Abstract
Soil wind erosion is a serious issue in upland fields, because winter fallow treatments produce awful erosions in Kato area, Japan. This research evaluated the abilities of cover crops that planted at different plating time and seeding rate on their growths and reduction of wind speeds. Main results were followings.
Dry matter accumulations of cover crop were significantly different depending on their species and planting time. Cereal rye (Secale cereale L.) showed high dry matter accumulation compare with oat (Avena sativa L.) and hairy vetch (Vicia villosa Roth). Planting times of cover crop and seeding rates also showed significant differences on their dry matter accumulations, especially, October planting times showed high dry matter accumulation although November planting time showed low dry mater accumulations due to delay of germination in the fields.
The significant difference was observed between cover crop biomass and the reduction of wind speed at the soil surface, 50g/m2 cover crop dry matter showed significant reduction of wind speed. Adopting cover crops in field crop production may contribute to cope with both maintaining crop production and mitigation of wind erosion. In addition cover crops also recommend in the view points of sustainable agro ecosystem because their abilities that add organic matter to the soil are significant.
