Soil water balance with cover crops and conservation agriculture in a Mediterranean climate

Modern conservation agriculture practices aim to maintain year-round ground cover in order to maximise soil protection from extremes of temperature and minimise erosion risk. However, in Mediterranean-style environments with hot dry summer periods, maintaining ground cover can be difficult, as these periods are generally too arid for plant growth. In this research, we investigated the use of cover crops, grown solely to increase ground cover and not harvested for grain or biomass, in a Mediterranean climate. Specifically, we examined the impact of cover crops and residue retention on evapotranspiration, both over the summer fallow period and during the winter and spring crop growth period, and on deep drainage from subsequent crops, on two contrasting soil types in south-western Australia. The impact of cover crops on weed populations and nitrogen dynamics is described in a companion paper. In contrast to previously published research, cover crops and residue retention were found to have limited impact on total evaporation during the summer and autumn period, although there were occasional short-term impacts on the rate of evaporation shortly after rainfall. There was also limited evidence of changes in evaporation during early crop growth. Drainage from crops grown after cover crops was not consistently different to drainage from crops grown after conventional crops. The inclusion of cover crops in farming systems in regions with a Mediterranean climate is unlikely to have major impacts on the water balance, but may still increase overall sustainability of the farming system. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.