Effect of Cover Crops and Tillage System On Nematode Community and Diversity in Soybean Production.

No-tillage practices have demonstrated that conserved soil organic matter content and mineralization of soil carbon. Cover crops are also grown in addition to primary cash crops for the purposes of erosion control, organic nitrogen (N) enrichment, conservation of soil organic matter, scavenging soil residual N, and nematode control. No-tillage with cover crop may be one of the effective soil management strategy to enhance the sustainable crop production, however, these combined effects on soil ecosystem is unknown. Most of the research on the nematode is how to reduce plant-parasitic nematodes damage for crop production. But there are few studies about the diversity and relationship between plant-parasitic nematodes and free-living nematodes in the relation to cover corps and no-tillage system.

This research aimed to evaluate the effects of cover crops and tillage system on nematode community and diversity in soil ecosystem. In a 8-year study was conducted at Field Science Center, IBARAKI University in Japan. Treatment combinations were tillage system (plowing, rotary and no-tillage), cover crop (rye, hairy vetch and fallow) and N level (fertilized and no-fertilized). The treatment combinations were arranged in a randomized complete block design with four replications.