The current emphasis on sustainable agricultural systems has led to a renewed interest in the use of cover crops to reduce soil erosion losses and retain soluble nutrients during the dormant season. Cover crop choices include a broad range of plant material, such as ryegrass (Secufe cereale L.), winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), forage grasses, and legumes. Historically, cover crops were use...

Organic agricultural production has become a major economic and cultural force. However, in water-limited environments the tools used for weed control and nutrient supply, namely tillage and cover crops, may not be environmentally or economically sustainable as tillage damages soil and cover crops use valuable water. Thus, a major challenge has been finding appropriate ways to minimize tillage ...

(Note: Interest in planting cover crops has increased dramatically the past few years, not only in NYS but in ag regions across the US. Attendance at the Cover Crop & Soil Health session at the Empire State Producers’ Expo has been 90 – 100 the past few years. As growers returned to this practice they began to experiment with a wider range of cover crops than ever before, including brassicas li...

A common crop rotation in the west Iran is wheat-fallow-corn. The fallow period after wheat harvest (during fall and winter) can lead to soil erosion, nutrient losses (e.g. nitrate leaching) and offsite movement of pesticides. This period is an ideal time to establish a cover crop. In order to investigate the effects of different autumn-bseeded cover crops on subsequent irrigated corn response ...

A major challenge for agriculture is to enhance productivity with minimum impact on the environment. Several studies indicate that cover crops could replace anthropogenic inputs and enhance crop productivity. However, so far, it is unclear if cover crop effects vary between different cropping systems, and direct comparisons among major arable production systems are rare. Here we compared the sh...

Weed management is critical in hazelnut (Corylus avellana) production. Weeds reduce nutrient availability, interfere with tree growth, and reduce handharvesting efficiency. Field experiments were conducted from Fall 2006 to 2010 to test effects of brassica (Brassica sp.) cover crops and hazelnut husk mulch as alternative weed management strategies in hazelnut. The cover crop treatments consiste...

One of the objectives of conservation agriculture to reduce soil erosion in olive orchards is to protect the soil with cover crops between rows. Andalusian and European administrations have developed regulations to subsidise the establishment of cover crops between rows in olive orchards. Current methods to follow-up the cover crops systems by administrations consist of sampling and on ground v...

introduction amount and vertical distribution of leaf area are essential for estimating interception and utilization of solar radiation of crop canopies and, consequently dry matter accumulation (valentinuz & tollenaar, 2006). vertical distribution of leaf area is leaf areas per horizontal layers, based on height (boedhram et al., 2001). above-ground biomass is one of the central traits in func...