Search results for "Soil management"
showing 10 items of 80 documents
Tillage intensity and pasture in rotation effectively shape soil microbial communities at a landscape scale
2018
International audience; Soil microorganisms are essential to agroecosystem functioning and services. Yet, we still lack information on which farming practices can effectively shape the soil microbial communities. The aim of this study was to identify the farming practices, which are most effective at positively or negatively modifying bacterial and fungal diversity while considering the soil environmental variation at a landscape scale. A long-term research study catchment (12 km2 ) representative of intensive mixed farming (livestock and crop) in Western Europe was investigated using a regular grid for soil sampling (n = 186). Farming systems on this landscape scale were described in terms…
Biogeographical patterns of soil molecular microbial biomass as influenced by soil characteristics and management
2011
Aim The spatial organization of soil microbial communities on large scales and the identification of environmental factors structuring their distribution have been little investigated. The overall objective of this study was to determine the spatial patterning of microbial biomass in soils over a wide extent and to rank the environmental filters most influencing this distribution.
Soil structural stability and erosion rates influenced by agricultural management practices in a semi-arid Mediterranean agro-ecosystem
2012
Unsuitable agricultural practices can cause loss in soil quality and erodibility to thus increase or trigger desertification under Mediterranean conditions. A field experiment was performed at the El Teularet-Sierra de Enguera Experimental Station (eastern Spain) to assess the influence during a 5-yr period of different agricultural practices on physical and chemical indicators of soil quality (total and water-soluble carbohydrates, glomalin-related soil proteins (GRSP), total organic carbon, aggregate stability (AS), vegetation cover and soil erosion). The management practices included residual herbicide use, ploughing, ploughing + oats, addition of oat straw mulch and a control (land aban…
Soil organic carbon stocks under recommended management practices in different soils of semiarid vineyards
2019
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) approach is widely used to estimate the C account through the use of standardized coefficients that are not site specific. For these reasons, the aim of the work was to define specific IPCC coefficient taking into account differences in pedological characteristics that affect soil C steady state. In a vineyard area of Sicily, the effectiveness of 5 years of recommended management practice (RMP) adoption on soil organic carbon (SOC) stock increases was evaluated by considering 100 paired sites distributed over four functional soil groups. Each site consisted of two neighbouring plots. The soil of one plot was managed with cover crops accor…
Soil Carbon, Nitrogen and Phosphorus Dynamics as Affected by Solarization Alone or Combined with Organic Amendment
2006
Soil solarization, alone or combined with organic amendment, is an increasingly attractive approach for managing soil-borne plant pathogens in agricultural soils. Even though it consists in a relatively mild heating treatment, the increased soil temperature may strongly affect soil microbial processes and nutrients dynamics. This study aimed to investigate the impact of solarization, either with or without addition of farmyard manure, in soil dynamics of various C, N and P pools. Changes in total C, N and P contents and in some functionally-related labile pools (soil microbial biomass C and N, K2SO4-extractable C and N, basal respiration, KCl-exchangeable ammonium and nitrate, and water-sol…
Soil Carbon Budget Account for the Sustainability Improvement of a Mediterranean Vineyard Area
2020
Sustainable viticulture is suggested as an interesting strategy for achieving the objectives of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction in terms of mitigation and adaptation. However, knowledge and quantification of the contribution of sustainable vineyard management on climate change impact are needed. Although it is widely assessed by several authors that the agricultural stage has a great impact in the wine chain, very few studies have evaluated the greenhouse gas emission in this phase including the ability of soil to sequester carbon (C) or the off-farm C loss by erosion. This work aimed to provide a vineyard carbon budget (vCB) tool to quantify the impact of grape production on…
Towards More Efficient Incentives for Agri-environment Measures in Degraded and Eroded Vineyards
2015
Evaluating the economic damage caused by soil erosion is important. In addition to increasing the awareness of the problem among farmers and policy makers, evaluation of the economic damage caused by erosion can promote the implementation of more sustainable soil management practices. In the present study, we describe a new approach to evaluate incentives for the adoption of agri-environment measure (AEM) in degraded and eroded vineyards. To estimate this incentive, the replacement cost (RC) and the loss of income are calculated when the vineyard is managed with conventional tillage versus a cover crop (AEM). Our findings show that the incentive could range from the loss of income due to AE…
Durum wheat yield uncertainty under different tillage management practices and climatic conditions
2019
Abstract In the field of conservative agriculture, no-till (NT) management has been receiving increasing interest, with 45 million ha of land under no-till management in 1999 to 155 million ha in 2014. Up until now, no-till has only been observed to perform better under rainfed conditions, especially in dry climates mainly because the reduced tillage system retains more soil moisture. However, the adoption of alternative agricultural practices (NT) can be improved only if uncertain and consequent assumption of risk is well known and accepted. For these reasons, the aim of this research is (i) to define durum wheat suitability under NT soil management in terms of yield success probability an…
Are Cover Crops Affecting the Quality and Sustainability of Fruit Production?
2021
The study of the interaction between fruit trees and cover crops has been addressed in numerous works over the last 50 years or more, evidencing the need to evolve from a productive orchard to an orchard that plays different ecosystem roles in terms of environmental sustainability rather than just productivity. This review, through an analysis of the scientific literature since the 1950s, highlights the development of sustainable soil management models in fruit tree orchards, mostly considering the relationship with fruit quality traits and with the ecosystem services that result from the adoption of cover crops, aiming at identifying and formulating technical recommendations in perennial o…
No-till durum wheat yield success probability in semi arid climate: A methodological framework
2018
Abstract The aim of this study is to develop a framework for the evaluation of no-till (NT) yield success probability as a decision tool for farmers or decision makers. The effect of soil management on durum wheat yield has been tested on many long-term field experiments. Results of these researches were collected in a unique dataset to evaluate the success of NT management in comparison to conventional tillage (CT) as influenced by the aridity index, crop residue management and cropping system. A total of 519 observations of long-term experiments (>3years) regarding durum wheat in a number of areas with semi arid climate were included in the present study. The relative ratio of yield under…