Undersowing winter oilseed rape with frost-sensitive legume living mulch: Consequences for cash crop nitrogen nutrition

•Intercropping legumes with oilseed rape modified the dynamic of nitrogen uptake in the cash crop.•At the end of flowering, the N surplus in rape, derived from legumes, reached 20 to 40kgNha−1 for some legume species.•The use of 15N-labelled fertiliser made it possible to quantify the nitrogen deriv...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Field crops research 2016-07, Vol.193, p.24-33
Main Authors: Lorin, M., Jeuffroy, M.-H., Butier, A., Valantin-Morison, M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological nitrogen
Life Sciences
Nitrogen mineralisation
Nitrogen-fertiliser recovery
Winter oilseed rape
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Summary:•Intercropping legumes with oilseed rape modified the dynamic of nitrogen uptake in the cash crop.•At the end of flowering, the N surplus in rape, derived from legumes, reached 20 to 40kgNha−1 for some legume species.•The use of 15N-labelled fertiliser made it possible to quantify the nitrogen derived from legumes in the rape crop.•The presence of legumes in autumn resulted both in higher N mineralisation and in improved fertiliser-N recovery. The use of legume cover crops as green manure is often seen as an effective means of supplying nitrogen to the following crop. As winter oilseed rape requires a large amount of N in the spring, the introduction of frost-sensitive legume living mulch (killed off during the winter) is a promising way of decreasing mineral N fertiliser inputs. The aim of this study was to assess the supply of biological N to rape during the spring from several frost-sensitive legumes, grown as intercropped living mulches. We carried out a field trial over two growing seasons before sowing, comparing seven legume species and three legume mixtures intercropped with rape, and two levels of soil mineral N. The presence of legumes, living during the autumn and dead during the spring, resulted in 20–40kgNha−1 more nitrogen uptake in oilseed rape, by the end of flowering, compared to rape grown as a sole crop. Moreover, the use of 15N-labelled nitrogen fertiliser showed that this increase in rape N accumulation was due to the mineralisation of legume residues, but also to other mechanisms such as increase in fertiliser-N recovery and in soil organic matter mineralisation.
ISSN:0378-4290
1872-6852
DOI:10.1016/j.fcr.2016.03.002