The objectives of this work were to evaluate biomass production and persistence and the desiccation efficiency in plant species used as cover crops, and to quantify its effects on cotton yield in a no-tillage system. The study was carried out in Santa Helena de Goiás, GO, Brazil, using 16 plant species: Panicum maximum, cultivars Mombaça, Tanzânia and Massai; Urochloa brizantha, cultivars Piatã, Xaraés, Marandu and MG4; U. decumbens; Paspalum atratum cv. Pojuca; Sorghum bicolor cultivars Santa Eliza and BRS 700; Pennisetum glaucum cv. ADR 500; Raphanus sativus; Eleusine coracana, Crotalaria spectabilis, and fallow plants as control. The species were sown early in March-2007. The lower dry biomass productivity and persistence were obtained with C. spectabilis, E. coracana, and R. sativus. Cotton seed and lint yield were higher when it was cultivated after the cultivars Tanzânia and Mombaça of P. maximum, in comparison to the ones observed using P. atratum cv. Pojuca, R. sativus, and fallow plants. Generally, S. bicolor, P. glaucum and the cultivars Tanzânia and Mombaça of P. maximum, and MG4, Piatã and Xaraés of U. brizantha have biomass persistence and productivity suitable for cotton cultivation in no-tillage systems in the Brazilian savannah.
Brachiaria; Gossypium hirsutum; Panicum maximum; Urochloa; cover crops; straw
