Evaluation of Annual Polycrop Mixtures for Soil Health, Grazing Capacity, and Economics
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This study evaluated grazing a swathed whole-plant annual polycrop mixture (POLY) containing peas, hairy vetch, crimson clover, Italian ryegrass, sorghum, Winfred forage brassica, Hunter brassica, and Graza forage brassica compared to swathed whole-plant monocrop barley (BAR) for its effect on soil organic matter content and composition, grazing capacity, and system economics. The study was conducted over a two-year period at a 13.2 ha site near Lanigan, SK (Canada). Dry pregnant beef cows (70252 kg) were randomly allocated to 1 of 2 replicated (n=3) winter grazing systems consisting of BAR or POLY paddocks. Above-ground forage yield and forage utilization were lower in POLY than BAR (P < 0.01). In yr 2, botanical composition of the POLY was evaluated where weed species comprised 60.8 % (P < 0.01) of the above-ground POLY biomass. POLY forage had lower dry matter, total digestible nutrients, and neutral detergent fiber, and higher crude protein, acid detergent fiber, calcium, sulfur, and nitrate-nitrogen than BAR (P < 0.01), while phosphorus content was not different. Cows grazing the BAR had a higher final body weight (P=0.04), more grazing days (P < 0.01), positive average daily gain (P < 0.01), lower cost of crop production (P < 0.01), and lower cost cow-1 d-1 (P < 0.05) than the POLY. Soil samples were collected in Spring 2017, Spring 2018, and Fall 2018 at both upslope and downslope landscape positions to two depths (0-5 cm and 5-20 cm). When observing change in TOC from Spring 2017 to Fall 2018, in the upslope landscape position the POLY 5-20 cm sampling depth showed a TOC gain of 8.4 Mg ha-1 (P=0.03) compared to a loss of TOC in BAR. The root biomass was higher in the POLY (P < 0.05) than the BAR in the upslope landscape position, consistent with significant gains in TOC observed in the 5-20 cm depth of the POLY system upslope soils. Results from this study suggest that with proper management, there is the potential for the use of annual polycrop mixtures for extensive grazing in western Canada, with an opportunity for gains in soil organic carbon.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".