David Hole, Jennifer Reeve, Bruce Miller, Jeff Endelman
Department of Plant, Soils, and Climate, Utah State University

Organic winter wheat production in drier areas suffers from a number of challenges. While water availability is the largest problem, maintaining end-use quality without applications of inorganic Nitrogen is also a significant issue. Replenishing the nitrogen that is removed with the wheat grain protein can be accomplished with legume green manure crops or by additions of compost. Compost addition can result in both nutrient effects and non-nutrient effects as well as carry over benefits in succeeding crop seasons. Estimating the long term benefits of organic dairy compost in a temperate dryland cropping system has not previously been accomplished. The objective of this study was to evaluate both nutrient and non-nutrient effects of dairy compost addition, as well as cultivar evaluation in a rain fed cropping system. The long term series decay was also estimated.