Slowing the Loss of Ag Chemicals
By Don Comis
October 25, 2004
Farmers might be well advised to apply chemicals between crop
rows rather than in the rows, according to a study of plowed and no-till
cornfields by Agricultural Research
Service scientists in Beltsville, Md.
The findings from the two-and-a-half-year study at the agency's
Henry
A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center show that applying
chemicals between rows could be safer in terms of reducing the leaching of
chemicals to groundwater, especially in areas of the country where rainfall is
frequent and no-tillage management is used, such as the mid-Atlantic region.
That's one suggestion to emerge from this first year-round,
multiyear study of soil and water dynamics that included charting differences
in soil moisture within and between crop rows.
ARS soil scientists
James
Starr and
Dennis
Timlin monitored the water content of soil with 16 special probes that
recorded soil water every 10 minutes around the clock, at depths of from two to
22 inches. Field weather stations collected data every five minutes. Starr and
Timlin studied interactions between the effects of tillage, row position and
season of the year on water infiltration, storage, drainage and crop water
uptake.
The nearly continuous measurements allowed the researchers to
envision how chemicals might move through fields. They compared in-row with
between-row water movement during rainstorms, aware that wherever water goes,
agrochemicals are likely to go, too.
Starr and Timlin found that the greatest water infiltration
occurred within corn rows, especially during summer rainfalls of an inch or
more. This was true for no-till, but results were less consistent with
plow-till. Aided by the funneling of water to the plants by corn leaves, the
soil in corn rows managed to capture a good share of the rain. This large
amount of rainwater funneled into the corn rows can then drain through the soil
toward groundwater.
A paper on this study has been published in the Vadose Zone Journal.
ARS is the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's chief scientific research agency. |