Management Influence on the Quality of an Agricultural Soil Destined for Forage Production and Evaluated by Physico-Chemical and Biological Indicators

Abstract

The European Common Agricultural Policy promotes the sustainable use of soils through the principle of cross-compliance that links direct payments to good farming practices. Thus, it is necessary to find sustainable alternatives to the conventional management for forage production in the Atlantic Arc dairy farms. Two alternative managements (faba bean in monoculture—FB—and faba bean–Italian ryegrass intercrop—FBIR) were cultivated with organic fertilization during two consecutive years and compared to the conventional management (Italian ryegrass in monoculture—IR—under chemical fertilization) as winter crops. Maize was used as the summer crop to complete the rotations using organic and chemical fertilization, respectively. The forage yield of winter fodder was quantified. Soil samples and summer harvests were performed to analyse the physicochemical and biological parameters. The best forage yield corresponded to FBIR with 9.2 t dry matter (DM) ha−1 vs. 7.2 and 5.7 t DM ha−1 for FB and IR, respectively. The soil organic matter did not show significant differences among treatments, suggesting that it may be a poor indicator of the management influence on edaphic quality in the short term. Biological indicators were more sensitive and faster to differentiate among managements than chemical indicators. Earthworm abundance was higher in FB and FBIR than IR (p < 0.001), and consequently, soil infiltration was improved with the alternative management (13.90 vs. 2.08 and 0.90 min for IR, FB and FBIR, respectively, p < 0.01). As a result, the soil health diagnosis of the agroecosystem was better for alternative management.

Effect of dairy cattle production systems on sustaining soil organic carbon storage in grasslands of northern Spain

“…The (1) IOM = 0.049 SOC 1.139 results of estimated dry matter production from the linear regression varied between 6308 and 11,363 kg ha −1 year −1 and were within the range of studies carried out in our study area (e.g. Doltra et al 2019;Baizán et al 2021;Batalla et al 2015), as well as within the range of the regional Spanish Ministry of Agriculture Statistics (ESYRCE).…”

Edaphic macrofauna associated with the cultivation of maize (Zea maiz)

“…During the corn development period, a greater abundance of caterpillars could be observed; their presence is intuited because they feed on corn leaves 36 , the presence of earthworms in small quantities in both periods is attributed to the fact that they tend to prevail in humid, non-compacted edaphic environments with high MO content 37 . However, the greatest quantity of earthworms was during the development of corn, the results are related to the development of these plants since earthworms tend to leave deep soils in search of favorable environments 38 .…”

Impact of Potentially Toxic Compounds in Cow Milk: How Industrial Activities Affect Animal Primary Productions

“…The soil samples from the upper layer soil (20 cm) were collected in three random points per cropland with a Dutch auger of 5 cm inner diameter. Once in the laboratory, the samples were air-dried at room temperature, crumbled, finely crushed, and sieved through a 2 mm screen [ 9 , 11 , 24 ]. Forage samples consisted of grass-based fodder and they were either fresh or preserved as silage (grass chopped and packaged without air to facilitate the fermentation process and minimize nutrient losses, for use as animal feed).…”