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Title: The water conundrum of planting cover crops in the great plains: when is an inch not an inch?

Author
item ROBINSON, CLAY - American Society Of Agronomy
item Nielsen, David

Submitted to: Crops and Soils
Publication Type: Popular Publication
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/22/2014
Publication Date: 1/22/2015
Citation: Robinson, C., Nielsen, D.C. 2015. The water conundrum of planting cover crops in the great plains: when is an inch not an inch? Crops and Soils. 48:24-31.

Interpretive Summary: Cover crop use is being widely promoted throughout the entire United States because of the potential benefits related to protecting and improving the soil. However, in semi-arid environments such as the western and central Great Plains (where water is the single most limiting factor to crop production), cover crop water use may result in significant yield loss in following crops such as winter wheat. This article explores why many of the benefits associated with cover crop use may not be seen in this water-limited environment.

Technical Abstract: Cover crop use is being widely promoted throughout the entire United States because of the potential benefits related to protecting and improving the soil. However, the semi-arid environment of the western and central Great Plains has a much different environment from areas where cover cropping has been successfully implemented due to lower precipitation and higher evaporative demand. The water requirement to grow a unit of plant material in the Texas Panhandle can be twice as much as in North Dakota. The strong east-west precipitation gradient in conjunction with the strong north-south evaporative demand gradient across this region cause the potential successful implementation of cover crops into cropping systems to vary greatly. Cover crop water use in some parts of this region may be so great as to severely limit the production potential of the following crop. Farmers need to recognize the climatological factors that may limit the successful use of cover crops in their specific regions.