Using Cover Crops, Crop Rotation, and Poultry Manure to Increase Yield and Soil Health.

Interest in quality and health of our soil resources has been stimulated by increasing awareness that soil is a critically important component of the earth’s biosphere, functioning not only in the production of food and fiber but also in the maintenance of local, regional, and global environmental quality. Soil is also the basis of agricultural and of natural plant communities. Thus, the thin layer of soil covering the surface of the earth represents the difference between survival and extinction for most land-based life. Soil quality/health has been defined by the Soil Science Society of America as ‘the capacity of a specific kind of soil to function, within natural or managed ecosystem boundaries, to sustain plant and animal productivity, maintain or enhance water and air quality, and support human health and habitation’. The objective of this study was to study a best management practice that integrate crop rotation, animal manure utilization, and use of winter cover crop to improve soil health and crop yield. Crop rotation involved corn and soybeans that received chemical fertilizer or poultry litter to provide 190 lb/acre of plant available N applied to corn but only half the amount (95 lb/acre) was applied to soybeans. After harvesting corn or soybeans, cover crops, a mixture of cereal rye, crimson clover, and hairy vetch was planted as winter cover crop. Corn grain yield was impacted more by cover crop and poultry litter than soybeans yield. Corn grain yield from no cover crop plots decreased by 5% while the plots with cover crops produced about 5% increase in corn grain yield from 2009 to 2013.