Project Number: 3625-21610-001-41
Project Type: Reimbursable

Start Date: Jul 01, 2007
End Date: Jun 30, 2012

Objective:
Evaluate management systems for growing corn with perennial groundcover

Approach:
A field study using three perennial groundcover species with different competitive abilities and four groundcover management treatments and a no groundcover control will be conducted for three growing seasons. Groundcover treatments will involve chemical and mechanical control for suppression during active corn growth. In-season assessments of plant water status, carbon dioxide exchange, nutrient sufficiency, radiation interception, and dry matter production will isolate temporal patterns of plant-plant competition between corn and the groundcover. Groundcover species will be drilled into a conventionally-tilled seedbed in late summer. Corn will be planted in the same groundcover plots for three years following establishment. A randomized complete block design in a split-plot arrangement of treatments with four replicates will be established. Groundcover main plots will be 19.0 m wide and 22.8 m long and include white clover, kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.), creeping red fescue, and a mixture of white clover and red fescue. Management system subplots will be 3.8 m wide and 22.8 m long and include 1) a control without a groundcover, 2) groundcover using a pre- and post corn emergence 25-cm glyphosate herbicide band, 3) groundcover with a spring broadcast paraquat (non-selective non-translocated herbicide) burndown and post glyphosate band, 4) groundcover with 25-cm fall strip-tillage and glyphosate band, and 5) groundcover with fall strip tillage, spring paraquat burndown, and post glyphosate band.