C ONTOUR tillage is an important practice in the control of runoff and soil erosion. It is simple, inexpensive, and in many cases easily applied. Since contouring is generally used in connection with other conservation practices, such as soil treatment, crop rotations, terracing, and strip cropping, there are few results that show the effectiveness of the practice itself. This paper reports 9 years results on the effectiveness of contour farming on a productive Corn Belt soil. In addition to surface runoff and soil loss by erosion, the authors present a preliminary report on tile flow and plant nutrient losses in the tile drainage.
HIS is the third in a series of reports on leaching losses, T r u n o f f , and percolate produced by natural precipitation on eight Illinois soils. Measurements were made on triplicate profiles of each of the eight soils in erosion-type lysim
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