Cover crops reduce drainage but not always soil water content due to interactions between rainfall distribution and management

Autor: Jacques-Eric Bergez, Eric Justes, Nicolas Meyer, Paul Belleville, Julie Constantin
Přispěvatelé: AGroécologie, Innovations, teRritoires (AGIR), Institut National Polytechnique (Toulouse) (Toulouse INP), Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE), Agronomie, AgroParisTech-Université Paris-Saclay-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2020
Předmět:
F08 - Systèmes et modes de culture
[SDV]Life Sciences [q-bio]
0208 environmental biotechnology
termination date
02 engineering and technology
Conduite de la culture
Water balance
Green manure
Evapotranspiration
Cover crop
Water Science and Technology
2. Zero hunger
P11 - Drainage
04 agricultural and veterinary sciences
6. Clean water
Eau disponible
Agroécosystème
Drainage
evapotranspiration
Soil Science
water fluxes
Plante de couverture
Mouvement de l'eau dans le sol
P10 - Ressources en eau et leur gestion
Teneur en eau du sol
Earth-Surface Processes
Précipitation
Modélisation des cultures
Soil organic matter
Modèle de simulation
STICS crop model
15. Life on land
Crop rotation
Évapotranspiration
020801 environmental engineering
Potentiel hydrique du sol
Agronomy
13. Climate action
Soil water
040103 agronomy & agriculture
0401 agriculture
forestry
and fisheries
Environmental science
Système de culture
Agronomy and Crop Science
Mulch
Zdroj: Agricultural Water Management
Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier Masson, 2020, 231 (Mars), 14 p. ⟨10.1016/j.agwat.2019.105998⟩
ISSN: 0378-3774
DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2019.105998⟩
Popis: International audience; Cover crops are a potential component of agroecological cropping systems, since they may render crop rotations more sustainable. They simultaneously provide multiple ecosystem services, such as decreasing nitrate leaching, decreasing erosion, and increasing soil organic matter. However, cover crops increase evapotranspiration and reduce drainage, which results in a potential disservice for groundwater recharge. Little attention has focused on management of cover crop residues after destruction or their influence on water flux dynamics, particularly in dry and temperate climates. The objective of our study was to analyze and quantify the impact of cover crop management on soil water content and water flux dynamics to understand the main mechanisms of system functioning. We combined a two-year field experiment with crop-model simulations. We performed the field experiment in southwestern France that compared three cover crop treatments, with bare soil as the control. The treatments included (1) living cover crops lasting ca. 9 months from August-April, (2) crushing cover crops in November and leaving them as mulch on the soil, and (3) plowing up cover crops in November to promote residue decomposition and the green manure effect. The STICS soil-crop model was used to predict water fluxes that were not measured and to perform a 20-year independent simulation study based on recent climate series for the experimental site. Our main results indicated that cover crops (1) always reduce water drainage by 20-60 mm compared to that under bare soil; and (2) could significantly reduce soil water content (0-120 cm deep) for the next cash crop by a mean of 20-50 mm, and up to 80 mm in dry spring conditions, but early destruction could decrease this negative impact. The simulations clearly showed that the interaction between climate variability, i.e., rainfall distribution during the fallow period, and cover crop management should be considered to explain the impact of inter-annual variability on the water balance. Thus, destroying cover crops mechanically in late autumn and retaining the residues as mulch could be a good compromise between the multiple services the cover crop provides during the fallow period and avoiding the negative impact on soil water availability for the next cash crop.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
Externí odkaz: