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ARS Home » Plains Area » Bushland, Texas » Conservation and Production Research Laboratory » Livestock Nutrient Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #92792
Title: POTENTIAL WIND ERODIBILITY OF CRP GRASSLAND CONVERTED TO CROPLAND

Author
item Unger, Paul

Submitted to: Agronomy Abstracts
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/12/1998
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: A management option for the CRP program was to establish grass on highly erodible cropland. Hence, when contracts ended, would erosion again become a problem? Wind erosion potential was determined before planting grain sorghum in 1997 and 1998 on Pullman clay loam (Torrertic Paleustoll) where CRP grassland was converted to cropland in 1994 and 1995. Treatments were no-tillage, or moldboard, disk, or sweep plowing, with grass either retained or removed before imposing treatments and starting a wheat- sorghum-fallow crop rotation. Erosion potential was estimated from dry aggregate mean weight diameters (MWD) and percent aggregates>0.84-mm diameter. Values for treatments did not differ (P = 0.05 level), except in 1997 when MWD was lowest (10.1 mm) with grass burned followed by disking. Lowest value for aggregates>0.84 mm was 62%. Although MWD was different in 1997, all MWD and percent aggregation values indicted wind erosion potential is slight at 2 to 3 years after converting CRP grassland to cropland on this soil.