ABSTRACT Several soil conservation practices are used to reduce water erosion and ensure sustainable agriculture. An effective crop management practice is intercropping, in which two or more crops with different architectures and vegetative cycles are grown simultaneously in the same area. We hypothesized that intercropping of corn and jack-bean increases soil cover and reduce soil erosion by water in comparison to monocropping. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of different crop systems on soil cover and […]

ABSTRACT Corn intercropped with Urochloa brizantha (Syn, Brachiaria brizantha) has been indicated as a suitable alternative management practice for rational land use in crop-livestock production systems in the Cerrado region of Brazil. An experiment was carried out in Maracaju, MS, Brazil to evaluate the effect of sequences of soybean/second-crop corn systems intercropped with Urochloa brizantha and the effects of forms of nitrogen on soil chemical and physical properties. A randomized block experimental design was used with four replications; treatments were […]

In a no-tillage system, cover crops must be used that combine shoot dry matter production and nutrient recycling. The aim of this study was to evaluate shoot dry matter production, decomposition rate and macronutrient and silicon release from pigeonpea and pearl millet in monoculture and intercropping systems. A randomized block design was used with a 3 x 6 factorial arrangement, with four replications. The first factor consisted of three cover crops (pigeonpea, pearl millet and intercropping of these cover crops) […]

The use of green manure to establish diversity and equilibrium of a crop system is one of the paragons in modern agriculture.Soil samples and green manure species intercropped with maize were evaluated in a field experiment, from 1995 to 1997, carried out in an Aleudalf Soil, located in Piracicaba (SP)Maize seeds were planted at 0.90 meter spacing within lines totaling 50,000 plants per hectare.The treatments were performed with four green manure species: dwarf mucuna (Mucuna deeringiana (Bort.) Merr), dwarf pigean […]