Efeito de espécies outonais cultivadas em sucessão ao milho na produtividade do trigo, sob diferentes doses de adubação nitrogenada

Abstract

High corn C/N straw ratio mobilizes a large amount of nitrogen for its decomposition being this a problem to the wheat cultivated in sequence once this crop also demand a significative nitrogen availability. Some plant species such as radish, common vetch, lupine, common bean and pea may be used as an alternative of catch crops at autumn, between corn harvest and wheat sowing. In this way, this study aimed to evaluate the effect of cultivation of radish, common vetch, lupine, pea, and the common bean, used as catch crops between corn harvest and wheat sowing, compared with fallow over the grain yield of wheat, grown under different nitrogen fertilization levels. Experiment was carried out along 2009 and 2010 growing season at Pato Branco-PR on a no-tillage system management and laid out as randomized blocks with three replications with a factorial scheme: a) cover crops; b) nitrogen levels (0, 40, 80 e 120 kg ha-1). Dry matter determination was done at the time that the species turnip, vetch, lupine and pea were able to be managed. Dry matter samples were ground and subjected to chemical analysis to determinate the concentrations of organic carbon, total nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium. After determining the dry matter was measured the decomposition rate of dry matter and nutrient release from corn straw, turnip, pea, lupine, vetch and beans through the Litter bags technique. Wheat grain yield in kg ha-1 was obtained by harvesting eight central rows of the subplots, adjusted to 13% of moisture. Forage pea, lupine and wild radish were the most productive crops among the cover crop species. Corn straw and common bean C/N ratio did not maintain a proper balance between nitrogen mineralization and immobilization, unlike other species where mineralization was higher than immobilization. The highest nitrogen accumulations were observed for forage pea, lupine and vetch, while the common bean was the treatment that showed the smallest accumulation of phosphorus. Radish and lupine accumulated the largest amounts of potassium and calcium and along with forage pea, the highest accumulation of magnesium. Wheat cultivation in succession to forage pea, turnip and common vetch without N fertilizer provided equivalent yields to the cultivation in succession to the corn straw with at least 40 kg of N ha-1, due to the synchronism between nitrogen releases from these species with the stage of wheat in which the nitrogen is required in greater quantities.