Increased productivity of a cover crop mixture is not associated with enhanced agroecosystem services

PLoS One. 2014 May 21;9(5):e97351. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0097351. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Cover crops provide a variety of important agroecological services within cropping systems. Typically these crops are grown as monocultures or simple graminoid-legume bicultures; however, ecological theory and empirical evidence suggest that agroecosystem services could be enhanced by growing cover crops in species-rich mixtures. We examined cover crop productivity, weed suppression, stability, and carryover effects to a subsequent cash crop in an experiment involving a five-species annual cover crop mixture and the component species grown as monocultures in SE New Hampshire, USA in 2011 and 2012. The mean land equivalent ratio (LER) for the mixture exceeded 1.0 in both years, indicating that the mixture over-yielded relative to the monocultures. Despite the apparent over-yielding in the mixture, we observed no enhancement in weed suppression, biomass stability, or productivity of a subsequent oat (Avena sativa L.) cash crop when compared to the best monoculture component crop. These data are some of the first to include application of the LER to an analysis of a cover crop mixture and contribute to the growing literature on the agroecological effects of cover crop diversity in cropping systems.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Agriculture / methods*
  • Biomass
  • Crops, Agricultural / physiology*
  • Ecosystem
  • Edible Grain / physiology*
  • Fabaceae / physiology*
  • Humans
  • New Hampshire
  • Seasons

Grants and funding

This work was supported by NERA (North East Regional Association of agricultural experiment station directors) project NE-1047 http://nimss.umd.edu/lgu_v2/homepages/home.cfm?trackID=13656. Partial funding was provided by the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station. This is scientific contribution number 2533. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.