Effect of Cover Crop and Different Fertilizer Resources on Morphological Traits and Competitive Ability of Corn with Weeds

Cover crops are an effective tool in the non-chemical weed management in sustainable agriculture. In order to evaluate the competitive ability of legume and nonlegume cover crops in interference with weeds in corn field, an experiment was carried out in randomized complete block design with three replications in Sari Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University. Treatments included two cover crop (wheat and soybean) and three fertilizer treatments (no fertilizer, chemical fertilizer and compost). Monoculture of corn with weed infestation and weed free was used as controls. According to results, morphological characteristics of cover crops, soybean had more height, canopy width and dry matter than wheat, so, soybeans plants due to greater canopy structure and more shading has more competition ability than wheat. The lowest yield of corn was 2733 Kg.ha-1 in control with weed infestation and the highest one was 12124 and 8351 Kg.ha-1 in control with weed free and planting corn with soybean and compost, respectively. Compost and chemical fertilizer produced more corn yield than no fertilizer in both cover crops. As soybean cover crop with compost had the highest CI and AWC, so can be suitable cover crop for weed competition in sustainable agriculture.