Abstract
Poor soil health purportedly limits crop yield and on-farm profitability in environments with a history of intensive tillage. Research was conducted to determine if cover cropping improves basic soil physical properties, crop productivity, and economic parameters in conventionally tilled soils. The effects of irrigation and cover crop species on bulk density, water infiltration rate, cotton yield, and net returns were evaluated on a Dundee silty clay loam (Fine-silty, mixed, active, thermic type Typic Endoqualfs) near Tribbett, MS in 2017 and a Leeper silty clay loam (fine, smectitic, nonacid, thermic Vertic Epiaquepts) near Starkville, MS from 2017 through 2018. Relative to the fallow production system, cereal rye and crimson clover decreased bulk density 4.6% but had no effect on water infiltration rate. Pooled over year and location, cover crop had no effect on lint yield in either irrigated or non-irrigated environments. However, transitioning from conventional to a cover crop system reduced net returns for cotton $50.22/ha to $307.87/ha on average. Our data indicate that while transitioning from a conventional to a fall cover crop production system, modest improvements in some soil physical properties due to cover crop establishment will not increase cotton productivity but will decrease net returns.
Abstract from the paper’s OpenAlex record, shown for indexing and research. Copyright remains with the authors or the publisher. Read at the source ↗
The text the model read, with the source record’s inline markup (italics, sub- and superscripts) rendered and its character entities decoded; quote offsets refer to the raw text.
Claims 4
Claim · model-written summary
Cereal rye and crimson clover lowered soil bulk density by 4.6% versus fallow.
- Taxon
- cotton
Gossypium hirsutume1 - Treatment
- cereal rye and crimson clovere0
- Outcome
- bulk densitye0
- Direction
- decreasede0
- Value
- 4.6%e0
- Comparator
- fallow production systeme0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Relative to the fallow production system, cereal rye and crimson clover decreased bulk density 4.6%”
e1“cotton yield”
Claim · model-written summary
Cover crops had no effect on water infiltration rate.
- Taxon
- cottonGossypium hirsutume2
- Treatment
- cover crope3
- Outcome
- water infiltration ratee0
- Direction
- no effecte0
- Comparator
- fallow production systeme1
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“but had no effect on water infiltration rate”
e1“Relative to the fallow production system, cereal rye and crimson clover”
e2“cotton yield”
e3“Pooled over year and location, cover crop had no effect on lint yield in either irrigated or non-irrigated environments”
Claim · model-written summary
Cover cropping did not affect cotton lint yield under either irrigation regime.
- Taxon
- cottonGossypium hirsutume1
- Treatment
- cover crope0
- Outcome
- lint yielde0
- Direction
- no effecte0
- Qualifier
- either irrigated or non-irrigated environmentse0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Pooled over year and location, cover crop had no effect on lint yield in either irrigated or non-irrigated environments”
e1“cotton yield”
Claim · model-written summary
Transitioning to cover crops reduced cotton net returns by $50.22 to $307.87 per hectare.
- Taxon
- cottonGossypium hirsutume0
- Treatment
- cover crop systeme0
- Outcome
- net returnse0
- Direction
- reducede0
- Value
- $50.22/ha to $307.87/hae0
- Comparator
- conventionale0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“transitioning from conventional to a cover crop system reduced net returns for cotton $50.22/ha to $307.87/ha on average”
The same questions in other papers
cover crop · quality: grain · Gossypium hirsutum (cotton)Results differ
6 papers in the same direction as this paper · 6 in the opposite direction
- negative
- positive
- positive
9 papers more in this group
See all 13 papers →cover crop · yield · Gossypium hirsutum (cotton)Results differ
25 papers in the same direction as this paper · 18 in the opposite direction
- positive
- negative
- positive
40 papers more in this group
See all 44 papers →cover crop · soil: physics · Gossypium hirsutum (cotton)Positive and negative results
3 papers in the same direction as this paper · 7 reporting no difference from an alternative
- positive
- positive
- positive
7 papers more in this group
See all 11 papers →Claims are grouped by organism, treatment and what was measured or targeted. A paper counts as positive when any of its claims in the group is positive.