Runoff and soil loss from cotton plots with and without stiff-grass hedges

The performance of grass hedges and the effectiveness of no-till cropping s ystems in reducing soil loss was evaluated on standard erosion plots. No-ti ll canon with grass hedges, no-till cotton without grass hedges, convention al-till cotton with grass hedges, conventional-till cotton without grass he dges, and no-till cotton without grass hedges but with a winter wheat cover crop produced average annual soil losses of 2.2, 5.2, 12.3, 48.5, and 2.0 t/ha, respectively. The annual ratio of soil loss for no-till cotton plots with grass hedges to those without hedges averaged 0.43. The annual ratio o f soil loss for conventional-till plots with grass hedges to without hedges was 0.25. Averaged over all plots (with and without grass hedges, but not including winter cover plots), no-till plots reduced soil loss from convent ional-till plots by 88%. No-till plots without grass hedges had 57% less so il loss than conventional-till plots with grass hedges. Although grass hedg es were effective in reducing soil loss on erosion plots with similar cropp ing practices as compared to plots without hedges, other studies of contour ed grass hedges on field-sized areas are needed to determine their applicab ility on larger areas with greater concentrations of runoff.