scholarly journals Restoring Soil Fertility on Degraded Lands to Meet Food, Fuel, and Climate Security Needs via Perennialization

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha Mosier ◽  
S. Carolina Córdova ◽  
G. Philip Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Soil Fertility ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Cropping Systems ◽  
Nutrient Recycling ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
Nitrogen And Phosphorus ◽  
Degraded Lands ◽  
Marginal Lands ◽  
Zero Hunger ◽  
Cellulosic Bioenergy

A continuously growing pressure to increase food, fiber, and fuel production to meet worldwide demand and achieve zero hunger has put severe pressure on soil resources. Abandoned, degraded, and marginal lands with significant agricultural constraints—many still used for agricultural production—result from inappropriately intensive management, insufficient attention to soil conservation, and climate change. Continued use for agricultural production will often require ever more external inputs such as fertilizers and herbicides, further exacerbating soil degradation and impeding nutrient recycling and retention. Growing evidence suggests that degraded lands have a large potential for restoration, perhaps most effectively via perennial cropping systems that can simultaneously provide additional ecosystem services. Here we synthesize the advantages of and potentials for using perennial vegetation to restore soil fertility on degraded croplands, by summarizing the principal mechanisms underpinning soil carbon stabilization and nitrogen and phosphorus availability and retention. We illustrate restoration potentials with example systems that deliver climate mitigation (cellulosic bioenergy), animal production (intensive rotational grazing), and biodiversity conservation (natural ecological succession). Perennialization has substantial promise for restoring fertility to degraded croplands, helping to meet future food security needs.

Cellulosic biofuel contributions to a sustainable energy future: Choices and outcomes

Science ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 356 (6345) ◽  
pp. eaal2324 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Philip Robertson ◽  
Stephen K. Hamilton ◽  
Bradford L. Barham ◽  
Bruce E. Dale ◽  
R. Cesar Izaurralde ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Nitrogen Loss ◽  
Large Fraction ◽  
Environmental Harm ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
Marginal Lands ◽  
Transportation Energy ◽  
Cellulosic Biofuel ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Energy Needs ◽  
Cellulosic Bioenergy

Cellulosic crops are projected to provide a large fraction of transportation energy needs by mid-century. However, the anticipated land requirements are substantial, which creates a potential for environmental harm if trade-offs are not sufficiently well understood to create appropriately prescriptive policy. Recent empirical findings show that cellulosic bioenergy concerns related to climate mitigation, biodiversity, reactive nitrogen loss, and crop water use can be addressed with appropriate crop, placement, and management choices. In particular, growing native perennial species on marginal lands not currently farmed provides substantial potential for climate mitigation and other benefits.

Trees in Alley Cropping: Competitors or Soil Improvers?

1994 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy P. Haggar
Keyword(s):  
Soil Fertility ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Alley Cropping ◽  
Cropping Systems ◽  
Agroforestry System ◽  
Humid Tropics ◽  
Substantial Evidence ◽  
Soil Improvers ◽  
Improved Design

Agroforestry has a high potential to sustain agricultural production in the humid tropics. One specific type of agroforestry, alley cropping, has received much attention as a means of producing staple food crops within an agroforestry system. There is now substantial evidence that alley cropping maintains soil fertility above levels found in pure annual cropping systems. Nevertheless, competition between the trees and crops can significantly reduce yields by the crop. A model is presented of how the balance between the improved soil fertility in alley cropping and competition from the trees determines the final crop performance. Better understanding of the factors that determine crop yield will enable improved design and management of alley cropping systems, and may allow alley cropping to become a more reliable means of improving crop production.

Agronomic regeneration of soil fertility in tropical Asian smallholder uplands for sustainable food production

2006 ◽  
Vol 144 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. A. J. M. DE COSTA ◽  
U. R. SANGAKKARA
Keyword(s):  
Soil Fertility ◽  
Cropping Systems ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Productivity Loss ◽  
Smallholder Farming ◽  
Marginal Lands ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Tropical Asia ◽  
Lower Productivity ◽  
The Many

Smallholder cropping systems are a vital component in the agricultural sectors of tropical Asia, especially in the developing nations. These systems are important for producing food and providing a livelihood to a major proportion of the populations of Asia. While the rice systems, usually cultivated under puddled conditions are considered stable, the upland or highland units, which provide a range of food, fibre and feed commodities, are generally situated on marginal lands. Low soil fertility, erosion, sub-optimal crop management and subsistence farming conditions characterize these units. Hence, these units require improved but low cost strategies to reverse the trend of lower productivity, loss of sustainability and most importantly, the loss of livelihood for the farming populations. Among the many strategies available, the regeneration of soil fertility through agronomic measures would be a useful and easily adoptable method of enhancing productivity of tropical Asian upland smallholding farming units. The methods available include the revival of age-old traditions such as adding organic matter directly to soils, green manuring and mimicking forest ecosystems through agroforestry. Agronomic measures using plants to enrich the soil and regenerate its supporting capacity are presented in the present paper. Relevant examples are cited to highlight the potential of these methods for regenerating productivity of the upland smallholder farming units and more importantly the agro-based livelihood of a large majority of the populations of tropical Asia.

FERTILIZATION SYSTEM AS A WAY OF SOIL FERTILITY AND STABILIZATION OF FIELD CROP ROTATION PRODUCTIVENESS

1970 ◽  
pp. 38-41
Author(s):  
V. T. Sinegovskaya ◽  
E. T. Naumchenko
Keyword(s):  
Soil Fertility ◽  
Crop Rotation ◽  
C:N Ratio ◽  
Mineral Fertilizer ◽  
Organic Fertilizers ◽  
Nitrogen And Phosphorus ◽  
Rotation System ◽  
Mobile Phosphorus ◽  
Crop Rotation System ◽  
Fertilizer System

The article presents the results of comparative evaluation of the efficiency of the long-term application of mineral and organic fertilizers in the crop rotation system. It was found that the application of the mineral fertilizer system increased the value of hydrolytic acidity of the soil from 4,30 to 5,29 mg-eq per 100 g of soil, the indicator of metabolic acidity decreased from 5,2 to 4,9 pH units. By the end of the 11th rotation for both fertilizer systems, the content of mobile phosphorus increased by more than 4 times relative to the initial value, its mobility indicator – by 2,2-3,2 times compared with the control. The use of the organo-mineral system was accompanied by an increase in the content of humus by 0,35 % and a decrease in the C:N ratio from 11,2 to 8,9. The increased productivity of wheat was revealed when applying nitrogen and nitrogen-phosphorus fertilizers against the background of prolonged use of the mineral and organo-mineral fertilizer system. The change in wheat productivity by 56 % depended on the content of mineral nitrogen, mobile phosphorus, humus in the topsoil, and on the phosphate ion mobility. Soybean productivity depended on soil fertility indicators only by 24 %: the relationship between soybean productivity and the mineral forms of nitrogen and phosphorus is weak and direct, between productivity and P2O5 mobility - weak and inverse, with humus - moderate and direct.

Nitrate Leaching to a Shallow Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain Aquifer as Influenced by Conventional No-Till and Low-Input Sustainable Grain Production Systems

1993 ◽  
Vol 28 (3-5) ◽  
pp. 691-700 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. P. Craig ◽  
R. R. Weil
Keyword(s):  
Management Practices ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Cropping Systems ◽  
Cropping System ◽  
Atlantic Coastal Plain ◽  
Grain Production ◽  
Nitrogen And Phosphorus ◽  
Mineral N ◽  
Low Input ◽  
No Till

In December, 1987, the states in the Chesapeake Bay region, along with the federal government, signed an agreement which called for a 40% reduction in nitrogen and phosphorus loadings to the Bay by the year 2000. To accomplish this goal, major reductions in nutrient loadings associated with agricultural management practices were deemed necessary. The objective of this study was to determine if reducing fertilizer inputs to the NT system would result in a reduction in nitrogen contamination of groundwater. In this study, groundwater, soil, and percolate samples were collected from two cropping systems. The first system was a conventional no-till (NT) grain production system with a two-year rotation of corn/winter wheat/double crop soybean. The second system, denoted low-input sustainable agriculture (LISA), produced the same crops using a winter legume and relay-cropped soybeans into standing wheat to reduce nitrogen and herbicide inputs. Nitrate-nitrogen concentrations in groundwater were significantly lower under the LISA system. Over 80% of the NT groundwater samples had NO3-N concentrations greater than 10 mgl-1, compared to only 4% for the LISA cropping system. Significantly lower soil mineral N to a depth of 180 cm was also observed. The NT soil had nearly twice as much mineral N present in the 90-180 cm portion than the LISA cropping system.

Managing soil fertility to adapt to rainfall variability in smallholder cropping systems in Zimbabwe

2013 ◽  
Vol 154 ◽  
pp. 211-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Rurinda ◽  
P. Mapfumo ◽  
M.T. van Wijk ◽  
F. Mtambanengwe ◽  
M.C. Rufino ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Fertility ◽  
Cropping Systems ◽  
Rainfall Variability

Bio-Farming as the Basis of Environmentally-Sustainable Arable Farming at the Time of Global Warming

2020 ◽  
pp. 43-70
Author(s):  
Olga Pasko ◽  
Natalia Staurskaya ◽  
Alexandr Zakharchenko ◽  
Valeriy Zharnikov ◽  
Yuriy Larionov
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Organic Carbon ◽  
Soil Fertility ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Information Support ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Environmentally Sustainable ◽  
Arable Farming ◽  
Special Programs

The concept of environmentally sustainable farming, in which the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is compensated by the accumulation of organic carbon in the arable horizon and deposited in the subsoil, is substantiated. The rationale for agrotechnical methods to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is given. Authors discuss new approaches to the management of soil fertility, plant productivity, and resistance of agrocenoses, based on the principles of bio-farming, the laws of soil fertility, root-circulation, and the management of edaphy and epiphytic processes. Their use allows one to improve soil fertility and purposefully increase the potential and effective resource of agricultural production. The large-scale implementation of the principles of bio-farming in agricultural production during the global warming requires the elaboration of special programs for the development of the agro-industrial complex, its geo-information support, including monitoring of land fertility using GIS technologies.

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