Soil Nutrient Balance and Stock on Smallholder Farms at Agew Mariam Watershed in Northern Ethiopia

IntroductionSoil nutrient balance is used to evaluate the state of soil fertility, rate of nutrient depletion, sustainability of land productivity, the environmental wellbeing of an area, and to take appropriate management decisions. This study was conducted to quantify soil nutrient balance and stocks on smallholder farms at the Agew Mariam watershed in northern Ethiopia in the 2020/21 main season.MethodsInflows and outflows of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) into, and out of barley, tef, and wheat farms were determined through, field measurement, laboratory analysis, and interviews. The balance quantification was done by subtracting nutrient outputs from the inputs. ResultsThe N partial balance of barley, tef and wheat was -66, -9.8, and -50.7 kg ha-1 yr-1 respectively. The P balance was also -5.9, 0.9, and -2.6 kg ha-1 yr-1 for barley, tef, and wheat respectively. Whereas, K balance was -12.3, -3.2, and -5.4 kg ha-1 yr-1 from barley, tef, and wheat respectively. The balance results revealed that N, P, and K had negative values except for P in tef. Grain yield and crop residue removal were the major paths of nutrient loss. The stock of N was 1295, 1510, and 1240 from barley, tef, and wheat kg ha-1respectively. While, the P stock was 63, 18.7, and 27.5, kg ha-1 from barley, tef, and wheat farms respectively. Similarly, K stock was 1092.7, 1059.4, and 1090.6 kg ha-1 from barley, tef, and wheat cropping systems respectively. ConclusionsReversing the imbalance between inflows and outflows via adding organic and inorganic fertilizers is critically essential for the study area.

Prevention of Soil Erosion and Torrential Floods

Climatic conditions, precise relief features, variations of soil, flora cover, socio-economic conditions together lead to torrential flood waves as a result of current soil erosion processes. Erosion and torrential floods are aggravated due to over exploitation of agricultural and forest land along with urbanization. Effects of soil erosion include nutrient loss, land use changes, reduced productivity, siltation of water bodies, among other effects like affecting livelihood of marginal communities dependent on agriculture globally and public health. Nearly 11 million km2 of soil is impacted by erosion precisely by water. Other factors like intensified agriculture and climate change contribute to and aggravate the erosion rate. Contemporary torrential floods are characterized by their increased destruction and frequency unlike the pre-development periods when their occurrence was rare. The focus of this review is to compile and aid as a data base for understanding methods of preventing erosion of soil and torrential floods as put forth by various researchers.

Bioinoculants—Natural Biological Resources for Sustainable Plant Production

Agricultural sustainability is of foremost importance for maintaining high food production. Irresponsible resource use not only negatively affects agroecology, but also reduces the economic profitability of the production system. Among different resources, soil is one of the most vital resources of agriculture. Soil fertility is the key to achieve high crop productivity. Maintaining soil fertility and soil health requires conscious management effort to avoid excessive nutrient loss, sustain organic carbon content, and minimize soil contamination. Though the use of chemical fertilizers have successfully improved crop production, its integration with organic manures and other bioinoculants helps in improving nutrient use efficiency, improves soil health and to some extent ameliorates some of the constraints associated with excessive fertilizer application. In addition to nutrient supplementation, bioinoculants have other beneficial effects such as plant growth-promoting activity, nutrient mobilization and solubilization, soil decontamination and/or detoxification, etc. During the present time, high energy based chemical inputs also caused havoc to agriculture because of the ill effects of global warming and climate change. Under the consequences of climate change, the use of bioinputs may be considered as a suitable mitigation option. Bioinoculants, as a concept, is not something new to agricultural science, however; it is one of the areas where consistent innovations have been made. Understanding the role of bioinoculants, the scope of their use, and analysing their performance in various environments are key to the successful adaptation of this technology in agriculture.

Direct Seeded Rice and its Prospects in Nepal: A Review

Direct Seeded Rice (DSR) is an alternative cultivation technique to the conventional Transplanted Rice (TPR). In this method, seeds are directly sown to the field without the necessity of nursery raising and transplanting. DSR can generally be divided into dry-DSR (sowing dry seeds in dry soil), wet-DSR (sowing pre-germinated seeds in moist soil) and water-seeding (sowing dry or pre-germinated seeds in standing water). This helps in saving water alongside the labour and results in early harvest due to quick crop establishment. DSR is proved to be sustainable and eco-friendly since it emits less methane than in TPR. However, there are few constraints associated with DSR such as weed infestation, crop lodging and nutrient loss. If these major issues are fixed, DSR can result in greater economic returns as compared to TPR. In absence of puddling, the soil structure can be maintained which leads to greater yields of succeeding crops. This technique has been successfully practiced in many countries like Srilanka, Malaysia and USA. In developing nations like Nepal, irrigation and labour constraints can be tackled by adopting direct-seeding for rice cultivation.

A review on maize-finger millet relay cropping in hills of Nepal: Prospects and constraints

Maize (Zea mays) and Finger millet (Elusine corocana) are two key staple crops grown in the hills of Nepal. These crops are planted in a relay intercropping system developed by farmers since the dawn of time. The unique example of cereal-cereal intercropping with its cropping system and cropping pattern at different altitudes is reviewed along with the yield comparison of direct-seeded and transplanted finger millet with maize. Relay cropping is the planting of second crop in the same land area before the harvest of first crop with the goal of higher productivity by sharing the available resources. Considerable research has been done on maize and millet but there has been a limited approach to their cropping system. This paper reviews the existing system of cropping, its prospects, and its constraints. The prospects of maize/finger millet cultivation are pronounced in the form of yield increment, economic and efficient use of available resources, insurance against crop failure, and reduced insect, pest, and weed incidence. Although this cropping system has benefits, it exhibits limitations as well which are competition between crops, lack of suitable varieties, labor-intensive system, and soil-nutrient loss. As maize and finger millet are the main food crops in hilly terrain, it is urged to provide the focus and encouragement regarding their sustainable and modern approaches by developing and disseminating crop growing and management technologies.

Opportunities to Harness High-Throughput and Novel Sensing Phenotypes to Improve Feed Efficiency in Dairy Cattle

Feed for dairy cattle has a major impact on profitability and the environmental impact of farms. Sustainable dairy production relies on continued improvement in feed efficiency as a way to reduce costs and nutrient loss from feed. Advances in breeding, feeding and management have led to the dilution of maintenance energy and thus more efficient dairy cattle. Still, many additional opportunities are available to improve individual animal feed efficiency. Sensing technologies such as wearable sensors, image-based and high-throughput phenotyping technologies (e.g., milk testing) are becoming more available on commercial farm. The application of these technologies as indicator traits for feed intake and efficiency related traits would be advantageous to provide additional information to predict and manage feed efficiency. This review focuses on precision livestock technologies and high-throughput phenotyping in use today as well as those that could be developed in the future as possible indicators of feed intake. Several technologies such as milk spectral data, activity, rumen measures, and image-based phenotypes have been associated with feed intake. Future applications will depend on the ability to repeatably measure and calibrate these data across locations, so that they can be integrated for use in predicting and managing feed intake and efficiency on farm.

Soil Type Modifies the Impacts of Warming and Snow Exclusion on Carbon and Nutrient Losses

The varied and wide-reaching impacts of climate change are occurring across heterogeneous landscapes. Despite the known importance of soils in mediating biogeochemical nutrient cycling, there is little experimental evidence of how soil characteristics may shape ecosystem response to climate change. Our objective was to clarify how soil characteristics modify the impact of climate changes on carbon and nutrient leaching losses in temperate forests. We therefore conducted a field-based mesocosm experiment with replicated warming and snow exclusion treatments on two soils in large (2.4 m diameter), in-field forest sapling mesocosms. We found that nutrient loss responses to warming and snow exclusion treatments frequently varied substantially by soil type. Indeed, in some cases, soil type nullified the impact of a climate treatment. For example, warming and snow exclusion increased nitrogen (N) losses on fine soils by up to four times versus controls, but these treatments had no impact on coarse soils. Generally, the coarse textured soil, with its lower soil-water holding capacity, had higher nutrient losses (e.g., 12-17 times more total N loss from coarse than fine soils), except in the case of phosphate, which had consistently higher losses (23-58%) from the finer textured soil. Furthermore, the mitigation of nutrient loss by increasing tree biomass varied by soil type and nutrient. Our results suggest that potentially large biogeochemical responses to climate change are strongly mediated by soil characteristics, providing further evidence of the need to consider soil properties in Earth system models for improving nutrient cycling and climate projections.

Effect of drying condition on physicochemical and antioxidant properties of dried Moringa leaf powder

Profile of physicochemical and antioxidant activity of dried Moringa leaves from Bangladesh are presented. Moringa is beneficial for health because it has a lot of nutritional and medicinal values. The leaves were collected and washed with distilled water at different temperatures in an oven dryer, and then the fine powder is taken as a sample by grinding and sieving method. This research was done to compare the changes in physicochemical and antioxidant elements at different temperatures (60°C, 70°C and 80°C) and to find the right temperature at which the nutrient loss will be the lowest. This study showed that as the drying temperature changed, so did the nutrient component of Moringa leaves. Physicochemical parameters (moisture, ash, protein, carbohydrate, fat, color) and antioxidant activity (Total phenol content, DPPH free radical scavenging activity, vitamin C, and ß-carotene) were extracted using a variety of methods. The protein content, carbohydrate content was estimated by the Kjeldahl and phenol sulfuric acid method respectively. Total phenol content (38.30 mg/100g), DPPH (77.79%), and ßcarotene (22.71mg/100g) were measured by the spectrophotometric method. And the colorimeter instrument is used for determining the optical properties. It can be seen that the moisture, ash, protein, carbohydrate, Total phenol content, Vitamin C, DPPH free radical scavenging activity, ß-carotene contents decrease significantly with increasing drying temperature, whereas fat content increases. At 60°C drying temperature the nutrient loss was lowest compared to 70°C and 80°C drying temperature, so it can be concluded that 60°C is the most suitable temperature for drying Moringa leaves.

The Effects of Rainfall Patterns on Runoff, Sediment, and Nutrients Under Various Artificial Rainfall Experiments

Assessing the effects of rainfall patterns on runoff, sediment, nutrients under variation of rainfall pattern are significant in the quantification of sediment transported by overland flow. Previous experimental and field works studied that sediment transport is influenced by hydraulic properties of flow, physical properties of soil and surface characteristics. This study aims at determining the effect of rainfall patterns on surface runoff, sediment loss and nutrient loss. Experiments were carried out using four rainfall patterns, namely Pattern A (uniform-type: 8-8-8 l/min), Pattern B (increasing-type: 7-8-9 l/min), Pattern C (increasing-decreasing-type: 7-9-8 l/min) and Pattern D (decreasing-type: 9-8-7 l/min) with the changes of intensity every 30 minutes that gives total rainfall duration of 90 minutes for each pattern. The simulation was performed in three repetitions. The average total runoff produced was 668.65, 701.40, 699.10, and 722.63 liters, for rainfall patterns A, B, C, and D, respectively. The trend of runoff generated was influenced by the rainfall patterns, Pattern D generated the highest amount of runoff meanwhile Pattern A generated the lowest. For total suspended sediment concentrations, the mean value among every three repetitions of rainfall pattern resulted as 14,518.88, 13,732.73, 8,011.71 and 19,918.50 mg/l for patterns A, B, C, and D, respectively Pattern D contributed to the highest amount of sediment accumulated whereby Pattern C generated the lowest sediment despite the trend showed a different approach than the other 3 patterns. In nutrient concentrations, the determined total losses for ammonia nitrogen were 3.986, 2.891, 3.504, and 4.601g; nitrate nitrogen were 3.934, 2.665, 4.008, and 3.259g; phosphorus were 1.346, 0.222, 0.207, and 0.679g, for patterns A, B, C, and D, respectively. In general, rainfall pattern does have a significant impact on the trend of nutrient losses, where the trend shows that higher concentrations at the start and eventually lowered through the end, but Pattern D as compared to other patterns resulted in a more severe nutrient loss. For the affected area of the soil movement process, the calculated means of the affected area are 79.60, 68.70, 72.43, and 64.97% for patterns A, B, C, and D respectively. The lowest mean of the affected area is contributed by Pattern D and the highest by Pattern A.