The Solar Corridor - a Crop System for Improving Soil Health and Sustsinability.

The solar corridor is a corridor between rows of corn or other appropriate 'main crop' wide enough for all chloroplasts, regardless of their vertical distribution on the corn plant, to fully access incident sunlight throughout their productive life. Hybrid specific seminal yield data; USPTO validated and replicated by published peer review research indicate that as much or more corn can be produced from twin rows, spaced 60" apart as can be produced in conventional 30" rows with the 'floor' of the solar corridor available for crops to enhance soil health and sustainability (i.e., below 40° N latitude). No-tilling three, 10" rows of an early variety winter wheat centered on twin corn rows immediately after corn harvest, frost seeding clover in the wheat swath, harvesting the wheat and stubble clover for forage (or grain and forage) in spring and no-tilling corn the following season in the clover seedbed, potentially provides continuous soil cover in alternate 30" swaths of 'main' and 'floor' crops at 60" spacings.

Previous data (2016 Annual Meetings) demonstrated that specific crops grown on the 'floor' did not negatively impact corn yield. Thus, a uniquely productive solar corridor crop system (SCCS) can be designed that offers soil health benefits including reduction in soil erosion, compaction and post (corn) harvest nutrient loss; host specific mycorrhizae; capture atmospheric sourced carbon and N, subsequently delivering more carbon into the rhizosphere.

A key component of the SCCS, then, is selection of the 'main crop' and compatible 'floor crop' that grows between corn rows. The authors have been evaluating the suitability of different cultivars for the solar corridor 'floor' on two University of Missouri experiment stations including the oldest experiment station west of the Mississippi [Agronomy Journal cover 106(5)]. Examples of our aggregate experience with initial development of 'floor' crop options will be presented.