Optimizing Sweet Corn and Clover Configurations for a Sustainable Living Mulch System.

Sustainable production alternatives are needed for vegetable crops to ameliorate reliance on herbicides, reduce soil erosion, and improve water quality.  Living mulch systems have been proposed to meet those objectives but capitalizing on the living mulch system requires an understanding of how the cash and mulch crops interact.  White clover (Trifolium repens L.) can be used to produce corn (Zea mays L.) in a living mulch system.  Bands of clover must be killed to successfully establish corn but corn row and band width configurations must be optimized to sustain the system.  The objectives of this study were to determine the effect of corn row and clover band widths on ear characteristics of sweet corn when grown at two population densities, and examine post-harvest clover re-establishment into the corn rows.  Ear width and length, cob ear and length, and ear yield were reduced when corn was grown in narrow row spacings.  Killing wider bands of clover prior to planting increased ear and cob size but had little effect on ear yield.  Lower population densities increased ear and cob length and width, but decreased ear yield.  Post-harvest clover regrowth was affected by both clover band width and the corn row spacing.