Global CA-CoP CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

for sustainable agriculture, land use and ecosystem management


Dear Subscribers,

Please see herebelow the October Cornell CA Newsletter.

Thank you Professor Hobbs for sharing.

Apologies for any cross-posting.

 

Amir Kassam

Moderator

Global CA-CoP

e-mail: [log in to unmask]

URL: http://www.fao.org/conservation-agriculture

URL: http://www.act-africa.org/

URL: https://ecaf.org/
URL:
http://www.caa-ap.org/

 

The CA area data up to 2018/19 is available at: https://www.ca-global.net/ca-stat


Conservation Agriculture (CA) is an ecological approach to regenerative sustainable agriculture and ecosystem management based on the practical application of context-specific and locally adapted three interlinked principles of: (i) Continuous no or minimum mechanical soil disturbance (no-till seeding/planting and weeding, and minimum soil disturbance with all other farm operations including harvesting);  (ii) permanent maintenance of soil mulch cover (crop biomass, stubble and cover crops); and (iii) diversification of cropping system (economically, environmentally and socially adapted rotations and/or sequences and/or associations involving annuals and/or perennials, including legumes and cover crops). These practices are complemented with other complementary good agricultural production and land management practices to generate and sustain optimum performance.

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Peter Hobbs <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2021 at 01:42
Subject: October Cornell CA Newsletter
To: Amir Kassam <[log in to unmask]>


Dear Amir: Here is our October 2021 Conservation Agriculture Scoopit Research Update. You can also view online at https://www.scoop.it/topic/conservation-agriculture-by-conservation-ag?curate=true&null 
Can you send this out to people who get your listserv material? The hard copy is below.

An easier link to see all the research papers on CA is as follows:

Also, visit our main website at http://soilhealth.org for news and other CA information. Please use this link since we had to move our web site to a new server and this links takes you to the CA web site.

Many thanks for helping to distribute this. Peter

Conservation Agriculture Research Updates - October 2021
Powered by Scoop.it
This study examined the effects of no-till and straw mulch on crop productivity and greenhouse gas fluxes in agroecosystems on the Plateau where farmers' common practice of conventional tillage (CT) was tested against three CA practices: conventional tillage with straw mulch (CTS), no-till (NT) and no-till with straw mulch (NTS). All three CA practices (CTS, NTand NTS) markedly increased soil water content (SWC), soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil total nitrogen (STN) but reduced soil temperature (ST). CTS, NT and NTS yields increased by approximately 33%, 9% and 41% respectively compared with CT without residue. There were significant reductions of Net CO2 emissions under NT and NTS compared with CTS and CT.  Sustainable soil moisture improvement practices such as no-till, straw mulch, green manuring, contour ploughing and terracing can improve crop resilience to climate change and reduce GHG emissions in arid and semi-arid regions.
This study looks at residue management in CA systems on the black cotton soils (vertisols) of India. Retention of soybean and wheat residues in black soils under a no-till system is important to protect the land from degradation. The main objective of this study was to test the effect of different levels of soybean and wheat residue retention on the physical, chemical, and biological properties of black soil. Four levels of soybean and wheat residue retention (no residue, 30, 60, and 90%) on soil properties was evaluated. Soil organic carbon (C) significantly increased from 0.67 to 1.0% in 5 years through 90% residue retention. Retention of 90% soybean and wheat residues (7.0 and 13.8 t ha, respectively) significantly improved the physical, chemical, and biological properties of black soil in 5 years, therefore protected the soil from degradation.
Soil compaction is a main issue threatening soil function and quality. This paper evaluates tillage and wheeling effects on physical properties of soils. The treatments were 13 years of no-tillage (NT), NT compacted with additional wheeling (NTc), minimum tillage (chiselling) soil (MT), and MT compacted with additional wheeling (MTc). Soil bulk density (Bd), macroporosity (Mp), precompression stress (sigma p), compressibility coefficient (Cc), and relative deformation were determined in four soil layers. Surface compaction in conservation agriculture is a major issue, since soil mobilisation by soil tillage should be avoided. Adding the residue mulch component of CA would have been an interesting additional treatment since other studies have shown that NT and mulch is better than just NT.
This paper analyzes key stakeholders in the agricultural innovation system (AIS) in Malawi using CA as an example. They analyze roles, organizational capacity and collaboration of stakeholders in Malawi's CA innovation system. NGOs dominate the national CA agenda, while smallholder farmers remain passive recipients of CA interventions. Many CA promoters lack technical and financial capacity, and pursue limited collaboration, which diminish prospects of inclusive stakeholder engagement. Their findings indicate a need to: (1) strengthen understanding of AIS approaches among CA innovation system stakeholders; (2) build stronger partnerships in CA research and development by strengthening stakeholder platforms and social processes; (3) strengthen collaboration advisory mechanisms to facilitate knowledge-sharing, resource mobilization and joint programme implementation with strengthened feedback loops.
This paper looks at the impact of CA and changes in crop rotation in the last 15 years that led to less disturbance of mouse burrows and increased ground cover and food supply on rodent pests. This study was justified since irregular outbreaks of mice in grain cropping regions in Australia and the damage they cause, makes it important to understand when and where mouse populations increase so that management strategies can be improved. They utilised a 20-year long-term mouse population data set collected prior to the introduction of CA farming practices and a more recent 8-year data set after CA to compare changes in mouse population abundance in a typical dryland grain cropping system in Australia. Mice are now resident year-round within crops and stubble and appear to only spill over into margin habitats. Previously developed recommendations for mouse management that include their control while in margin habitats may no longer be valid.





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