Differences of Soil Water Use, Lint and Biomass Yield in No-till and Conventionally Tilled Cotton in the Southern Piedmont

Proceedings of the 1999 Georgia Water Resources Conference, March 30 and 31, Athens, Georgia.The southeast, despite its abundant rainfall, suffers short-term summer droughts with detrimental effect on crop yield. No-till production systems provide added insurance against such conditions by improving infiltration, and conserving moisture in drought-prone soils. In three years of experiment near Watkinsville, GA, no-till cotton treatments maintained higher soil moisture content, more vegetative growth and higher lint yield than conventional tillage treatments. A combination of no-till and poultry litter treatments did even better compared to conventional tillage and conventional fertilizer treatments.Sponsored and Organized by: U.S. Geological Survey, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, The University of Georgia, Georgia State University, Georgia Institute of TechnologyThis book was published by the Institute of Ecology, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-2202 with partial funding provided by the U.S. Department of Interior, geological Survey, through the Georgia Water Research Insttitute as authorized by the Water Research Institutes Authorization Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-397). The views and statements advanced in this publication are solely those of the authors and do not represent official views or policies of the University of Georgia or the U.S. Geological Survey or the conference sponsors