected by temporal relationships inherent to the treatments. We conclude that the implementation of multiple positive management tactics increases the likelihood that improvements in soil properties can be documented with one or more of the proxy measures for soil health.

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