IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/agiwat/v98y2011i6p1071-1080.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Management of cruciferous cover crops by mowing for soil and water conservation in southern Spain

Author

Listed:
  • Alcántara, C.
  • Pujadas, A.
  • Saavedra, M.

Abstract

In recent years, the use of cover crops in Mediterranean olive orchards has increased due to serious soil erosion problems and surface water contamination by herbicides. In these areas, the annual precipitation regime is strongly seasonal, with dry summers that require killing the cover crop before it competes with the trees for water. Cruciferous species are being introduced as cover crops in southern Spain, and their management by mowing could reduce the use of herbicides. However, the use of mowing as a management system requires an understanding of the phenology of these species to identify the most suitable mowing date to derive the greatest possible soil water content. The aims of this study were the following: (1) to assess the susceptibility of cruciferous species to mowing, their regrowth ability and the persistence of their residues on the soil surface after mowing, and (2) to identify the best mowing date for the cover crops in relation to the soil moisture content in the environmental conditions of southern Spain. For these purposes, the emergence, ground cover, biomass and regrowth after two mowing dates of common mustard (Sinapis alba L. subsp. mairei), rocket (Eruca vesicaria), radish (Raphanus sativus) and Ethiopian mustard (Brassica carinata) were evaluated in field trials during 2001/2002. In addition, during 2002/2003 and 2003/2004, the moisture content of soil sowed with common mustard and rocket cover crops was assessed at different mowing dates and compared with a bare soil control. Common mustard was the most favourable species for management by mowing due to its lack of regrowth after mowing. Early mowing (March 10th) reduced soil moisture due to the regrowth of the cover crop, fast decomposition of cover residues and weed proliferation. Late mowing (April 24th) led to little or no regrowth of the cover crops, large biomass and high persistence of cover residues, which provided effective soil ground cover, avoided the emergence of spring-summer weeds and helped retain soil moisture, reaching a similar water content to bare soil. These results suggest that cruciferous cover crops killed by mowing in late April can be used to replace no-tillage bare soil management systems to reduce the use of herbicides and preserve soil and water quality.

Suggested Citation

  • Alcántara, C. & Pujadas, A. & Saavedra, M., 2011. "Management of cruciferous cover crops by mowing for soil and water conservation in southern Spain," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(6), pages 1071-1080, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:98:y:2011:i:6:p:1071-1080
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378-3774(11)00023-0
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Castro, G. & Romero, P. & Gomez, J.A. & Fereres, E., 2006. "Rainfall redistribution beneath an olive orchard," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 249-258, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chen, Dianyu & Wang, Youke & Zhang, Xue & Wei, Xinguang & Duan, Xingwu & Muhammad, Saifullah, 2021. "Understory mowing controls soil drying in a rainfed jujube agroforestry system in the Loess Plateau," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    2. Ramón González-Ruiz & José Alfonso Gómez-Guzmán & Minerva Martínez-Rojas & Antonio García-Fuentes & María del Pilar Cordovilla & María Sainz-Pérez & Antonio M. Sánchez-Solana & Juan Carlos-Hervás & An, 2023. "The Influence of Mixed Green Covers, a New Trend in Organic Olive Growing, on the Efficiency of Predatory Insects," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-19, March.
    3. Beniaich, Adnane & Guimarães, Danielle Vieira & Avanzi, Junior Cesar & Silva, Bruno Montoani & Acuña-Guzman, Salvador Francisco & dos Santos, Wharley Pereira & Silva, Marx Leandro Naves, 2023. "Spontaneous vegetation as an alternative to cover crops in olive orchards reduces water erosion and improves soil physical properties under tropical conditions," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 279(C).
    4. Tu, Anguo & Xie, Songhua & Zheng, Haijin & Li, Hongren & Li, Ying & Mo, Minghao, 2021. "Long-term effects of living grass mulching on soil and water conservation and fruit yield of citrus orchard in south China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 252(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      Corrections

      All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:98:y:2011:i:6:p:1071-1080. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

      If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

      If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

      For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/agwat .

      Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

      IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.