Abstract
Winter groundwater recharge, which involves flooding farmland with excess surface water during the dormant season to replenish underlying aquifers, is a promising water conservation strategy, and alfalfa represents a particularly promising crop for this practice. In this study, we investigated yield and forage quality effects of intentional winter or spring flooding of non-dormant alfalfa ( Medicago sativa L. ) for groundwater recharge. A replicated randomized complete block design study was implemented at the University of California Kearney Research and Extension Center (KARE) in Parlier, CA testing three treatments (3 days of flooding followed by 4 days without flooding, 4 days of flooding followed by 10 days without flooding, and control) for a duration of 6 weeks in winter 2019 and spring 2020. A total of 1.6 and 3.6 m 3 m −2 (2019) and 1.3 and 2.2 m 3 m −2 (2020) were recharged in the 4 on 10 off and 3 on 4 off flood treatments at a recharge efficiency of > 88 % (81 % – 217 % of annual irrigation demand), respectively. The 2019 (Feb – Mar) experiment did not show significant differences in alfalfa yield in the first and second cutting after flooding but resulted in slight but non-significant decline in forage quality (e.g. crude protein; fair hay quality). The 2020 flooding experiment, conducted much later in the year (April – May), resulted in no significant differences in alfalfa yield but poor feed quality (utility grade), partly due to delays in harvesting. Together these results indicate that while caution is appropriate to prevent oxygen deprivation and impacts on alfalfa yield and quality, winter recharge in alfalfa fields in highly permeable soils appears to be a viable practice to conserve large quantities of surface water when available in excess.
Abstract from the paper’s OpenAlex record; open copy licensed cc-by. Read at the source ↗
The text the model read, with the source record’s inline markup (italics, sub- and superscripts) rendered and its character entities decoded; quote offsets refer to the raw text.
Claims 5
Claim · model-written summary
Winter 2019 flooding did not significantly change alfalfa yield in the first two cuttings.
- Taxon
- alfalfa
Medicago sativae0 - Treatment
- floodinge0
- Outcome
- alfalfa yielde0
- Direction
- did not show significant differencese0
- Qualifier
- first and second cuttinge0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“The 2019 (Feb – Mar) experiment did not show significant differences in alfalfa yield in the first and second cutting after flooding”
Claim · model-written summary
Winter 2019 flooding slightly reduced alfalfa forage quality, without statistical significance.
Not reportedTaxonTreatmentComparator
Verbatim
e0“resulted in slight but non-significant decline in forage quality (e.g. crude protein; fair hay quality)”
Claim · model-written summary
Spring 2020 flooding did not significantly change alfalfa yield.
- Taxon
- alfalfaMedicago sativae0
- Treatment
- floodinge0
- Outcome
- alfalfa yielde0
- Direction
- no significant differencese0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“The 2020 flooding experiment, conducted much later in the year (April – May), resulted in no significant differences in alfalfa yield”
Claim · model-written summary
Spring 2020 flooding produced poor feed quality, partly associated with delayed harvest.
Not reportedTaxon
Verbatim
e0“poor feed quality (utility grade), partly due to delays in harvesting”
Claim · model-written summary
The authors consider winter groundwater recharge in alfalfa fields with highly permeable soils viable when excess surface water is available.
- Taxon
- alfalfaMedicago sativae0
- Outcome
- viable practicee0
- Qualifier
- highly permeable soilse0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“winter recharge in alfalfa fields in highly permeable soils appears to be a viable practice to conserve large quantities of surface water when available in excess”
The same questions in other papers
flooding · yield · Medicago sativa (alfalfa)Results differ
8 papers in the same direction as this paper
- negative
- negative
- negative
5 papers more in this group
See all 9 papers →Claims are grouped by organism, treatment and what was measured or targeted. A paper counts as positive when any of its claims in the group is positive.