Abstract Mild winter temperatures in the southeastern United States allow for the implementation of cool‐season annual forage on dormant warm‐season perennial pastures of bahiagrass ( Paspalum notatum Flüggé). However, establishing cool‐season forages in low‐input systems requires overcoming the challenges of limited precipitation and inadequate plant nutrition. No‐till (NT) and split N fertilizer management strategies may mitigate these challenges by preserving soil moisture and matching N needs to plant uptake. A 2‐year study in north‐central Florida evaluated the effects of increasingly intensified tillage practices, from conventional tillage (CT) to NT, with or without chemically dormant sod, using single versus split N fertilizer management approaches on the productivity of cool‐season annual grasses with and without the presence of legumes. Nitrogen was either applied once right after planting (80‐0 lb ac −1 ) or in splits (30‐50 and 50‐30 lb ac −1 ), with a second application ∼45 days after planting, and compared with an unfertilized control. Legume establishment was limited (<1%) and did not influence the results. Conventional tillage resulted in 20% less soil moisture than the two NT treatments. Nitrogen fertilization increased tiller density by 51% and 60% relative to unfertilized forages, with no difference between split and single N applications. Average forage accumulation ranged from 0.63 to 5.51 tons dry matter ac −1 . Overall, split N management resulted in greater forage accumulation than the unfertilized control for all tillage methods, as well as than a single early N application, except under CT. Overall, NT + herbicide‐desiccated sod plus split N management enhanced cool‐season annual forage biomass.
RUSCH et al. (Tue,) studied this question.