Soil Quality in Zone Tilled Organic Field Corn Systems with Kura Clover Living Mulch.

Zone tillage is a reduced till method where crop rows are tilled while living ground cover is maintained between rows. It is especially well-suited to living mulch systems where perennial cover crops provide ground cover year-round. In conventional zone tilled systems, zones are created with herbicides. However, zones must be created mechanically in organic systems, and perceived yield reductions prevent organic growers from adopting zone tillage as widely as their conventional counterparts. Approaches to zone creation differ in the degree to which the living cover crop will compete with the cash crop. In this study, we evaluate crop productivity and soil biological responses to two zone tillage approaches in an organic field corn production system utilizing kura clover, a long-lived and winter-hardy perennial legume. We compare soil quality between in-row and between-row areas for four tillage treatments: 1) no till (NT), 2) conventional strip till (ST), 3) novel rotary zone till (RZT), and 4) double till (DT; strip till + rotary zone till). Soil quality analyses include microbial biomass (MB), permanganate oxidizable carbon (POX-C), and potentially mineralizable nitrogen (PMN). Preliminary observations suggest yields will be highest in the DT treatment. Moreover, we expect the soil parameters listed above to be greatest in RZT and DT treatments, due to greater incorporation of clover residue.