Crop residue is plant material remaining after harvesting, including leaves, stalks, roots.
What is crop residue used for?
Crop residues, especially straw from small grains, are used for livestock bedding. A variety of commercial uses for crop residues are in various stages of development. Crop residues can be a feedstock for composite products such as fiberboard, paper, liquid fuels and others.
Are crop residues good?
Crop residues are materials left in an agricultural field after the crop has been harvested. Good management of field residues can increase efficiency of irrigation and control of erosion. No-till can be used for almost any crop in almost any soil and can save producers labor costs and fuel.
What are high residue crops?
High-residue cover cropping is an adaptation of conservation tillage in which a high- biomass cover crop is grown during the winter and is rolled or cut down prior to no-till or strip-till planting in spring. because of the increased biomass of the cover crop.
Is crop residue a waste?
Crop residues left in the field after grain harvest have a large potential as a bioenergy feedstock. As a byproduct of grain production these residues have been called waste, yet research has shown their nutrient, erosion, and soil carbon characteristics have value that must not be overlooked.
How do you manage crop residue?
Several management options are available to farmers for the gainful management of crop residues are livestock feed, mushroom cultivation, incorporation, surface retention and mulching, and removing the straw. Farmers use different straw management practices as per the situation.
Is Straw a crop residue?
The straw or stover is usually over half the harvestable vegetation of the crop. Stover is the field residues of large cereals, such as maize and sorghum. The leaves and stems of pulses are variously described as haulms or vines. Stubble is the stumps of the reaped crop, left in the field after harvest.
How can you improve the quality of crop residues?
Crop residues such as maize stover, wheat and rice straws are abundant in the dry seasons. They are however low in protein content and are poorly digested by livestock. Their quality can be improved by treating with ordinary urea fertilizer.
What is contouring in farming?
Contour farming is the practice of tillage, planting, and other farming operations performed on or near the contour of the field slope. Tillage and planting operations follow the contour line to promote positive row drainage and reduce ponding.
How do you get farmers to not burn crop residue?
Policies that may reap benefits in the longer run include further encouraging the operation of biogas plants, which could reduce the net cost of ex-situ management because farmers can sell the crop residue, or to encourage innovation of new, much cheaper and more appealing farm equipment for in-situ management.
What will happen as the plant residues breakdown?
The release of nutrients that occurs as plant residues degrade has several effects on soil. The enhanced microbial activity causes an increase in soil structure, which affects most of the physical properties of soil, such as aeration and infiltration.
What is the impact of leaving crop residues on the soil surface?
Leaving crop residue on the soil surface improves nutrient cycling and, ultimately, soil quality that will increase and sustain soil productivity. Through conservation practices that include balanced residue management and soil fertility, environmental quality can be substantially enhanced.
How much crop residue to remove?
However, other studies suggest that residue removal should be lower than 20 percent , especially with conventional tillage, in order to maintain soil quality and nutrient cycling for long-term soil productivity.
What is the value of crop residue?
In nutrient value alone, crop residue is estimated to provide almost $18 per acre. After considering nutrient loss, harvest costs and other factors, there may be more value in harvesting a drought-damaged field for the grain and leaving the residue standing.
Crop residues left in the field after grain harvest have a large potential as a bioenergy feedstock. As a byproduct of grain production these residues have been called waste, yet research has shown their nutrient, erosion, and soil carbon characteristics have value that must not be overlooked.
What does the term residue mean?
Residue(noun) that which remains after a part is taken, separated, removed, or designated; remnant; remainder. Residue(noun) that part of a testeator’s estate wwhich is not disposed of in his will by particular and special legacies and devises, and which remains after payment of debts and legacies.
