Project Overview
Annual Reports
Commodities
- Agronomic: barley, corn, soybeans, wheat
Practices
- Crop Production: catch crops, cover crops, multiple cropping
- Education and Training: on-farm/ranch research
- Natural Resources/Environment: biodiversity
- Pest Management: biological control, cultural control
- Production Systems: general crop production
- Soil Management: soil analysis
Proposal abstract:
This study evaluated the effect of cover crop mixture diversity on biomass productivity, weed suppression, nutrient cycling, soil microbial community characteristics, and stability of biomass productivity. Up to forty cover crop treatments—a no cover control, eighteen species in monoculture, and twenty-one mixtures—were planted at eleven sites in Nebraska. While increasing diversity was associated with increased average productivity it was not associated with increased potential productivity. While increasing cover crop mixture diversity was often correlated with increases in weed suppression, nutrient retention, soil microbial biomass, and stability, once variations in biomass productivity were controlled for, these apparent associations disappeared.
Project objectives from proposal:
The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of cover crop mixture diversity on a variety of parameters pertaining to the function of a cover crop. Specifically, this study evaluated the effect of cover crop species and functional richness on productivity, weed suppression, nutrient cycling, soil microbial community structure and stability.
The performance targets of this study were to share the findings of this study through presentation at academic conferences, presentation at farmer-oriented conferences, publication in scientific journals, and publication in popular press formats.