Legumes comportment in soil covering, green manure and weed control

Abstract

The study of green manure species secking the soil protection, improvement of your chemical conditions, as well a weed control, has crucial imponance to reach the balance in a production system. An experiment was deve loped to evaluate the behavior of different green manures in soil covering and competition with weed species. The statistical design was complete randomized blocks with three replications. The treatments consisted of nine summer green manures, Crotalaria juncea, Vigna unguiculata, Canavalia ensiformis, Cajanus cajan (dwarf), Caj anus cajan, Lablab purpureum, Stizolobium deeringianum, Stizolobium cinereum, Stizolobium aterrimum. The percentage of soil covering, green manure population and weeds, the relationship between soil covering and plant population, were evaluated. The production of biomass (green and dry matter) during the flowering, were evaluated. Canavalia ensiformis was the specie that presented the major velocity and soil covering percentage along the period. Crotalária juncea, cajanus cajan (dwarf) and Stizolobium deeringianum, provided an increase in the weeds and soil covcring percentage along the time. Stizolobium cinereum tended to result in the smallest weeds population.