Cover Crops Not Enough to Improve Soil After Decades of Continuous Corn
Published:08 Jun.2022 Source:University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences
Although about 20% of Illinois cropping systems are planted to continuous corn, it's nearly impossible to find fields planted this way for decades at a time. Yet long-term experiments like one at the University of Illinois, including over 40 years of continuous corn under different nitrogen fertilizer rates, provide incredible learning opportunities and soil management lessons for researchers and farmers alike.
That's particularly true for studies of the soil microbiome, including two led by Nakian Kim, a doctoral graduate from the Department of Crop Sciences at U of I. For Kim, the long-term experiment provided a unique, biologically stable setting to explore baselines and observe microbial responses to the inclusion of cover crops, a change in management introduced in 2018 and supported by a USDA-NIFA award to María Villamil's team.