Search results for "crop rotation"
showing 10 items of 28 documents
Soil organic carbon stock on the Majorca Island: temporal change in agricultural soil over the last 10 years
2019
8 Pags.- 5 Tabls.- 3 Figs.
Long-term effects of no tillage treatment on soil N availability, N uptake, and 15N-fertilizer recovery of durum wheat differ in relation to crop seq…
2016
Abstract No tillage (NT) soil management has largely been promoted because of its potential to generate both economic and environmental benefits. However, it often leads to reductions in crop yield and quality, which in many cases have been attributed to the effects this technique has on the nitrogen (N) dynamics in the soil–plant system. This 2-year study, performed within a long-term experiment in which NT was continuously applied for over 15 years, aimed to verify whether and to what extent the use of NT affects soil N availability, recovery of 15 N-labeled fertilizer, and N use efficiency (NUE) and its components (N uptake efficiency, NUpE; N utilization efficiency, NUtE). Durum wheat w…
Agro-ecological benefits of faba bean for rainfed Mediterranean cropping systems
2017
This paper reviews the main results from a set of experiments carried out in a semiarid Mediterranean environment during the past 25 years on faba bean (<em>Vicia faba</em> L.), a crop traditionally grown in southern Italy and Sicily under rainfed conditions. These experiments focused on the residual effects of faba bean on subsequent crop(s) and assessment of the nitrogen (N) balance during the crop cycle, paying attention to both the environmental release of N (losses via volatilisation and denitrification) and estimates of N2 fixation as influenced by tillage system, intercropping, and presence/absence of mycorrhizal inoculum. Faba bean relied on N2 fixation more than other g…
Effects of seed production and storage conditions on blackgrass (Alopecurus myosuroides) germination and shoot elongation
2003
Abstract Blackgrass is a common winter annual grass weed in autumn-sown crop rotations in Atlantic European countries. Control with a minimum amount of herbicides in integrated cropping systems would be facilitated by modeling the effect of cropping systems on its demography. To develop the submodel relating weed seed bank to emerged seedlings, laboratory experiments were conducted to analyze and quantify seed germination and shoot elongation. These processes were studied as a function of environmental conditions during seed production (nitrogen availability, water deficit, plant density, and crop) and of seed characteristics (seed weight, harvest date, storage length, and dry-stored/soil-b…
Long-term mineral fertiliser use and maize residue incorporation do not compensate for carbon and nutrient losses from a Ferralsol under continuous m…
2015
9 pages; International audience; It has been repeatedly argued that mineral fertiliser application combined with in situ retention of crop residue biomass can sustain long-term productivity of West African soils. Using 20-year experimental data from southern Togo, a biannual rainfall area, we analysed the effect of two rates of mineral NPK fertiliser application to maize–cotton rotation on the long-term dynamics of soil C and nutrient contents, as compared with two control treatments. Mineral fertiliser treatments consisted of application to both maize (first season) and cotton (second season) the research-recommended NPK rates (Fertiliser-RR) and 1.5 times these rates (Fertiliser-1.5 RR). …
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…
Combined effect of crop rotation and carabid beetles on weed dynamics in arable fields
2020
AbstractWeed management is a resource-intensive practice in arable agriculture, with direct and long-term impacts on both productivity and biodiversity (e.g. plant, pollinators and farmland wildlife). In conventional systems, weed control relies on crop management and herbicide inputs, but for more sustainable production systems, use of herbicides needs to be reduced. This requires a good understanding of the processes that regulate arable weed dynamics in arable fields.We adopted a systems framework to understand and model interacting components that drive the weed dynamics in 168 arable fields. Within this framework, we built a structural equation model (SEM) to quantify the direct and in…
Effect of a Brassica Juncea Cover Crop on a Mono-Succession of Melon
2013
The ban of methyl bromide and the need for low environmental impact of agriculture has recently increased the interest in the biofumigant effects of Brassica species on soil-borne pathogens. Many researches have tested the toxic effects of Brassica green manures on several soil-borne pathogens in vitro, but field studies have not assessed definitely the efficiency of biofumigation at the field scale and the effect on crop development and production quality. The aim of this research was to evaluate the effect of a winter-spring cover crop of Brassica juncea compared to bare soil on a mono-succession of melon. The biomass of the B. juncea plants or of the weeds eventually developed in bare so…
Weed seedbank size and composition in a long-term tillage and crop sequence experiment
2015
Summary Knowledge of the effects of agricultural practices on weed seedbank dynamics is essential for predicting future problems in weed management. This article reports data relative to weed seedbank structure after 18 years of continuous application of conventional tillage (CT, based on mouldboard ploughing) or no tillage (NT) within three crop sequences (continuous wheat, WW; wheat–faba bean, WF; and wheat–berseem clover, WB). Tillage system did not affect the size of the total weed seedbank, but altered both its composition and the distribution of seeds within the soil profile. In particular, the adoption of CT favoured some species (mainly Polygonum aviculare), whereas the continuous u…
Direct seeding mulch-based cropping increases both the activity and the abundance of denitrifier communities in a tropical soil
2009
International audience; This study evaluated the impact of direct seeding mulch-based cropping (DMC), as an alternative to conventional tilling (CT), on a functional community involved in N cycling and emission of greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O). The study was carried out for annual soybean/rice crop rotation in the Highlands of Madagascar. The differences between the two soil management strategies (direct seeding with mulched crop residues versus tillage without incorporation of crop residues) were studied along a fertilization gradient (no fertilizer, organic fertilizer, organic plus mineral fertilizers). The activity and size of the denitrifier community were determined by denitrifica…