Global CA-CoP CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE COMMUNITY OF

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Dear Subscribers,

Please see below the November 2022 Cornell Conservation Agriculture Research 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

 

Regional CA websites:

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

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

URL: http://caapas.org/

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Peter Hobbs <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2022 at 13:57
Subject: November 2022 Cornell CA Research Newsletter
To: Amir Kassam <[log in to unmask]>


Dear Amir: Here is our November 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

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This study aimed to assess after 26 years the long-term effect of conventional tillage (CT) and no-tillage (NT) combined with winter cover crops, black oat and oilseed radish, and fallow on C accumulation and stabilization in a  clayey Oxisol in Southern Brazil. Soil samples were collected from 3 depths. NT had a higher percentage of macroaggregates and C stock in this size-class, and also higher C stock in bulk soil, free-POM and occluded-POM fractions than CT in 0-0.05 m depth due to higher input of biomass and minimum soil mobilization in NT. Oat and radish had higher C stock in macroaggregates than fallow in 0.05-0.10 m depth. They conclude that after 26 years of NT improved C accumulation and stabilization, mainly in the superficial layer. Also winter cover crops favored the formation and stability of macroaggregates.
This is a new book published in 2022 that looks at many aspects of CA situation, adoption, management, and future outlook in India. The chapters cover the various aspects of crop management such as soil, water, nutrients, weeds, crop residues, machinery, and energy, in a range of environments, including irrigated and rainfed regions. The impact of climate change and the economic considerations behind the adoption of conservation agriculture are also discussed. There are 4 distinct sections as follows: Part I: Conservation Agriculture: Global Scenario and Status in India - 4 chapters Part II: Management Options for Higher Resource Use Efficiency -- 6 chapters Part III: Soil Health and Greenhouse Gas Emissions -- 4 chapters Part IV: Economics, Adoption, and Future of Conservation Agriculture -- 3 chapters.
This chapter 17 in the book "Food Security for African Smallholder Farmers" was selected to highlight the importance of CA adoption to help mitigate climate change in Southern Africa. Crop yields in the smallholder sector have continued to decline, and farmers whose livelihoods rely on agriculture are poor and food-insecure. This chapter provides a review on how the farmers can build resilience to climate change through adoption of conservation agriculture (CA). Conservation agriculture has several positive attributes, which enable crop productivity in semi-arid regions of southern Africa. Among other advantages, CA maintains or improves soil structure; reduces soil exposure to water and wind erosion; increases water infiltration and reduces loss through evaporation. Minimum soil disturbance slows organic matter breakdown and mineralization resulting in organic carbon build-up. 
Climate change is causing declining rainfall (more variability) and increasing temperature extremes and when added to declining soil fertility, food security in rainfed Morocco is threatened. The objective of this study was to systematically evaluate agronomic, economic, and soil fertility indicators under CA and conventional tillage (CT) using field experimentation (medium-term) and simulation modeling (long-term) for a clay soil in Morocco. They looked at the effect of CA on wheat, barley, lentil and chickpea to determine yield, stability, profits, WUE, and soil fertility. They also used Dynamic simulation modeling to assess the long-term effect of adopting CA and CT in these cereal rotations. Both their 5-year field experiment and the modeling showed that adoption of CA improves a range of agronomic, economic and soil fertility indicators compared to CT.
This paper reviews CA use in wheat in India, since wheat represents a major 60% crop system in Indian agriculture represents the backbone and the future of the country's economy. This study aimed to review the research studies where precision nitrogen management technologies were applied in conservation agriculture and discussed the effects of these tools and techniques on wheat growth, productivity, and nutrient usage efficiency (NUE). Their findings concluded that productivity and NUE of wheat grown in furrow irrigated raised beds (FIRB) performed better while zero tillage fared better economically than other tillage methods.Precise nitrogen management involving LCC, SPAD, NE, GS, and targeted yield not only increased growth, yield and NUE but also turned out more profitable than a blanket application of N.  
This study looks at the impact of various soil management practices on soil microbial diversity in a no-till dryland soybean system in the USA. Treatments included cover crops and nutrient management including the use of poultry manure. Targeted amplicon sequencing of 16S rRNA and ITS2 genes was used to study the bacterial and fungal community composition. Poultry litter amendment and cover crops significantly influenced soil bacterial diversity. Fertilizer sources had different bacterial populations while cover crops influenced the fungal communities. Differential enrichment of advantageous bacterial (Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Acidobacteria) and fungal (Mortierellomycota) phyla was observed across the treatments. They propose a long-term study to provide more inferences on soil microbial community response to management changes.
This study evaluated a maize-wheat system (MWCS) using 4 crop establishment and tillage practices: Flat bed (FB)–conventional tillage both in maize and wheat; Raised bed (RB)–CT in maize and ZT in wheat); FB but ZT both in maize and wheat); Permanent raised bed (PRB–ZT both in maize and wheat. Also five P-fertilization practices. Double zero-tilled PRBZT–PRBZT system significantly enhanced the maize grain, starch, protein and oil yield by 13.1–19% over conventional FBCT–FBCT. P50 + PSB + AMF + 2FSP, integrating soil applied-P, microbial-inoculants and foliar-P, had significantly higher grain, starch, protein and oil yield by 12.5–17.2% over P100. They conclude that double zero-tilled PRBZT–PRBZT with crop residue retention at 6 t/ha per year along with P50 + PSB + AMF + 2FSP while saving 34.7% fertilizer-P in MWCS is the best treatments.
This long term study evaluated and reports on CA, but with bed and furrow planting on soil health using teff, wheat, barley and grass-pea in Ethiopia. They used permanent raised beds (PRB) and contour furrowing (CF) and  conventional tillage (CT). Soil from 0-10 cm depth was used for evaluating soil health and crop yield. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi spore abundance and root colonization was higher in PRB followed by CF compared to CT. Higher straw and grain yield were recorded for PRB, CF and CT, respectively. A PSEM model highlighted two pathways in which CA-based systems contributed to improved productivity: (a) via higher density of bacteria and improved hydraulic conductivity, and (b) via higher density of fungi and increase soil organic carbon content in the topsoil. They conclude that CA can improve yield through improving soil health.








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