Thirteen-year Stover Harvest and Tillage Effects on Corn Agroecosystem Sustainability in Iowa

This dataset includes soil health, crop biomass, and crop yield data for a 13-year corn stover harvest trial in central Iowa. Following the release in 2005 of the Billion Ton Study assessment of biofuel sources, several soil health assessments associated with harvesting corn stover were initiated across ARS locations to help provide industry guidelines for sustainable stover harvest. This dataset is from a trial conducted by the National Laboratory for Agriculture and Environment from 2007-2021 at the Iowa State University Ag Engineering and Agronomy farm. Management factors evaluated in the trial included the following. Stover harvest rate at three levels: No, moderate (3.5 ± 1.1 Mg ha-1 yr-1), or high (5.0 ± 1.7 Mg ha-1 yr-1) stover harvest rates. No-till versus chisel-plow tillage. Originally, the 3 stover harvest rates were evaluated in a complete factorial design with tillage system. However, the no-till, no-harvest system performed poorly in continuous corn and was discontinued in 2012 due to lack of producer interest. Cropping sequence. In addition to evaluating continuous corn for all stover harvest rates and tillage systems, a corn-alfalfa rotation, and a corn-soybean-wheat rotation with winter cover crops were evaluated in a subset of the tillage and stover harvest rate treatments. One-time additions of biochar in 2013 at rates of either 9 Mg/ha or 30 Mg/ha were evaluated in a continuous corn cropping system. The dataset includes: 1) Crop biomass and yields for all crop phases in every year. 2) Soil organic carbon, total carbon, total nitrogen, and pH to 120 cm depth in 2012, 2016, and 2017. Soil cores from 2005 (pre-study) were also sampled to 90 cm depth. 3) Soil chemistry sampled to 15 cm depth every 1-2 years from 2007 to 2017. 4) Soil strength and compaction was assessed to 60 cm depth in April 2021. These data have been presented in several manuscripts, including Phillips et al. (in review), O'Brien et al. (2020), and Obrycki et al. (2018).

本数据集收录爱荷华州中部一项为期13年的玉米秸秆（corn stover）收获试验的土壤健康、作物生物量与作物产量数据。2005年《十亿吨生物燃料源评估报告》（Billion Ton Study）发布后，美国农业研究局（ARS）旗下多个站点启动了与玉米秸秆收获相关的土壤健康评估工作，旨在为秸秆可持续收获的行业规范提供科学支撑。本数据集取自国家农业与环境实验室（National Laboratory for Agriculture and Environment）于2007至2021年，在爱荷华州立大学农业工程与农艺学试验农场开展的田间试验。本试验评估的管理因子包括：秸秆收获水平设置三个梯度——无收获、中等（3.5 ± 1.1 Mg ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹）、高（5.0 ± 1.7 Mg ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹）；免耕（No-till）与凿式犁耕作（chisel-plow tillage）两种耕作制度。最初，试验采用完全因子设计，对3种秸秆收获水平与耕作制度的组合进行评估。但免耕无收获模式在连作玉米田表现不佳，且因种植户参与意愿不足，该处理于2012年被终止。除针对全部秸秆收获水平与耕作制度评估连作玉米模式外，试验还在部分耕作与秸秆收获水平处理组中，分别设置了玉米-苜蓿轮作、搭配冬季覆盖作物的玉米-大豆-小麦轮作两种轮作模式进行评估。此外，在连作玉米种植系统中，试验还评估了2013年一次性施加两种水平生物炭（biochar）的效果：9 Mg/ha与30 Mg/ha。本数据集包含以下内容：1. 各年度所有作物生育阶段的生物量与产量数据；2. 2012、2016及2017年采集的0~120 cm土层土壤有机碳、总碳、总氮及pH值数据；另包含2005年（试验起始前）采集的0~90 cm土层土芯样本数据；3. 2007至2017年间每1~2年采集的0~15 cm土层土壤化学性质数据；4. 2021年4月测定的0~60 cm土层土壤强度与紧实度数据。上述数据已在多篇学术论文中发表，包括Phillips等人（审稿中）、O'Brien等人（2020年）及Obrycki等人（2018年）的研究成果。