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Cover crops provide soil cover benefits but can impose allelopathic risks on cotton. We evaluated the functional trade-offs of rye and wheat residues versus purified 2-benzoxazolinone (BOA) under greenhouse conditions. Four experiments applied graded residue or BOA inputs in Pullman clay loam; cotton germination, height, chlorophyll (SPAD), and biomass were measured, and soil BOA, DIBOA, and DIMBOA were quantified by HPLC at designated sampling dates. Responses were dose dependent: BOA reduced germination linearly (−16.5% at 1000 nmol g⁻¹ versus control) and shortened plants, and biomass and SPAD were directionally lower, most evident at 500 nmol g⁻¹, but not statistically significant. Rye showed hormesis at 6400 kg ha⁻¹ (+7.3% germination) and strong inhibition at 12,800 kg ha⁻¹ (−31% germination; biomass up to −45%). Wheat produced intermediate inhibition (biomass −23.7%) and did not affect germination. In soil, benzoxazinoids exhibited significant rate effects at specific sampling dates followed by rapid decline. After storage, BOA showed no residual effects, whereas prior rye still reduced height, SPAD, and biomass. Framed at the agroecosystem scale, maintaining residue biomass below inhibitory thresholds and adjusting termination-to-planting intervals to avoid the early post-termination period, together with species or cultivar choice, can reconcile soil cover services with reliable cotton establishment.

Although recognized in importance from the dawn of history, forages have too often been underestimated and undervalued perhaps in part because animal performance has frequently failed to reflect apparent forage quality. Anti-quality components, diverse impediments to quality, have evolved as structural components and as secondary metabolites. They include mineral imbalances or can be related to the presence of insects and diseases. Animal behavior and adaptation are increasingly recognized as important aspects of anti-quality factors. An anti-quality component may reduce dry matter intake, dry matter digestibility, or result in nutritional imbalances in animals. They can act as a direct poison compromising vital systems, result in abnormal reproduction, endocrine function, and genetic aberrations, trigger undesirable behavior responses, or suppress immune function leading to increased morbidity and mortality. The economic impact of anti-quality factors on individual herds can be devastating but definable. Broadscale economic impacts of anti-quality factors are far more difficult to estimate. A loss of 0.22 kg/day in potential gain of stocker cattle due to anti-quality factors during a 166-day grazing season translates into a loss of about 55/steer at 1.45/kg or over 2 billion annually when applied to the U.S stocker cattle. Economic losses to tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) toxicosis in the U.S. beef industry are probably underestimated at 600 million annually. Reproductive and death losses of livestock due to poisonous plants have been estimated at 340 million in the 17 western states alone. These examples of economic losses due to anti-quality factors may be upper bounds of actual losses but even if a small proportion of the expected losses were eliminated through research, the potential payoff would be extremely high.