Managing Early Season Soil Temperatures in the Northern Corn Belt Using Configured Soil Surfaces and Mulches

Abstract

Soil temperatures in the northern Corn Belt are often too low at planting time to allow optimum germination, emergence, and early seedling growth. Crop residues, which are beneficial for erosion protection or are the result of minimum tillage, generally retard the rate of drying and warming of the seedbed. We found that ridged soils dried faster starting at the peak of the ridges and continuing down their southerly exposed slopes. Maximum seedbed temperatures occurred either under the ridge peak or under the southerly exposed slope. The time of the diurnal maximum temperatures depended on the slope aspect. For example, a southeast‐facing slope reached maximum temperature over 2 h earlier than a southwest‐facing slope, although the southwest slope reached a higher maximum temperature. Mulch decreased daytime soil temperatures, but a combination of mulch and ridging offset this temperature decrease so that there was no difference between a seedbed temperature under a mulch‐covered ridge and a conventionally tilled soil without mulch. Mulch with ridging provides a limited means of managing soil water and soil temperature in the seedbed.

Modification of hydrothermal regimes under bed planted wheat

“…Thus it could be concluded that for any given aerial temperature, soil temperature will always be more in bed as compared to conventional planting. Similar results were reported earlier (Radke, 1982;Mascagni and Sabbe (1990). Data on maximum soil temperature and soil water content recorded during wheat growth in 2008 also confirmed the previous year's findings that at all times and at all depths (upto 15 cm), soil water content on bed was lower and soil temperature was higher as compared to conventional system (Fig.…”

Strip-tillage effect on seedbed soil temperature and other soil physical properties

“…Unlike soil moisture, soil temperature has an inverse relationship with the amount of residue cover (Radke, 1982). The decrease in soil temperature is due to the influence of surface residue by reflecting solar radiation and insulating the soil surface (Shinners et al, 1993;van Wijk et al, 1959).…”

“…However, the difference between moldboard plowing and no-tillage with residue cover was approximately one-third the difference between no-tillage with and without residue at 14 h (Gupta et al, 1983). Soil water and temperature are interrelated because soil warming under wet conditions is hampered due to greater soil heat capacity and more energy being used for water evaporation than warming the soil (Radke, 1982). Several studies have concluded that higher soil water content caused lower soil temperatures and in turn reduced seed germination and emergence (Griffith et al, 1973;Morrison and Gerik, 1983).…”

Effect of the ridge tillage system on some selected soil physical properties in a maize monoculture

“…The yearly loss of soil is estimated to be 8 million tons. Radke (1982) concluded that ridge tillage could help control erosion by leaving crop residues on the surface. Erosion and nutrient losses with ridge tillage were 67% less than in conventional tillage on land with 8 to 12% slope (Römkens et al, 1973).…”