Effect of planting and mowing cover crops as livestock feed on soil quality and pear production

Haoran Fu; Hong Chen; Qingxu Ma; Kefeng Han; Shaofu Wu; Lianghuan Wu

doi:10.3389/fpls.2022.1105308

Effect of planting and mowing cover crops as livestock feed on soil quality and pear production

Front Plant Sci. 2023 Jan 4:13:1105308. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.1105308. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Haoran Fu¹, Hong Chen², Qingxu Ma¹, Kefeng Han¹, Shaofu Wu³, Lianghuan Wu¹

Affiliations

¹ Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Agricultural Resources and Environment, College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
² School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
³ Shaoxing Grain and Oil Crop Technology Extension Center, Shaoxing, China.

Abstract

Introduction: The increasing demand for animal-products has led to an increasing demand for livestock feed. Using cover crop as green manure in orchards is an effective measure to improve fruit yield and quality. However, the effect of mowing cover forage crops as livestock feed on soil quality and crop production is unclear.

Method: Therefore, a 4-year field experiment, which included two treatments, was conducted in pear orchards in Luniao County, China: natural grass (NG) and planting and mowing forage crop ryegrass as livestock feed (MF).

Results: Under MF treatment, most soil nutrient content, especially alkalihydrolysable N (AN), total phosphate (TP), available phosphate (AP), and microbial biomass phosphate (MBP), had decreased significantly (P<0.05), while β-D-glucosidase (BG, C-cycle enzyme) and soil C limitation at 10-20 cm depth and P limitation at subsoil (20-40 cm) was increased. In addition, the soil bacterial community component in topsoil (0-10 cm and 10-20 cm) and fungal community component in topsoil and subsoil were changed in the MF treatment. Network analysis showed that MF treatment had a lower edge number in topsoil but the community edge numbers increased from 12794 in NG to 13676 in MF in subsoil. The average weight degree of the three soil layers in MF treatment were reduced, but the modularity had increased than that in NG. For crop production, MF treatment was 1.39 times higher in pear yield and titratable acids (AC) reduced from 0.19% to 0.13% compared with NG. These changes were more associated with the indicators at the subsoil, especially for TP, AN, pH, and F-NMDS1 (non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) axis 1 of fungi).

Discussion: These results provide data support for the feasibility of planting and mowing forage crops as livestock feed on orchards as well as a new idea for the integration of crop and livestock.

Keywords: community component; different depth; mowing forage crop; pear yield; soil nutrient content; titratable acids.