engleski

Soil protection with different cover crops in the fallow period

The aim of this research, performed in eastern Croatia during 2010/2011, was to evaluate the most suitable plant species for soil protection and covering in the fallow period. The field experiment organized as a completely randomized block design in four repetitions included 11 cover crops treatments: R (rye), W (winter wheat), F (lacy phacelia), P (field pea), V (hairy wetch) as single crops and cover crops mixtures RP, RV, WP, WV, FP and FV. The determination of plant density and aboveground biomass production (dry matter, DM) was used to estimate the most suitable plant species for efficient soil covering. The highest plant density was recorded on W treatment (484 m-2) with confirmed statistically significant differences compared to other treatments. R treatment stood out as the most suitable for soil covering with the highest recorded DM (317.88 g m-2), followed by RV (278.82 g m-2). Comparing the mixtures of cover crop, the best treatments proved to be WV with the highest plant density (328 m-2) and RV with the highest DM (278.82 g m-2) production.

soil preservation ; bare soil ; soil covering ; cover cropping

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