饲草作物对土壤健康与农业可持续发展的作用

The role of cover crops towards sustainable soil health and agriculture-A review paper

饲草作物是指为增加土壤肥力,防止土壤侵蚀,累积和保护土层,增加土壤养分和含水率以及提高土壤质量而种植的植物。饲草作物为农田土壤提供了诸多益处,其还有助于增加和维持土壤中的微生物多样性。本文对多种饲草作物对土壤特性的作用,如土壤含水量、土壤微生物的活动、土壤碳固存、土壤硝态氮淋失、土壤水分和土壤健康等进行综述。饲草作物的选择通常取决于其自身对土壤的作用,其他考虑因素还包括天气条件,播种时间,是否为豆科植物以及杀灭饲草作物的时间和方法。研究表明,饲草作物也可用于减缓气候变化,抑制作物中的杂草,增加可交换的营养物质如Mg2+和K+,具有一定的经济性。另外,覆盖作物也会存在一些问题,包括杀灭覆盖作物的方法,其可能成为病原体的寄主,饲草作物的再生性以及短期收益不明显。尽管有一些局限,饲草作物仍被认为可以明显改善土壤整体健康状况,为主栽作物提供可持续的生态环境。

Cover crops are the plants which are grown to improve soil fertility,prevent soil erosion,enrichment and protection of soil,and enhance nutrient and water availability,and quality of soil.Cover crops provide several benefits to soils used for agriculture production.Cover crops are helpful in increasing and sustaining microbial biodiversity in soils.We summarized the effect of several cover crops in soil properties such as soil moisture content,soil microbial activities,soil carbon sequestration,nitrate leaching,soil water,and soil health.Selection of cover crops usually depends on the primary benefits which are provided by cover crops.Other factors may also include weather conditions,time of sowing,either legume or non-legume and timing and method of killing of a cover crop.In recent times,cover crops are also used for mitigating climate change,suppressing weeds in crops and increasing exchangeable nutrients such as Mg2+and K+.Cover crops are also found to be economical in long-term experiment studies.Although some limitations always come with several benefits.Cover crops have some problems including the method of killing,host for pathogens,regeneration,and not immediate benefits of using them.Despite the few limitations,cover crops improve the overall health of the soil and provide a sustainable environment for the main crops.