Project Overview
Commodities
- Agronomic: corn, soybeans
Practices
- Crop Production: cover crops, crop rotation, no-till
- Pest Management: chemical control, cultural control, integrated pest management, weed ecology
Abstract:
The project titled “Assessment of soil management strategies for sustainable crop production, weed management and mitigation of herbicide carryover” will help farmers to better understand the influence of soil management practices on herbicide carryover, weed ecology, and crop productivity. Research is being conducted in corn-soybean crop production systems in the North Central US with a focus on conventional tillage, no-till (NT), and a fall planted cover crop (CC) as soil management practices.
Two studies involving the aforementioned soil management practices were conducted. The first was designed to study the effects of herbicide carryover from soil residual corn (e.g. mesotrione and clopyralid) and soybean (e.g. imazethapyr and fomesafen) herbicides applied at reduced rates (25% and 50%) following fall harvest of these crops. Soil management practices were implemented following herbicide application. Early-season crop injury and grain yield data were collected to provide results on fate and potential carryover of soil residual herbicides. The second study was designed to evaluate the effects of soil management practices and pre-emergence herbicides on the production system from multiple termination methods and timings of a cereal rye CC. Data collected included aboveground CC biomass for each termination timing, early-season weed density/biomass sampling at the time of crop planting, visual weed cover control ratings at the timing of post-emergence herbicide application, and crop yield. Research for the second study is expected to continue beyond these two years of research until 2022.
The expected outcomes from this project are to increase the adoption of conservation practices (NT+CC) in the North Central US by exploring the ability of these practices to mitigate herbicide carryover and improve the sustainability of weed management strategies in crop production systems. Evaluating how these practices affect multiple aspects of crop production systems results generated from field research should provide information on how conservation practices can improve the sustainability of the production system.
Project objectives:
Expected learning outcomes from this project include increased farmer knowledge on the effects of soil conservation practices (NT+CC) on weed population dynamics and herbicide carryover. Farmers will learn how using these soil conservation practices may affect the productivity and profitability of their farms.
Action outcomes of this project are predicted to be increased adoption of NT and CC in North Central production systems as it is expected that these soil conservation practice will have positive impacts on weed population dynamics an herbicide carryover. Showing farmers the potential for multiple benefits from using conservation practices in their production systems should positively influence their behavior and increase the adoption of conservation practices.