Presented by

Tawainga Katsvairo
Dept. of Crop & Soil Sciences

Tuesday, February 15, 2000
3:30-4:30 PM
135 Emerson Hall

Abstract

Farmers, who will adopt more diverse rotations because of the 1996 Federal Agriculture and Improvement Act, require more information on tillage x crop rotation interactions, agronomics, economics and soil physical characteristics. We evaluated yield interactions, economic profitability and soil physical characteristics under different tillage and management systems in a 6-yr study at Aurora, NY. Growers under similar environmental conditions of this study can increase corn yields while reducing chemical inputs by adopting soybean-wheat/clover-corn and soybean-corn rotations in moldboard plow tillage or a soybean-corn rotation in chisel tillage. Growers who substitute soybean-corn and soybean-corn-corn (in ridge) rotations for continuous corn can maximize profits, and reduce the use of starter fertilizer by 33 to 50%, N fertilizer by 60 to 70%, herbicides by about 60%, and insecticides by 65 to 100%. Growers who use moldboard plow tillage may realize maximum profits by adopting the soybean-wheat/clover-corn rotation under low chemical management if they market the wheat straw, a common practice in New York. The soybean-wheat/clover-corn rotation, which had the greatest earthworm densities (492 m-2), also had the greatest infiltration rates (ln 10.4 m s-1) among rotations at the V6 stage. Tillage and rotation interactions did not exist, which indicate that 5-yr tillage effects on soil physical characteristics would be consistent across continuous corn, soybean-corn, and soybean-wheat/clover - corn rotations.