Hydrologic effects of crop residue management practices

This paper discusses the hydrologic effects of three crop residue management strategies on a cracking clay soil in the eastern Darling Downs of Australia. The three management practices evaluated over a 6 year period were burning the stubble, incorporating it, or leaving it as a surface mulch. A daily water balance catchment model was calibrated with the rainfall and runoff data from the study. Daily rainfall data from the previous 64 years were used to model long term effects of the different residue management strategies.