Enhancing Soils Quality Using the Integrated Crop-Livestock Systems in Northern Great Plains, USA.

An integrated crop-livestock system (ICLS) can help increase food production while benefiting soils and the environment and reduce some of the negative impacts of existing crop and livestock intensification. Most ICLS research addresses crop and livestock components separately and regionally. System-oriented ICLS assessments for the Northern Great Plains (NGP) are lacking. The objective of this review was to synthesize the NGP history, impacts, and challenges associated with ICLSs. Although historical records indicate the existence of ICLSs in the NGP since the 1850s, however, these systems are not commonly practiced in the region today. These ICLSs have unique advantages: increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil-plant-animal nutrient recycling to improve soil N, P, K, and Na and infiltration; improving crop yield and quality; reducing livestock feeding costs; increasing income diversity that can reduce economic risks while stabilizing producer income; and controlling weeds and pests. However, if improper animal and nutrient management practices are applied, ICLS can result in off-site nutrient and farm income losses; crop yield and quality decreases; and soil compaction. These problems can be alleviated by using no-till management, diversifying cropping systems, incorporating better forages, and improving grazing management under conditions of the annual freeze/thaw and wet/dry cycles in the NGP. Although there are limitations to ICLS adoption related to constraints in agricultural production structure, greater efforts to share information and potential agronomic solutions with producers could improve the adoption ICLSs in the NGP.