scholarly journals Ecological Significance of Residues Retention for Sustainability of Agriculture in the Semi-arid Tropics

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 9-30
Author(s):  
Raj Gupta ◽  
DK Benbi ◽  
IP Abrol
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Land Degradation ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Crop Residues ◽  
Root Zone ◽  
Residue Management ◽  
Fallow Lands ◽  
Management Approaches

In South Asia, land degradation is primarily a monsoon mediated phenomenon restricted to 2-3 rainy months. The overall strategy for land degradation neutrality should (i) favour actions that keep soils covered with residues and (ii) plant kharif (rainy season) crop before the onset of monsoons to provide soil cover. Retention of anchored residues provides surface cover, increases microbial activity, carbon sequestration, and availability of nutrients. Surface retained residues reduce root zone salinization, detoxify phytotoxic monomeric Al in acidic soils and enhance the potential for use of brackish ground water in crop production. Residues covers save irrigation water and overcome the ill effects of poor agronomic and water management practices. Early direct dry seeding in surface retained residues has the potential of making kharif season planting independent of the onset of monsoon rains in South Asia and helps reduce acreages of Kharif and Rabi fallow lands. For improving carbon content in Indian soils, perhaps the most important priority is to devise tillage and crop residue management approaches that promote in situ rain water storage and its use for growing more crops. The paper summarises how crop residues fuel and drive soil functions and related ecosystem services and plant growth.

Field Measurements and Simulation of Nitrogen Fate under Citrus Production

HortScience ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 498c-498
Author(s):  
A. Fares ◽  
A.K. Alva ◽  
S. Paramasivam
Keyword(s):  
Mass Balance ◽  
Best Management Practices ◽  
Rainy Season ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Root Zone ◽  
Field Measurements ◽  
Irrigation Scheduling ◽  
N Leaching ◽  
Citrus Production

Water and nitrogen (N) are important inputs for most crop production. The main objectives of nitrogen best management practices (NBMP) are to improve N and water management to maximize the uptake efficiency and minimize the leaching losses. This require a complete understanding of fate of N and water mass balance within and below the root zone of the crop in question. The fate of nitrogen applied for citrus production in sandy soils (>95% sand) was simulated using a mathematical model LEACHM (Leaching Estimation And Chemistry Model). Nitrogen removal in harvested fruits and storage in the tree accounted the major portion of the applied N. Nitrogen volatilization mainly as ammonia and N leaching below the root zone were the next two major components of the N mass balance. A proper irrigation scheduling based on continuous monitoring of the soil water content in the rooting was used as a part of the NBMP. More than 50% of the total annual leached water below the root zone was predicted to occur in the the rainy season. Since this would contribute to nitrate leaching, it is recomended to avoid N application during the rainy season.

scholarly journals Impact of crop residue management on crop production and soil chemistry after seven years of crop rotation in temperate climate, loamy soils

PeerJ ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. e4836 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Pierre Hiel ◽  
Sophie Barbieux ◽  
Jérôme Pierreux ◽  
Claire Olivier ◽  
Guillaume Lobet ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Organic Carbon ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Crop Residue ◽  
Crop Residues ◽  
Conventional Tillage ◽  
Residue Management ◽  
Temperate Climate ◽  
Reduced Tillage ◽  
Crop Residue Management ◽  
The Impact

Society is increasingly demanding a more sustainable management of agro-ecosystems in a context of climate change and an ever growing global population. The fate of crop residues is one of the important management aspects under debate, since it represents an unneglectable quantity of organic matter which can be kept in or removed from the agro-ecosystem. The topic of residue management is not new, but the need for global conclusion on the impact of crop residue management on the agro-ecosystem linked to local pedo-climatic conditions has become apparent with an increasing amount of studies showing a diversity of conclusions. This study specifically focusses on temperate climate and loamy soil using a seven-year data set. Between 2008 and 2016, we compared four contrasting residue management strategies differing in the amount of crop residues returned to the soil (incorporation vs. exportation of residues) and in the type of tillage (reduced tillage (10 cm depth) vs. conventional tillage (ploughing at 25 cm depth)) in a field experiment. We assessed the impact of the crop residue management on crop production (three crops—winter wheat, faba bean and maize—cultivated over six cropping seasons), soil organic carbon content, nitrate (${\mathrm{NO}}_{3}^{-}$), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) soil content and uptake by the crops. The main differences came primarily from the tillage practice and less from the restitution or removal of residues. All years and crops combined, conventional tillage resulted in a yield advantage of 3.4% as compared to reduced tillage, which can be partly explained by a lower germination rate observed under reduced tillage, especially during drier years. On average, only small differences were observed for total organic carbon (TOC) content of the soil, but reduced tillage resulted in a very clear stratification of TOC and also of P and K content as compared to conventional tillage. We observed no effect of residue management on the ${\mathrm{NO}}_{3}^{-}$ content, since the effect of fertilization dominated the effect of residue management. To confirm the results and enhance early tendencies, we believe that the experiment should be followed up in the future to observe whether more consistent changes in the whole agro-ecosystem functioning are present on the long term when managing residues with contrasted strategies.

scholarly journals Crop Residue Management for Sustenance of Natural Resources and Agriculture Productivity

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (03) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maninder Singh ◽  
Anita Jaswal ◽  
Arshdeep Singh
Keyword(s):  
Organic Matter ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Crop Residue ◽  
Crop Residues ◽  
Crop Yields ◽  
Soil Surface ◽  
Residue Management ◽  
Soil Productivity ◽  
Crop Residue Management

Crop residue management (CRM) through conservation agriculture can improve soil productivity and crop production by preserving soil organic matter (SOM) levels. Two major benefits of surface-residue management are improved organic matter (OM) near the soil surface and boosted nutrient cycling and preservation. Larger microbial biomass and activity near the soil surface act as a pool for nutrients desirable in crop production and enhance structural stability for increased infiltration. In addition to the altered nutrient distribution within the soil profile, changes also occur in the chemical and physical properties of the soil. Improved soil C sequestration through enhanced CRM is a cost-effective option for reducing agriculture's impact on the environment. Ideally, CRM practices should be selected to optimize crop yields with negligible adverse effects on the environment. Crop residues of common agricultural crops are chief resources, not only as sources of nutrients for subsequent crops but also for amended soil, water and air quality. Maintaining and managing crop residues in agriculture can be economically beneficial to many producers and more importantly to society. Improved residue management and reduced tillage practices should be encouraged because of their beneficial role in reducing soil degradation and increasing soil productivity. Thus, farmers have a responsibility in making management decisions that will enable them to optimize crop yields and minimize environmental impacts. Multi-disciplinary and integrated efforts by a wide variety of scientists are required to design the best site-specific systems for CRM practices to enhance agricultural productivity and sustainability while minimizing environmental impacts.

scholarly journals Soil Fertility Management for Better Crop Production

Agronomy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 1349
Author(s):  
John Havlin ◽  
Ron Heiniger
Keyword(s):  
Soil Fertility ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Nutrient Management ◽  
Root Zone ◽  
Nutrient Use Efficiency ◽  
Soil Nutrient ◽  
Crop Productivity ◽  
Soil Fertility Management ◽  
Fertility Management

Increasing crop productivity per unit of land area to meet future food and fiber demand increases both soil nutrient removal and the importance of replenishing soil fertility through efficient nutrient management practices. Significant progress in enhancing nutrient-use efficiency in production agriculture requires improved estimates of plant-available nutrients in the root zone, enhanced crop response to applied nutrients, and reduced offsite nutrient transport. This special issue, Soil Fertility Management for Better Crop Production, presents 15 manuscripts that advance our knowledge of interrelated soil, plant, and management factors important to increasing the nutrient availability and crop recovery of applied nutrients.

Improving Dryland Crop Simulation by Assimilating Soil Moisture and Vegetation Data

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Lu ◽  
Justin Sheffield
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Water Productivity ◽  
Vegetation Indices ◽  
Screening Method ◽  
Model Performance ◽  
State Parameter ◽  
Aquacrop Model

<p>Global population is projected to keep increasing rapidly in the next 3 decades, particularly in dryland regions of the developing world, making it a global imperative to enhance crop production. However, improving current crop production in these regions is hampered by yield gaps due to poor soils, lack of irrigation and other management practices. Here we develop a crop modelling capability to help understand gaps, and apply to dryland regions where data for parametrizing and testing models is generally lacking. We present a data assimilation framework to improve simulation capability by assimilating in-situ soil moisture and vegetation data into the FAO AquaCrop model. AquaCrop is a water-driven model that simulates canopy growth, biomass and crop yield as a function of water productivity. The key strength of AquaCrop lies in the low requirement for input data thanks to its simple structure. A global sensitivity analysis is first performed using the Morris screening method and the variance-based Extended Fourier Amplitude Sensitivity Test (EFAST) method to identify the key influential parameters on the model outputs. We begin with state-only updates by assimilating different combinations of soil moisture and vegetation data (vegetation indices, biomass, etc.), and different filtering/smoothing assimilation strategies are tested. Based on the state-only assimilation results, we further evaluate the utility of joint state-parameter (augmented-states) assimilation in improving the model performance. The framework will eventually be extended to assimilate remote sensing estimates of soil moisture and vegetation data to overcome the lack of in-situ data more generally in dryland regions.</p>

scholarly journals Tillage, Green Manure And Residue Retention Improve Aggregate-Associated Phosphorus Fractions Under Rice-Wheat Cropping

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandeep Sharma ◽  
Sukhjinder Kaur ◽  
Om Parkash Choudhary
Keyword(s):  
Wheat Straw ◽  
Rice Straw ◽  
Green Manure ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Crop Residues ◽  
Nutrient Use Efficiency ◽  
Phosphorus Fractions ◽  
Residue Management ◽  
Wheat Crop ◽  
Western India

Abstract The sustainability of rice-wheat system (RWS) in north-western India is threatened due to the deterioration of soil health and emergence of new challenges of climate change caused by low nutrient use efficiency and large scale burning of crop residues. Phosphorus and phosphatase activities in the soil aggregates affected by different residue management practices remain poorly understood. Thus, soil samples were obtained after a five year field experiment to identify the effect of tillage, green manure and residue management on aggregate-associated phosphorus fractions. In rice, the main plot treatments were combinations of wheat straw and Sesbania green manure (GM) management: (1) puddled transplanted rice (PTR) with no wheat straw (PTRW0), (2) PTR with 25% wheat stubbles (12-15 cm long) retained (PTRW25), (3) PTR without wheat straw and GM (PTRW0+GM), and (4) PTR with wheat stubbles (25%) and GM (PTRW25+GM). Three sub-plots treatments in the successive wheat crop were (1) conventional tillage with rice straw removed (CTWR0), (2) zero tillage (ZT) with rice straw removed (ZTWR0) and (3) ZT with 100% rice straw retained as surface mulch (ZTWR100). Results of the present study revealed that all phosphorus fractions were significantly higher in PTRW25+GM followed by ZTWR100 compared with PTRW0/CTWR0 treatment within both macro- and micro-aggregates. The total phosphorus (P), available P, alkaline phosphatase and phytin-P were significantly higher under ZTWR100 than CTWR0. Principal component analysis identified NaOH-Po, NaHCO3-Pi and HCl-P as the dominant and reliable indicators for evaluating P transformation within aggregates under conservation agriculture based practices.

scholarly journals Diversification and Management Practices in Selected European Regions. A Data Analysis of Arable Crops Production

Agronomy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 297
Author(s):  
Rosa Francaviglia ◽  
Jorge Álvaro-Fuentes ◽  
Claudia Di Bene ◽  
Lingtong Gai ◽  
Kristiina Regina ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Crop Residues ◽  
Conventional Tillage ◽  
Crop Rotations ◽  
Soil Parameters ◽  
Crop Diversification ◽  
No Tillage ◽  
Organic Fertilization

In the European Union, various crop diversification systems such as crop rotation, intercropping and multiple cropping, as well as low-input management practices, have been promoted to sustain crop productivity while maintaining environmental quality and ecosystem services. We conducted a data analysis to identify the benefits of crop associations, alternative agricultural practices and strategies in four selected regions of Europe (Atlantic, Boreal, Mediterranean North and Mediterranean South) in terms of crop production (CP). The dataset was derived from 54 references with a total of 750 comparisons and included site characteristics, crop information (diversification system, crop production, tillage and fertilization management) and soil parameters. We analyzed each effect separately, comparing CP under tillage management (e.g., conventional tillage vs. no tillage), crop diversification (e.g., monoculture vs. rotation), and fertilization management (e.g., mineral fertilization vs. organic fertilization). Compared with conventional tillage (CT), CP was higher by 12% in no tillage (NT), in fine- and medium-textured soils (8–9%) and in arid and semiarid sites located in the Mediterranean Region (24%). Compared to monoculture, diversified cropping systems with longer crop rotations increased CP by 12%, and by 12% in soils with coarse and medium textures. In relation to fertilization, CP was increased with the use of slurry (40%), and when crop residues were incorporated (39%) or mulched (74%). Results showed that conversion to alternative diversified systems through the use of crop rotations, with NT and organic fertilization, results in a better crop performance. However, regional differences related to climate and soil-texture-specific responses should be considered to target local measures to improve soil management.

Improved straw management practices promote in situ straw decomposition and nutrient release, and increase crop production

2020 ◽  
Vol 250 ◽  
pp. 119514 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiao-Kang Guan ◽  
Li Wei ◽  
Neil C. Turner ◽  
Shou-Chen Ma ◽  
Ming-Da Yang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Crop Production ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Nutrient Release ◽  
Straw Decomposition ◽  
Straw Management

Changes in soil organic carbon and nitrogen after 47 years with different tillage, stubble and fertiliser management in a Vertisol of north-eastern Australia

Soil Research ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 346
Author(s):  
K. L. Page ◽  
R. C. Dalal ◽  
S. H. Reeves ◽  
W. J. Wang ◽  
Somasundaram Jayaraman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Organic Matter ◽  
Soil Organic Matter ◽  
Organic Carbon ◽  
Soil Organic Carbon ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Crop Residues ◽  
Residue Management ◽  
Eastern Australia ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Over Time

No-till (NT) farming has been widely adopted to assist in reducing erosion, lowering fuel costs, conserving soil moisture and improving soil physical, chemical and biological characteristics. Improvements in soil characteristics are often driven by the greater soil organic matter accumulation (as measured by soil organic carbon (SOC)) in NT compared to conventional tillage (CT) farming systems. However, to fully understand the effect of NT it is important to understand temporal changes in SOC by monitoring over an extended period. We investigated the long-term effect of NT and stubble retention (SR) on changes in SOC and total soil nitrogen (STN) using results from an experiment that has been running for 50 years in a semi-arid subtropical region of north-eastern Australia. In this experiment, the effects of tillage (CT vs NT), residue management (stubble burning (SB) vs SR), and nitrogen (N) fertiliser (0 and 90 kg-N ha–1) were measured in a balanced factorial experiment on a Vertisol (Ustic Pellusert). The use of NT, SR and N fertiliser generally improved SOC (by up to 12.8%) and STN stocks (by up to 31.7%) in the 0–0.1 m layer relative to CT, SB and no N fertiliser, with the greatest stocks observed where all three treatments were used in combination. However, declines in SOC (up to 20%) and STN (up to 25%) occurred in all treatments over the course of the experiment, indicating that changes in management practices were unable to prevent a loss of soil organic matter over time in this farming system. However, the NT and SR treatments did lose less SOC than CT and SB treatments, and SR also reduced STN loss. The δ13C analysis of samples collected in 2008 and 2015 highlighted that crop residues have significantly contributed to SOC stocks at the site and that their contribution is increasing over time.

scholarly journals Carbon sequestration and its dynamics in water-stable aggregates

2014 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimír Šimanský ◽  
Peter Kováčik
Keyword(s):  
Organic Matter ◽  
Carbon Sequestration ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Crop Residues ◽  
Fine Fraction ◽  
Soil Management ◽  
Coarse Fraction ◽  
Water Stable Aggregates ◽  
Native Grassland

Abstract Sequestration of organic carbon in soils is an effective strategy to mitigate global climate change. Carbon sequestration leads to an increase in carbon stocks in soil, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions while improving soil quality and crop production. There are several published articles containing information in which the authors explain carbon sequestration in different soil types under different climatic conditions or farming systems, but on the other hand there is less information about carbon sequestration in water-stable aggregates. In field experiment, the manner in which different soil management practices influence carbon sequestration and its dynamics in water-stable aggregates was studied. We evaluated the soil samples taken from Haplic Luvisol (Dolná Malanta - Slovakia) from all treatments of tillage (conventional, minimal and grassland) and fertilisation (without fertilisation, crop residues together with NPK fertilisers and only NPK fertilisers). The maintenance of carbon concentration within soil under conventional tillage and in native grassland was due to an enhanced incorporation of new organic matter from the coarse fraction of particulate organic matter to macro-aggregates and in treatment with ploughed crop residue together with NPK fertilisers, there was besides of this caused by the reduction of carbon mineralisation from the fine fraction. Soil management practices have a significant effect on the re-distribution of soil organic matter in water-stable aggregates. In conventional and minimal tillage, very important sources of carbon sequestration are agronomical favourable size fractions of water-stable macro-aggregates and in native grassland, as well as in all fertiliser treatments, the most important source of carbon sequestration is water-stable micro-aggregates.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document