Biomass Productivity of Different Winter Cover Crops and Their Effect on Soil Physical Properties

Abstract

The cultivation of cover crops is a vegetative practice considered an alternative for sustainable soil management, due to its beneficial action in different aspects of soil properties. Thus, the present work aimed to evaluate the effect of cultivation of different species of cover crops on soil density, porosity and diameter of soil aggregates. The experimental design was in randomized blocks, with four replications. The treatments consisted of four species of winter green manure: black oat, forage turnip, forage pea, and common vetch, a consortium of black oat + forage turnip and area kept fallow (control). The following evaluations were performed: dry matter production of cover crops, macroporosity, microporosity, total porosity, soil density, geometric mean diameter and weighted average diameter. The cultivation with forage turnip and the consortium of black oat + forage turnip presented higher dry matter productivity, decreased soil density, increased soil porosity, improved the distribution in relation to macropores and aggregate stability.