Cover crop effects on corn plant water uptake and soil health

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lalith Mahendra Rankoth
Keyword(s):  
Quality Improvement ◽  
Community Structure ◽  
Soil Water ◽  
Water Use ◽  
Cover Crop ◽  
Soil Health ◽  
Plant Water ◽  
Corn Plant ◽  
University Of Missouri ◽  
Soil Quality Improvement

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] Cover crops (CC), close growing crops that provide soil and seeding protection between periods of normal cash crop production or between trees in orchards or vines in vineyards, are used for soil quality improvement. However, the effects of CC on water use of the following corn (Zea mays L.) crop is not yet studied. Also, CC effects on soil water availability is yet inconclusive. Although CC are believed to play a major role in soil quality improvement, the effects of CC on microbial populations and community structure and their enzyme activity is not well understood. Soil porosity and pore distribution characteristics might play a major role in controlling soil water and microbial characteristics and thereby plant growth. The objectives of this study were to identify the CC effects on corn plant water use and yield responses, soil water dynamics, microbial population, community structure and enzyme activities and geometrical pore distributional characteristics of the surface soil layer. The study was conducted at Bradford Research Center, University of Missouri, Columbia and the Chariton County, Cover Crop Soil Health Research and Demonstration Farm (CCSH), Missouri in 2016, 2017 and 2018. Plant sap flow measurement techniques are among the most reliable methods to evaluate water stress and water consumption by measuring the whole plant transpiration.

Functional Differences in Soil Water Pools: a New Perspective on Plant Water Use in Water-Limited Ecosystems

2008 ◽  
pp. 397-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald J. Ryel ◽  
Carolyn Y. Ivans ◽  
Michael S. Peek ◽  
A. Joshua Leffler
Keyword(s):  
Soil Water ◽  
Water Use ◽  
Plant Water ◽  
Functional Differences ◽  
Plant Water Use ◽  
New Perspective

A meta-analysis on cover crop impact on soil water storage, succeeding crop yield, and water-use efficiency

2021 ◽  
Vol 256 ◽  
pp. 107085
Author(s):  
Jun Wang ◽  
Shaohong Zhang ◽  
Upendra M. Sainju ◽  
Rajan Ghimire ◽  
Fazhu Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Water Use Efficiency ◽  
Soil Water ◽  
Water Use ◽  
Crop Yield ◽  
Cover Crop ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Water Storage ◽  
Soil Water Storage ◽  
Use Efficiency

Impact of a terminated wheat cover crop in irrigated corn on atrazine rates and water use efficiency

Weed Science ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 53 (5) ◽  
pp. 709-716 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randall S. Currie ◽  
Norman L. Klocke
Keyword(s):  
Winter Wheat ◽  
Water Use Efficiency ◽  
Soil Water ◽  
Water Use ◽  
Cover Crop ◽  
Palmer Amaranth ◽  
Water Evaporation ◽  
Corn Yield ◽  
Control Effect ◽  
Use Efficiency

A study was conducted near Garden City, KS with irrigated corn to determine how the integration of a terminated winter wheat cover crop with various atrazine rates would affect Palmer amaranth control and corn water use efficiency (WUE). Without atrazine, the presence of a winter wheat cover crop, killed in the boot stage, resulted in a threefold weed biomass reduction in irrigated corn. The highest rate of atrazine completely masked the weed control effect of the cover crop, producing a greater than 15-fold reduction regardless of the presence or absence of the cover crop. A terminated winter wheat cover crop without atrazine elevated corn yield in only two of nine location-yr, and in one instance, depressed yield. However, a terminated wheat cover crop elevated corn yield in six of nine location-yr combinations when used in conjunction with 1.6 kg ha−1atrazine. Although increases in WUE associated with reductions in soil water evaporation produced by the cover crop seemed to be responsible for some of the increase in corn grain yield and stored soil water at the end of the summer growing season, end of season Palmer amaranth biomass had a more profound impact.

scholarly journals EcH<sub>2</sub>O-iso 1.0: water isotopes and age tracking in a process-based, distributed ecohydrological model

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 3045-3069 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvain Kuppel ◽  
Doerthe Tetzlaff ◽  
Marco P. Maneta ◽  
Chris Soulsby
Keyword(s):  
Soil Water ◽  
Water Use ◽  
Stream Water ◽  
Plant Water ◽  
Model Data ◽  
Energy Propagation ◽  
Isotopic Tracers ◽  
Landscape Characteristics ◽  
Plant Water Use ◽  
Ecohydrological Model

Abstract. We introduce EcH2O-iso, a new development of the physically based, fully distributed ecohydrological model EcH2O where the tracking of water isotopic tracers (2H and 18O) and age has been incorporated. EcH2O-iso is evaluated at a montane, low-energy experimental catchment in northern Scotland using 16 independent isotope time series from various landscape positions and compartments, encompassing soil water, groundwater, stream water, and plant xylem. The simulation results show consistent isotopic ranges and temporal variability (seasonal and higher frequency) across the soil profile at most sites (especially on hillslopes), broad model–data agreement in heather xylem, and consistent deuterium dynamics in stream water and in groundwater. Since EcH2O-iso was calibrated only using hydrometric and energy flux datasets, tracking water composition provides a truly independent validation of the physical basis of the model for successfully capturing catchment hydrological functioning, both in terms of the celerity in energy propagation shaping the hydrological response (e.g. runoff generation under prevailing hydraulic gradients) and flow velocities of water molecules (e.g. in consistent tracer concentrations at given locations and times). Additionally, we show that the spatially distributed formulation of EcH2O-iso has the potential to quantitatively link water stores and fluxes with spatiotemporal patterns of isotope ratios and water ages. However, our case study also highlights model–data discrepancies in some compartments, such as an over-dampened variability in groundwater and stream water lc-excess, and over-fractionated riparian topsoils. The adopted minimalistic framework, without site-specific parameterisation of isotopes and age tracking, allows us to learn from these mismatches in further model development and benchmarking needs, while taking into account the idiosyncracies of our study catchment. Notably, we suggest that more advanced conceptualisation of soil water mixing and of plant water use would be needed to reproduce some of the observed patterns. Balancing the need for basic hypothesis testing with that of improved simulations of catchment dynamics for a range of applications (e.g. plant water use under changing environmental conditions, water quality issues, and calibration-derived estimates of landscape characteristics), further work could also benefit from including isotope-based calibration.

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