Chemical and physical soil attributes in integrated crop-livestock system under no-tillage

Abstract

-Although integrated crop-livestock system (ICLS) under no-tillage (NT) is an attractive practice for intensify agricultural production, little regional information is available on the effects of animal grazing and trampling, particularly dairy heifers, on the soil chemical and physical attributes. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of animal grazing on the chemical and physical attributes of the soil after 21 months of ICLS under NT in a succession of annual winter pastures (2008) The experiment was performed in the municipality of Castro (PR) in a dystrophic Humic Rhodic Hapludox with a clay texture. The treatments included a combination of two pasture (annual ryegrass monoculture and multicropping -annual ryegrass, black oat, white clover and red clover) with animal grazing during the fall-winter period with two animal weight categories (light and heavy), in a completely randomized block experimental design with 12 replications. After the maize harvest (21 months after beginning), soil samples were collected at 0-10 and 10-20 cm layers to measure soil chemical and physical attributes. The different combinations of pasture and animal weight did not alter the total organic carbon and nitrogen in the soil, but they influence the attributes of soil acidity and exchangeable cations. The monoculture pasture of ryegrass showed greater soil acidification process compared to the multicropping pasture. When using heavier animals, the multicropping pasture showed lesser increase in soil bulk density and greater macroporosity.

Demonstrating Short-Term Impacts of Grazing and Cover Crops on Soil Health and Economic Benefits in an Integrated Crop-Livestock System in South Dakota

“…The trend was similar for the corn phase, with no significant differences in soil pH across the cover crop treatment (P < 0.91) as well as the grazing treatment (P < 0.72) for the 0 -5 cm depth. These agreed with the observations of Martins et al (2014) and da Silva et al (2014) [29] [30]. Soil pH is a predictor of various chemical activities within the soil (acidity, neutral, or alkalinity).…”

Influence of ryegrass managements on the physical properties of a Haplohumox

“…Contrary to what has been frequently reported for soils under NT, as caused by the absence of tillage, combined with the intense traffic of machinery in the soil (Chen & Weil, 2011). However, Silva et al (2014) evaluated the physical properties of a clayey Haplohumox (595 g kg -1 clay), managed in NT with a crop-livestock integration for 21 months, and concluded that the system caused no significant changes on the attributes after this period. Auler et al (2014) evaluated the soil physical properties after seven years of implantation of this same experiment, and also observed no significant differences on the macroporosity, microporosity, and TP between treatments.…”

“…The values observed in the present study are below the critical limit for the development, which is 3.5 MPa. This value has been used as a limiting factor for root growth, in soils under NT (Moraes et al, 2014;Silva et al, 2014), due to the presence of biopores that favor growth of roots with low-mechanical resistance (Moraes et al, 2017). In a dystroferric Hapludox, Moraes et al (2014) evaluated the effect of different RP values on the crop productivity in two NT (wheat-soy and oat-corn), and concluded that the PR of 3.5 MPa can be adopted as a limiting factor to root growth in soils with water contents close to that of the field capacity.…”

“…No-tillage system (NT) usually subjects the soil to high-traffic load, soil disturbance in sowing row, and the alternation of summer and winter crops, which may cause soil compaction (Mentges et al, 2016). Compaction is often reported in soils under NT (Moraes et al, 2014(Moraes et al, , 2016, which can damage the soil physical quality due to air availability, reduction of water and nutrients available to the plants, reducing the volume of soil explored by the roots, as a consequence of the increased bulk density and resistance to root penetration (Silva et al, 2014).…”

Integrated crop-livestock system effects on soil N, P, and pH in a semiarid region

“…Grazing of cover crops and crops grown for winter forage were found to 17 increase or have no effect on near-surface total and labile P stocks in ICLS (Costa et al, 2014;da 18 Silva et al, 2014;Liebig et al, 2012). Soil acidification, an indirect indicator of nutrient-use 19 efficiency (Smith and Doran, 1996), was less severe under treatments including livestock 20 regardless of grazing intensity compared to no grazing due to greater retention of divalent cations 21 (i.e., exchangeable Ca 2+ and Mg 2+ ) in the former (Martins et al, 2014;da Silva et al, 2014).…”