Soil Moisture Conservation through Crop Diversification and Related Ecosystem Services in a Blown-Sand Area with High Drought Hazard
Abstract
:1. Introduction
- It increases incomes for small farms;
- Helps withstand fluctuations in commodity prices;
- Provides resilience to extreme weather conditions (surplus rainfall or drought);
- Reduces the costs of production;
- Provides more varied and healthy foods, both for humans and livestock;
- Diminishes pest hazards and weed growth;
- Enhances beneficial pollinator populations;
- Improves soil quality in the long term;
- Broadens employment.
- Enhancing soil moisture preservation by preventing or hindering desiccation. This would require regular irrigation to allow crusting, but under the climatic conditions of the study area, it cannot be implemented in the long run.
- Ensuring better protection of the surface by vegetation cover, reducing wind energy by forest belts [27], or providing a contiguous cover by denser cropping. However, this is jeopardized by the water scarcity almost permanently present throughout the growing season.
- Mulching could increase the soil’s organic matter content, and thus, soil aggregation. Organic matter in itself contributes to soil moisture conservation and balances soil temperature and pH. However, for the decomposition of organic matter via microbial activity [28], the soil moisture content available in the long term is usually not adequate. The aggregate stability of the wind-blown sand is also low because of the minimum clay content (the latter is only higher in buried paleosols, formed in wetter spells of landscape history).
2. Study Area
3. Results and Discussion
4. Methods
4.1. Estimation of Climatic Water Deficit
4.2. Crop Treatments
4.3. Crop Diversification Options
4.4. Monitoring Soil Properties and Soil Moisture
4.5. Wind Erosion Measurements
4.6. Emission of Greenhouse Gases
5. Conclusions
- Higher organic matter content and cation exchange capacity point to increased soil fertility.
- More complete soil cover and reduced cultivation diminish desiccation hazards and ensure the necessary moisture in the topsoil for cover crops too.
- The condition of the soil surface was the same in all plots; the differences in sediment transport by the wind were exclusively caused by diversification.
- The particle size of the entrained dust fraction stabilized at a height of 400 cm, where the proportion of the 0.7–8 μm fraction (fine organic matter) increased. During periods of drought, dust storms significantly reduced soil fertility.
- Complete desiccation of the soil surface often occurred during the experimental period. In such cases, there was no solution to protect the soil, so diversification did not help either. At times of minimal wetting, crop diversity and the use of cover crops in broad alleys can reduce wind erosion.
Author Contributions
Funding
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
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Lóczy, D.; Dezső, J.; Weidinger, T.; Horváth, L.; Pirkhoffer, E.; Czigány, S. Soil Moisture Conservation through Crop Diversification and Related Ecosystem Services in a Blown-Sand Area with High Drought Hazard. Plants 2024, 13, 494. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants13040494
Lóczy D, Dezső J, Weidinger T, Horváth L, Pirkhoffer E, Czigány S. Soil Moisture Conservation through Crop Diversification and Related Ecosystem Services in a Blown-Sand Area with High Drought Hazard. Plants. 2024; 13(4):494. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants13040494
Chicago/Turabian StyleLóczy, Dénes, József Dezső, Tamás Weidinger, László Horváth, Ervin Pirkhoffer, and Szabolcs Czigány. 2024. "Soil Moisture Conservation through Crop Diversification and Related Ecosystem Services in a Blown-Sand Area with High Drought Hazard" Plants 13, no. 4: 494. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants13040494