Soil Management for Vegetable Crops
Conservation Tillage with Vegetable Production
Vegetable farming is an intensive practice that typically relies on several tillage passes to prepare fields for production. For vegetable production, tillage is important for adequate soil management and optimal yields. Tillage is typically done in a “broadcast” manner throughout a field without regard to preserving dedicated crop growth or traffic zones. The practice of tillage is necessary to provide more favorable soil conditions for crop growth and development over the short term, (i.e., weeks to months). As mentioned, intensive tillage of agricultural soils results in severe soil erosion and substantial loss of soil carbon. In light of the soil degradation that occurs with intensive tillage, a growing number of vegetable growers have adopted conservation tillage to produce a wide range of vegetable crops.
No-Till Vegetable Production
Most fresh market vegetable crops are either grown under conventional tillage or plasticulture systems requiring significant tillage. One solution for this dilemma is converting to a no-till system, where organic matter can be conserved or increased. The best success story with no-till vegetables has been with pumpkins, which are commonly direct seeded through a killed cover crop mulch (often hairy vetch or rye) or through crop residue (most commonly barley or wheat small grain stubble). The mulch provided keeps pumpkins off the ground and has greatly reduced fruit diseases and improved quality. Other seeded crops such as sweet corn and snap beans have been successfully no-tilled. No-till also has been shown to work with transplanted crops.
Strip-Till Vegetable Production
Strip tillage is a form of conservation tillage in which a crop is planted into narrow, tilled strips. Unlike no-till, however, where the seed is planted into narrow slits in the soil, strip tillage involves tilling a 6- to 12-inch-wide band, usually 8 to 16 inches deep. The area between strips is left undisturbed. The non-tilled area between the strips might contain residue from the previous season’s main crop or a living or dead cover crop. As a hybrid tillage system between no-till and conventional tillage, strip tillage can offer improvements in soil quality since about 50 to 70 percent of the soil surface remains untilled. The reduction of soil compaction from heavy farm equipment is a major advantage of strip-till systems.
Strip-Till with Cover Crops
Common plants used as cover crops in vegetable production systems include cowpea, wheat, oats, cereal rye, annual ryegrass, oilseed radish, hairy vetch, crimson clover, buckwheat and sorghum-sudangrass. Cereal rye is the most commonly and widely grown cover crop for strip tillage systems in vegetable production. The cover crop is killed with a non-selective herbicide in spring (preferably glyphosate) and mowed or roller-crimped before seeding in the spring.
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