Agricultural Resources and Environmental Indicators: Soil Managment and Conservation
Richard Magleby
No. (AH722) ,
February 2002
Crop production depends largely on soil and is affected greatly by the quality of that soil. Soil quality also plays a role in the environmental effects of crop production. Traditional measures of soil quality include land capability and suitability, prime land, productivity, erodibility, and vulnerability to leach pesticides and nitrates. More comprehensive measures are needed that consider physical, chemical, and biological properties, and also economic factors. Soil management involves actions by land managers that affect soil quality and productivity and alter soil's effects on environmental quality. Examples of these actions include land use or cropping pattern, type and extent of tillage, amount of cover or residue left on the soil, and use of conservation buffers and structures.
Keywords: soil management, conservation, soil conservation, tillage, conservation practices, rotations, crop residue, pesticides, ERS, USDA
In this series ... Reports are
in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.
Chapter 4.2: Soil Managment and Conservation, 109 mb.
Contents
- Why Manage Soil?
- Quality of Soils in U.S. Agriculture
- Traditional measures of quality
- Broadening the measures of soil quality
- Maintaining and improving soil quality
- Farmers' Use of Rotational Cropping Systems
- Extent of rotation cropping
- Trends in rotation cropping
- Use of cover crops
- Economic factors affecting rotational cropping
- Policies and programs affecting cropping pattern use
- Farmers' Use of Crop Residue Management
- Why manage residue?
- National and regional CRM use
- CRM use on major crops
- Economic incentives for CRM adoption
- Policies and programs promoting CRM adoption
- Barriers to CRM adoption
- Farmers' Use of Conservation Buffers and Structures
- National and regional use of buffers and structures
- Economic and program factors affecting adoption of conservation structures
- Characteristics of Conservation Adopters
- References
See other chapters in the Agricultural Resources and Environmental Indicators series.
Updated date: February 21, 2002
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