The effect of the nitrogen content of residues from leys on amounts of available soil nitrogen and on yields of wheat

Abstract

Leys that lasted 3½ years, including grass/white clover, grass alone, white clover alone, lucerne alone, and lucerne/cocksfoot, and also including leys managed for seed production, were followed by two successive crops of winter wheat and then by marrow-stem kale. The first wheat crop that followed grazed leys of white clover, lucerne, or lucerne/cocksfoot yielded 32 cwt. of grain (dry matter)/acre, after cocksfoot or timothy/red clover seed-production leys the yield was 21 cwt./acre. The corresponding weights of N in the wheat were 105 and 57 lb./acre.