Some results of an experiment to compare ley and arable rotations at Woburn

Abstract

The effect of short leys and arable cropping on the yields of the following arable crops has been tested since 1937 at Woburn Experimental Farm, Bedfordshire. The leys were a 3-year grazed ley and 3 years of lucerne cut for hay and the arable cropping was potatoes, winter cereal and either a 1-year ley or a third tillage crop. The effects of these crop sequences were measured by test crops of potatoes and barley, uniformly treated except that 15 tons farmyard manure was applied on one-half of each plot for potatoes.Without farmyard manure, the yield of potatoes after the grazed ley was higher than after three tillage crops by an average of about 3 tons per acre; after lucerne it was about 2 tons per acre more than after the tillage crops and after the 1 -year ley under 1 ton per acre more. With farmyard manure the benefit from leys was less (about 2 tons per acre for both lucerne and the grazed ley). The average effect of the farmyard manure was about 2·8 tons except after the grazed ley, where the increase was only 1·6 tons per acre.Effects of the previous cropping on the yield of barley were small in the early years of the experiment, but in the last 5 years the yield after ley and lucerne has exceeded that after the tillage crops by about 15%.Part of the difference in potato yield between the ley and arable sequences can be attributed to the differential incidence of potato-root eelworm, which has reached a high level of infestation on some of the arable plots. Much of the remainder may be ascribed to the low level of basal manuring which has affected the yield of all plots, but particularly those under tillage crops. How far the observed differences can be explained by these considerations remains a matter for speculation, but may to some extent be clarified when further results are obtained from a revised scheme of cropping and manuring.