How much do sod-based rotations reduce nitrate leaching in a cereal cropping system?

•Nitrates in drain water of cereal rotations exceeded 50mgNO3L−1.•The longer the grassland in the sod-based rotation, the less drainage.•The longer the grassland, the lower the nitrate concentration in drained waters.•N fertilization had no significant impact on nitrate concentrations.•Ploughing the...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Agricultural water management 2015-03, Vol.150, p.46-56
Main Authors: Kunrath, Taise Robinson, de Berranger, Christophe, Charrier, Xavier, Gastal, François, de Faccio Carvalho, Paulo César, Lemaire, Gilles, Emile, Jean-Claude, Durand, Jean-Louis
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural management
Arable land
Computer Science
Crop rotation
Crops
Drainage
Drainage measurement
Environmental Sciences
Grassland
Grasslands
Groundwater
Hordeum vulgare
Leaching
Life Sciences
Nitrate
Nitrates
Triticum aestivum
Vegetal Biology
Water
Zea mays
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:•Nitrates in drain water of cereal rotations exceeded 50mgNO3L−1.•The longer the grassland in the sod-based rotation, the less drainage.•The longer the grassland, the lower the nitrate concentration in drained waters.•N fertilization had no significant impact on nitrate concentrations.•Ploughing the grassland did bring out no extra-nitrate concentration or extra-drainage. Nitrogen is essential to improving agricultural production systems, explaining why the contamination of groundwater by this nutrient is widespread. The aim of this paper was to describe data collected over 9 years on estimated leaching levels using a simple computation procedure and measurements of soil water content and water balance, nitrate concentrations in drainage water and meteorological data, and to assess the impacts of the duration of the grassland phase and the level of nitrogen fertilization on grassland on the drainage water quality. The study was carried out at a site of the Long-term Environmental Research Observation and Experimentation facility (SOERE) for Environmental Research- Agro-ecosystems, Biogeochemical Cycles and Biodiversity, run by the INRA experimental unit of Lusignan. The experimental treatments were sequences of maize, wheat and barley with different grassland rotational periods (a pure arable crop rotation; three or six years of grassland receiving high-level nitrogen applications; six years of grassland with a low N application rate and long-term grassland with nitrogen application). The study covered the period from April 2005 to June 2013, during which most drainage occurred in the autumn and early winter. Treatments with the longest duration of grassland exhibited less drainage than those containing a higher proportion of arable crops. The average nitrate concentration was 52.7±38.63mgNO3L−1 under a pure crop rotation, compared to 14.9±14.76mgNO3L−1 under a permanent grassland treatment. There were significant differences (P
ISSN:0378-3774
1873-2283
DOI:10.1016/j.agwat.2014.11.015