Effects of Mulching Previous Crops or Fallow on Dryland Maize and Wheat
- 1 January 1979
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in Experimental Agriculture
- Vol. 15 (2) , 129-134
- https://doi.org/10.1017/s001447970000051x
Abstract
SUMMARY: In dryland areas, where rains recede much earlier than the time of sowing of crops, moisture in the seed zone becomes limiting for stand establishment. Mulches are known to conserve moisture in the upper soil layers, so we studied the effect of mulching a standing maize or fallow on the yield of the maize and on following wheat. Mulching maize with green twigs of ‘basooti’ a few weeks before harvest increased its yield by 16%. Both in maize and on fallow mulching increased water storage, particularly in the upper soil layers, and increased wheat yields from 19.0 to 22.5 q/ha after maize and 29.1 to 33.3 q/ha after fallow. It also led to increased water use and water use efficiency of wheat.This publication has 5 references indexed in Scilit:
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