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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Pendleton, Oregon » Columbia Plateau Conservation Research Center » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #102930
Title: EVALUATION OF LONG TERM CROP SYSTEMS ON HYDROLOGY AND SOIL EROSION; PRELIMINARY RESULTS FROM SECOND YEAR OF MONITORING

Author
item Williams, John
item Douglas Jr, Clyde

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/9/1999
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: We have completed a second year of hydrologic assessment of an ongoing crop management study begun in 1931. The long-term study was originally initiated to examine the influence of fertilizer and cereal residue management in a winter wheat/summer fallow system. To measure runoff and erosion, we instrumented the plots (11.6 m x 40.2 m) to evaluate five treatments that were combinations of fertilizer application (0 and 90 kg N/ha, manure approximately 146 kg N/ha) and cereal residue management (no burn, spring-burn, or fall-burn of residue). The treatments were replicated on two slopes (2 % and 6 %). Primary tillage of all crop year treatments was with a moldboard plow and winter wheat sown in October. During the erosion season, lasting from November through March, two rain- on-frozen-soil events occurred, resulting in runoff and erosion. No-burn, high fertility treatments produced 6 times and 10 times less runoff, and 14 times and 30 times less eroded material than burn treatments from 2 % and 6 % slopes, respectively. This preliminary analysis of runoff grab samples supports the findings from 1997-1998 erosion season. These results demonstrate the importance of returning cereal residue to the soil for creating conditions that limit runoff and erosion.