Integrated Crop-Livestock System and Their Impacts on Soil Health Parameters.

Grasslands have been rapidly converted to croplands over the last decade in the northern Great Plains. This conversion has the potential to reduce soil health and increase the region’s ability to pollute the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. Therefore, the need for integrated crop livestock practices that protect the region’s native prairies are strongly encouraged. Introducing livestock into arable cropping systems can improve nutrient cycling, soil health and provide economic benefits. The present study was conducted under corn-soybean-rye rotation with no-till system at the Southeast Research Farm near Beresford, South Dakota to assess the effects of integrated crop-livestock (ICL) systems on selected soil health parameters. Cover crops blends (Brassica/Legume based blend, Grass based blend, equal blend) were planted after the rye crop and grazing treatments (with and without) were applied after the cover crops establishment.   Cover crops were grazed from November 2 through November 12, 2015. The study is setup in randomized block design with 4 replications for each treatment.  Some concerns regarding the role of hoof traffic from livestock adversely affecting the near-surface soil conditions, soil health and hydrological properties under no-till systems. Data showed that the use of diverse cover crop mixtures provided increased biomass on the surface that can alleviate the compaction impact under these integrated crop-livestock systems. Carbon fraction data will be studied to find the impact of short-term grazing on the microbial biomass carbon from 0-5 cm and 5-10 cm depths.  This study will be helpful in providing useful information about short-term (one year) grazing impacts on soil surface physical, hydrological, and biological properties.