Evaluating the perennial living mulches in a silage corn production system in the Northeast

View the project final report

Commodities

• Agronomic: corn

Practices

• Crop Production: cover crops, no-till

Corn silage fields on dairy farms have been implicated as significant sources of surface water nutrient loading.
The soils of these fields are often left unprotected and susceptible to soil/nutrient loss for seven months per year.
Cereal rye is increasingly being used as a cover crop, but is often planted too late in the season to significantly
protect the soil until the following spring. Perennial living mulch (PLM) systems employ species such as white
clover, kura clover, and crownvetch to provide groundcover year-round. The goal in a PLM/corn silage system is
to kill the PLM in a narrow zone where the corn is no-till planted and to gently suppress it between the corn rows.
It ‘bounces back’ in the fall to scavenge nutrients and protect the soil, and does so again in the spring prior to corn
planting. The PLM concept has been shown to reduce soil and/or nutrient use/loss in corn silage production
systems in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, with water being a limiting factor for corn yield in some years.
We propose to evaluate three candidate PLM species/combinations to two controls in a corn silage production
field in Vermont, where rainfall patterns are typically more favorable than other places the system has been tried.
Our objectives are to 1) describe the impact of PLM on corn silage yield; 2) describe the ability of the PLM to
cover the soil; and 3) determine if locally available technology is sufficient for establishing and managing PLM in
corn silage.

Building on past work done by researchers in other states and incorporating relevant technology, we propose to
explore corn silage production systems that employ perennial living mulches (PLM) to protect surface water and
improve soil quality. Our goal is to increase the percent of in-season and post-harvest vegetative cover of corn
silage fields in the Northeast.

Questions we wish to answer include:
1) to what extent (if any) do PLM impact corn silage yield an area of the Northeast where rainfall tends to be
consistently higher and better distributed during the growing season than other regions of the U.S.
2) at critical times of year do PLM cover the soil significantly more than approaches (i.e. cereal rye planted after
corn harvest) currently used?; and
3) does current locally available technology allow for efficient establishment and management of PLM systems?
Our objectives are to:
1) describe the impact of PLM on corn silage yield compared to two controls;
2)describe the functionality (i.e., ability to cover the soil) of PLM compared to two controls; and
3) determine if locally available technology is sufficient for establishing and managing PLM in corn silage.