Soil pitting mitigates runoff, erosion and pesticide surface losses in maize crops in the Belgian loess belt

Soils of the loess belt of Western Europe are intensively cropped and particularly prone to runoff and soil erosion, especially when planted with row crops such as maize or potatoes, characterized by a low soil cover during erosive spring storms. In this context, micro-basin tillage techniques could help mitigate these risks while being fairly easy to integrate into conventional cropping systems, yet very few studies have investigated the effectiveness of this technique in a maize crop. Soil pitting was therefore tested across 14 site*years of field trials in Belgium by a newly designed roller... Mehr ...