A Comparison of Soil Moisture under Continuous Corn and Bluegrass Sod 1

and run-off is generally recognized. Little information is available, however, concerning the disposition of the water which is prevented from running off by such cover. The immediate disposition of rainfall may be classed as follows: (a) Part is intercepted by the cover itself and is lost by evaporation without reaching the soil, (b) part is lost as run-off, (c) part enters the soil by a process generally known as infiltration, and (d) part temporarily stored on the surface and is available for later infiltration or evaporation. The disposition of that part entering the soil may be divided further into the following classifications: Evaporation and transpiration losses, addition to soil moisture in the zone where it is available for plant growth, and addition to subsoil moisture below this zone. The question dealt with by this paper is, Does the water prevented from running off the land by a close cover crop, such as bluegrass, compared with a cultivated row crop, such as corn, remain in the soil? LITERATURE