Global CA-CoP CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE COMMUNITY OF

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Dear Subscribers,

Please see herebelow the Cornell April 2022 Conservation Agriculture Scoopit Research Updatefrom Professor Peter Hobbs.

Thank you Peter for sharing.

Amir Kassam

Moderator

Global CA-CoP

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

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

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


---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Peter Hobbs <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2022 at 00:19
Subject: April 2022 CA Scoopit newsletter
To: Amir Kassam <[log in to unmask]>


Dear Amir: Here is our April 2022 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 - April 2022
Powered by Scoop.it
This long-term experiment (14 years) combined fertilization rate (no, low and high N fertilizer, N0, N1 and N2), straw additions (no, low and high addition, S0, S1 and S2) with conservation tillage (no-tillage, NT) in the North China Plain. A Denitrification Decomposition model (DNDC) was used with the data collected and then applied  to simulate the changes of crop yields, soil organic carbon (SOC), and N2O emissions under different management practices combined with climate change scenarios, under low and high emission scenarios of societal development pathways (SSP245 and SSP585, respectively) with climate projections from 2031 to 2100. They conclude that CA can potentially offset crop yield reductions, increase soil quality, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the NCP, and ensure crop production to meet the growing demand for food under future climate change.
This paper assessed the soil microbiota in a long-term, 42 year tillage and fertilization experiment under continuous maize in Romania. A nearby grassland area was used as a check. Measures of overall microbial biomass carbon (Cmic) for community size and ergosterol as a proxy for saprophytic biomass were taken. The Cmic/ergosterol ratio was used to determine community structure. Results showed that no till is characterized by an increase in Cmic compared to chisel and mouldboard plough (+31% and + 16%, respectively). Cmic of the grassland was more than double the microbial biomass of experimental plots. Ergosterol concentration showed the same tendency as overall microbial biomass across tillage treatments, however the impact was statistically significant only between zero tillage and chisel plough (+51%). Moderate nitrogen fertilization (60 kg/ha) induced no significant effect whatsoever, a consequence that is attributed to the rather low dose applied.
This paper reports on the eukaryotic community diversity in small  (sM) and occluded micro-aggregates (mM) following 23 years of reduced versus conventional tillage and 0 and 200 kg of nitrogen in a wheat soybean rotation. They found a different eukaryote diversity response to management intensification across soil aggregates and soil depths; (ii) a conserved core community composition of eukaryotes across CA treatments and aggregates at surface and subsurface layers; (iii) a different effect of tillage on eukaryotic community structure in sM and mM along the soil profile according to N availability; (iv) a positive association of protists, and fungi with the amount of sM and mM, and their SOC content; (v) a stronger complexity of within- and cross-domain networks (eukaryotes and eukaryotes-prokaryotes) in mM than in sM at surface layer.
This paper looked at GHG emissions in a controlled traffic situation, adopted to avoid soil compaction effects on the crops, and with regulated deficit irrigation (RDI), adopted to conserve water in an irrigated maize-cropping and fallow periods on a long-term tillage, 2-year experiment in Spain. The two tillage treatments were CT with residues incorporated and NT with surface residues with both combined with controlled traffic. There were also two irrigation treatments; full (FL) and regulated deficit (RDI). Results showed that in the short term, soil CO2 effluxes were higher in CTR than in ZTR after soil preparation and during crop growth, although only significantly in the first case. However, accumulated CO2 emission during the cropping period (163 days) was 1.8 times higher for CTR than ZTR (2126 and 1177 g m−2, respectively). NT plus controlled traffic reduced CO2 emissions.
This article quantifies the effect of Best Management Practices (BMPs) on crop productivity, income, water saving and water balance components and identifies gaps for future research by reviewing 108 published studies from South Asia. Adoption of conservation measures helped enhance crop yields by 200–1000 kg/ha, reduced cost of cultivation and enhanced incomes by US$ 10–200/ha/year. They also enabled annual water saving in the range of 50 mm to 300 mm by either conserving residual soil moisture or saving irrigation water resulting in enhanced water productivity. Direct seeding rice and laser leveling were effective in water saving and reducing costs of production. Rain water harvesting was also a valuable practice. They conclude that the review revealed the ample scope of integrating in situ and ex situ interventions to build system-level resilience in smallholder farming systems.




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