Enhancing Long-Term No-Till Wheat Systems with Cover Crops and Flash Grazing

Monoculture practices under conventional tillage (CT) are detrimental to sustainable soil ecosystem functions and services under intensive agriculture practices, ultimately diminishing net benefits. Conservation practices, such as no-till (NT) and cover crops (CC) can nurture sustainable soil ecosystem functions and services. The impact of introducing CC, grazing, intercropping, and reverting to tillage in a long-term NT continuous wheat system on soil properties was evaluated in three years of implementation. Treatments were CT and combinations of NT, CC, grazing, and intercropping wheat with radishes and turnips. Reverting to tillage after 12 years of NT significantly increased bulk density and reduced total porosity compared to NT with CC. In addition, CT significantly decreased large macroaggregates, mean weight diameter, and labile C within large macroaggregates and increased small macroaggregates compared to CC treatments. Cover crops enhanced NT as evident in significant improvements in bulk density, total porosity, soil macroaggregates, and mean weight diameter. Flash grazing CC did not result in any adverse effects compared to all other treatments for measured parameters. Ultimately, reverting to tillage in a long-term NT system significantly degraded soil physical property. In contrast, implementing cover crops to long-term continuous wheat systems trended toward soil improvements. Flash grazing cover crops can be successfully implemented in no-till systems without adversely affecting soil physical properties or labile C pools