Global CA-CoP CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE COMMUNITY OF

for sustainable agriculture, land use and ecosystem management


Dear Subscribers,

Please see below the October 2022 Cornell Conservation Agriculture Research Newsletter from Professor Peter Hobbs.

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

 

Regional CA websites:

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

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

URL: http://caapas.org/


---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Peter Hobbs <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sat, 1 Oct 2022 at 15:14
Subject: October 2022 Cornell CA Research Newsletter
To: Amir Kassam <[log in to unmask]>


Dear Amir: Here is our October 2022 Cornell 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

Powered by Scoop.it
This study was conducted at an experimental farm of ICAR-CSSRI, Karnal on crop diversification and sustainable intensification options using agro-ecological approaches such as Conservation Agriculture (CA) and diversified cropping systems to ensure food and nutritional security while sustaining natural resources. CA-based system management using diversified crop rotations; increased the system yield, net return, protein yield, while using less irrigation water compared to conventional tillage (CT) rice–wheat system. Maize-mustard-mungbean on permanent beds (PBs) recorded the highest productivity, profitability, and saved 82% irrigation water.  In western IGP, maize-wheat-mungbean on PBs was found most productive, profitable and nutritionally rich and efficient system compared to other systems.
This paper looks at the impact of a "One-time tillage (ST)" after three years on soil microbiomes and functions in a long term no-till farming system under crop stubble and fertilizer management practices. The results showed that ST had marginal effects on microbial richness and diversity, enzyme activities, and catabolic function, but significantly affected the abundance of some microbial taxa that are relevant to carbon degradation. Stubble retention, regardless of tillage and fertilizer management, mainly increased the abundance of copiotrophs. Among the management practices, stubble retention was the main factor that contributed to increased richness and diversity of the soil bacterial and fungal community. Fertilizer application, regardless of tillage and stubble management had minimal impact on bacterial and fungal richness and diversity, enzyme activity and catabolic function. 
This is a paper from the Andean region of Ecuador where small scale farming is on steep slopes and vulnerable to erosion, soil degradation, and productivity loss making the current agricultural practices unsustainable and food security a major issue. Climate change is also going to be a negative factor in this region. Past research on CA in this region suggest that cost savings and better yields make it a better system than CT. Immediate benefits did not arise but at least CA productivity did not decline. On the medium term CA resulted in better soil health (lower erosion) and higher profits than CT. The paper points out that adoption of CA is slow due to lack of any extension, so there is a need improve communication with local farmers and effectively explain to them the benefits of new technology and CA.
This paper was selected since it was from Pakistan, that researched and adopted no-till in the 1980's but few papers are published from here. The paper collected data from 450 farm households in 24 villages in Pakistan Punjab. Three cropping patterns were found; rice-wheat, maize-wheat and cotton-wheat under an irrigation canal system. It compared Climate Smart (CSA) practices against conventional ones and also estimated the impact of water-smart practices of the CSA, technical training, and groundwater quality on agricultural production. Adopters of CSA practices had higher economic benefits, and improved resource efficiencies compared to conventional ones. They conclude that farmers can earn more profit, save inputs (such as water), and increase their production by adopting water-smart practices of CSA. These should be promoted by the Government and relevant institutions.
The hypothesis for this paper was that rotating rice with maize  using CA (strip-tilled maize followed by unpuddled transplanted rice), or seasonally alternating tillage (SAT; strip-tilled maize followed by fully-tilled, puddled rice with residues retained across rotations) would reduce costs and energy use, increase energy-use efficiency, and reduce yield-scaled CO2-eq emissions (YSE) and total global warming potential (GWP), compared to farmers’ own practices (FP) and conventional full-tillage (CT) under the same rotation in Bangladesh’s coastal region. Data suggested that both CA and SAT can result in a range of positive agronomic, economic, and environmental outcomes compared to FP or CT. But farmers had an aversion to use of all CA practices due to problems hiring labor to transplant unpuddled rice.
This review starts with a review of the negative issues of tillage that impacts agroecosystems, productivity, and the environment and lists several more specific issues including oxidation of SOM and emission of GHG's. This review looked at the effect of tillage systems (CT and NT) using 150 peer reviewed research articles. The paper established that NT improves soil structure, aggregate stability, biological diversity, organic matter and nutrients, water and water use efficiency, and reduces soil degradation, erosion, tillage machinery impacts, and GHG emissions. It allows timely seeding and better crop growth, increases yield and food security, improves carbon sequestration, strengthens soil storage potential, and helps to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change on environmental resilience. Should I say more that NT should be assessed, promoted, and enabled where found feasible.
This paper used a meta-analysis of 89 articles to identify changes in soil aggregation and aggregate-associated soil organic carbon (SOC) at the global level. They looked at climatic conditions, experimental duration, cropping intensity, soil texture, and initial SOC/pH) in the changes in those 2 variables. Compared to conventional tillage (CT) No-tillage (NT) increased water stable large (LM) and small (SM) macro-aggregates and mean weight diameter (MWD) but decreased micro-aggregates and silt plus clay-size particles (SC). NT significantly enhanced SOC concentrations in LM (17%), SM (14%), MIC (10%), and SC (7%) compared to CT. The random forest (RF) model demonstrated that climatic conditions, experimental duration, and soil texture were the predominant factors controlling the changes in aggregation and aggregate-associated SOC under NT. The conclude that NT helps improve soil structure and SOC sequestration, ultimately controlling soil degradation in croplands.
This paper was included because it includes information on regenerative agriculture (RA) and permaculture (P). They promote these two practices because present farming practices have adverse impacts on natural resources, ecosystem services and sustainability of food production, especially in developing countries. The paper examines the affects of RA, P, and Smart technology (ST) on sustainable production, decision support systems, and Global food security. They state "Collectively, regenerative agriculture and permaculture are semi-closed holistic systems approach designed to reduce or eliminate dependence on external inputs" that restore and maintain natural systems. What I didn't find in the abstract was information of what management systems achieve RA or P and what impact they have on yield or farmer security.




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