Modeling Long-Term Crop Yield, Soil Organic Carbon, and Rootzone Hydrologic Dynamics Under Different Tillage and Cropping Systems in Ohio, USA
摘要
Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer allows the development and evaluation of optimum agricultural management practices and informed agricultural management decisions. In this study, we used long-term (1982–2011) experimental data from Wooster, Ohio, USA with four treatments (i) corn-corn rotation under plow-till (CC-PT), (ii) corn-corn rotation under no-till (CC-NT), (iii) corn-soybean rotation under plow-till (CS-PT), and (iv) corn-soybean rotation under No-Till (CS-NT). The model was calibrated using data from treatments of CC-PT and CS-PT, while the evaluation was done using CC-NT and CS-NT. The calibrated model effectively simulated grain yield under both CC-PT (R2 = 0.98, root mean squared error (RMSE) = 518.6 kg ha-1, normalized root mean squared error (nRMSE) = 0.06, and d-stat = 0.99) and CS-PT (R2 = 0.98, RMSE = 560.1 kg ha-1, nRMSE = 0.11, and d-stat = 0.99) treatments, demonstrating strong agreement with observed data. Notably, the simulations revealed distinct impacts of crop rotation and tillage practices, with no-tillage (NT) substantially enhancing corn yield within the corn–soybean rotation system. In addition, the model was able to simulate soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks under NT management and performed moderately well for plow tillage (PT) plots. Consistently, NT plots accumulated greater amounts of soil organic carbon and nitrogen compared to PT plots. The simulation further highlighted the critical role of NT in conserving soil moisture, as no-tillage significantly improved available water content relative to conventional plowing. Generally, the findings underscore the potential of no-tillage systems to enhance crop productivity, promote soil health, and improve water retention under diverse rotation regimes. Furthermore, combining no-tillage with a crop rotation system could potentially promote the gain.