Cover Crops from Winter Wheat, Triticale and Peas Cultivated in Pure Stands and Mixtures – Soil and Weed Suppression Benefits

Abstract

Cover crops had shown a potential to improving carbon sequestration in soil and environmental quality, but these beneficial effects can be modulated by precipitation conditions. In this paper was evaluated the effectiveness of three cover crops on soil chemical properties and weed suppression. The experiments were performed on cambic chernozem soil from NARDI Fundulea Romania in two contrasting years regarding the amount of precipitation. Three cover crops were studied. The cover crop consisting of peas + triticale has increased more soil carbon content and infestation with weeds were lower as compared with cover crop consisting of peas or triticale. The differences concerning carbon sequestration, soil organic carbon, carbon to nitrogen ratio, weed suppression were influenced also by level of precipitations from experimental site. Cover crops were slow to impact C/N ratio of soil. In contrast, the floristic composition, and the degree of weed infestation were very significantly influenced by the composition of the cover crops. The use of cover crop mixtures offered an additional benefit to weed suppression that of individual cover crops.