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Winter Wheat Performance Following Pea, Lentil and Mustard and Residue Durability

Stephen Guy and Robert Gareau
University of Idaho, Plant, Soil and Entomological Sciences

Objectives

1. Evaluate the influence of previous crops of spring dry pea, lentil and yellow condiment mustard grown in 1994 on the agronomic performance of the following winter wheat crop planted in the fall of 1994 and harvested in 1995.
2. Evaluate crop residue levels following dry pea, lentil and mustard and determine residue durability over winter.

Location: Genesee, Idaho
Annual precipitation: 20 inches
Rotation: spring barley, spring test crop (pea, lentil or mustard), winter wheat test crop
Variety: 1994 crop: Columbia pea, Crimson lentil, Gisilba mustard; 1995 Madsen WW

Treatment

Dry pea, lentil, or yellow mustard were previous crop treatments before winter wheat.

Comments

The 1994 spring crops were grown using standard production methods of the individual crops. In this case the only input on the mustard was a single wild oat herbicide application. The 1995 winter wheat crop was treated to minimize weed effects and fertilized based on current recommendations from the soil tests and established yield goal. Prior to fall planting, the plot area was fertilized with a ripper-shooter (applying 55 lb N, 30 lb P and 20 lb S per acre), worked twice with a field cultivator, then planted with a double-disk drill. The winter wheat was planted into dry soil in October, but emerged over-winter after rain the beginning of November. Fertilizer ( 70 lb/a of N ) was top dressed in the spring. There was adequate soil moisture available for 1995. At three sites in each plot, post harvest residue was assayed by gathering and weighing residue from a 1' X 8' area (1/2 the combine swath). The estimates of residue ground cover and winter wheat crop green growth were done by three transects with the line-point method. Individual plots were 25' wide and 500' long and each treatment was replicated four times.

Results

1994 Crop Yield, lb/a

Crop	Rep 1	Rep 2	Rep 3	Rep 4	Average
Mustard	1133	1484	1830	1542	1497
Pea	3616	3441	3398	2853	3327
Lentil	2518	2439	2875	1451	2321
LSD (5%)					631
C.V.					15.3

1994 Crop Residue After Harvest, lb/a

Crop	Rep 1	Rep 2	Rep 3	Rep 4	Average
Mustard	5385	6608	7208	6884	6521
Pea	2074	3742	3574	2003	2848
Lentil	2759	4582	3502	2759	3400
LSD (5%)					962
962					13.1

1994 Crop Residue After Harvest, % ground cover

Crop	Rep 1	Rep 2	Rep 3	Rep 4	Average
Mustard	28	41	48	36	38
Pea	50	49	40	47	47
Lentil	50	44	37	41	43
LSD (5%)					NS
C.V.					17.5

1994 Soil S Available 0-1' After Harvest, lb/a

Crop	Rep 1	Rep 2	Rep 3	Rep 4	Average
Mustard	16	28	36	20	25
Pea	44	40	44	36	41
Lentil	40	60	36	44	45
LSD (5%)					14
C.V.					22.8

1995 Yield of Winter Wheat After 1994 Spring Crops, bu/a

Crop	Rep 1	Rep 2	Rep 3	Rep 4	Average
Mustard	84	93	112	117	101
Pea	98	97	119	124	109
Lentil	101	99	116	122	109
LSD (5%)					6
C.V.					3.1

Crop Residue After Planting Winter Wheat,
18 Oct 94, % ground cover

Crop	Rep 1	Rep 2	Rep 3	Rep 4	Average
Mustard	43	67	59	67	59
Pea	35	26	36	33	33
Lentil	31	25	24	24	26
LSD (5%)					15
C.V.					21.7

Crop Residue After Planting Winter Wheat,
1 Dec 94, % ground cover

Crop	Rep 1	Rep 2	Rep 3	Rep 4	Average
Mustard	49	66	59	61	59
Pea	35	32	40	28	34
Lentil	29	30	31	20	27
LSD (5%)					10
C.V.					14.4

Crop Residue After Planting Winter Wheat,
9 Feb 95, % ground cover

Crop	Rep 1	Rep 2	Rep 3	Rep 4	Average
Mustard	56	65	62	67	62
Pea	37	33	39	28	34
Lentil	29	27	31	22	27
LSD (5%)					8
C.V.					11.3

Crop Residue After Planting Winter Wheat,
7 Mar 95, % ground cover

Crop	Rep 1	Rep 2	Rep 3	Rep 4	Average
Mustard	58	63	61	63	61
Pea	30	31	29	26	29
Lentil	26	27	28	22	26
LSD (5%)					4
C.V.					5.4

1995 Test Weight of Winter Wheat After 1994 Spring Crops, lb/bu

Crop	Rep 1	Rep 2	Rep 3	Rep 4	Average
Mustard	59.3	59.4	59.8	60.5	59.7
Pea	59.7	59.7	59.7	60.5	59.9
Lentil	59.8	59.5	59.9	60.7	60.0
LSD (5%)					0.2
C.V.					0.2

Crop Residue After Planting Winter Wheat,
3 Apr 95, % ground cover

Crop	Rep 1	Rep 2	Rep 3	Rep 4	Average
Mustard	51	60	58	57	56
Pea	24	22	23	19	22
Lentil	21	21	16	16	19
LSD (5%)					6
C.V.					10.3

Winter Wheat Crop Green Growth,
3 Apr 95, % ground cover

Crop	Rep 1	Rep 2	Rep 3	Rep 4	Average
Mustard	12	15	15	19	15
Pea	11	13	19	19	15
Lentil	10	12	15	21	14
LSD (5%)					NS
C.V.					11.9

Conclusion

Spring crop yields were very good for the 1994 growing season and these crops produced a lot of residue. The tillage before planting left only marginal or inadequate amounts of pea or lentil residue on the surface, but there was good ground cover following mustard. Residual soil N was low and adequate N was applied for the winter wheat crop. A companion study with small plots on one end of the strips had variable fertilizer N rates applied to each OFT plot and showed a higher yield following legumes than following mustard for all the N rates. It appears that in this study there was an advantage for winter wheat yield and test weight to having legumes as a previous crop compared to mustard.

Dry pea and lentil residue ground cover was very low following the fall ground preparation and planting of winter wheat. All ground cover persisted well until the March sample date when the pea residue cover declined. All cover levels declined between March and April sample times. However, the crop growth during this period produced more ground cover than was lost from residue and therefore there was not a drop in total ground cover. All the residue materials were more durable than expected across the sampling period.

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