Global CA-CoP CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE COMMUNITY OF

for sustainable agriculture, land use and ecosystem management


Dear Subscribers,

Please see below the December 2022 Conservation Agriculture Scoopit Research Newsletter from Cornell University.

Thank you Professor Hobbs for sharing.

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: Thu, 1 Dec 2022 at 20:14
Subject: December 2022 CA Scoopit Research newsletter
To: Amir Kassam <[log in to unmask]>


Dear Amir: Here is our December 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 link takes you to the CA web site.

Many thanks for helping to distribute this. Peter


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Cornell Conservation Agriculture Group (soilhealth.org)'s insight:
This study was designed to look at the impact of long-term CA on soil organic and inorganic P fractions under maize-based cropping systems with different tillage and cropping systems. The 3 tillage systems were NT, Permanent beds and CT. There were 4 cropping systems with maize, wheat and various legumes. P was fractionated from 2 soil depths, 0-5cm and 5-15 cm.  Results showed that a higher amount of soluble and loosely bound P (SL-P) was detected in ZT among the inorganic P fractions, whereas iron-bound P (Fe-P), aluminum-bound P (Al-P), reductant soluble P (RES-P) and calcium-bound P (Ca-P) were found higher in CT in both soil depths. Significant synergistic effects of winter legume (chickpea) with summer legumes (sesbania and mungbean) in crop rotation were observed on SL-P, Labile Po, Humic acid-Po, Alkaline phosphatase and MBP at 0-5 and 5-15 cm soil depths. 
Cornell Conservation Agriculture Group (soilhealth.org)'s insight:
The aim of this paper is to look at the effects of fallow in the off season and grass/grass and grass/legume crop successions on soil aggregation in NT systems. The study was done on fields with different land uses for more than10 years in SE Brazil. Three NT maize land uses yielded 3 groups: NT- with  fallow in the off season; NT with legumes in off season; and NT with maize in the off season. Forest land (F) was used as a check for soil aggregation and CT a a low conservation system. They found that the absence of soil surface cover throughout the year in an NT system was as harmful to soil aggregation as a CT system. The NT-grass system resulted in higher organic C and aggregate stability than the NT-legume system. They also found that that fallow in the off-season promotes a NT system with low soil conservation.
Cornell Conservation Agriculture Group (soilhealth.org)'s insight:
This paper looks at the rice-wheat system of South Asia (13.5 mha) but within the IGP where there are 10.3 mha. This intensive cropping system that is vital for food security in India has several environmental issues including depleted SOC, declining water tables, decreased soil fertility and reduced factor productivity. The paper describes various resource conserving technologies (RCT's) such as direct seeded rice (DSR), system of rice intensification (SRI), aerobic rice, brown manuring, crop residue incorporation, furrow irrigated raised bed system (FIRBS), zero tillage (ZT) and leaf colour chart (LCC) that not only improved the production and productivity but also maintained soil health. New emerging technologies like system of wheat intensification (SWI), LCC application for nitrogen management, bed transplanting in rice followed by laser levelling in wheat with zero tillage wheat, incorporation of rice residues over conventional transplanting also showed promising results.
Cornell Conservation Agriculture Group (soilhealth.org)'s insight:
This paper looks at the impact of no-till and cover crops on soil health with sunflower following durum wheat in an on-farm trial in Italy. Direct sowing of sunflower following the dead mulch of a roller-crimped hairy vetch was compared with the use of glyphosate to terminate the vetch and control weeds. In this 3-year experiment, they compared three vetch termination stages (early: pre-flowering; Intermediate: beginning of flowering; late: 70% flowering) and three glyphosate rates (Nil, half and full). Vetch biomass increased from early to late termination and the extra biomass resulted in lower weed biomass. Treatments had inconsistent effects on weed diversity and composition, largely determined by the interactions between treatments and seasonal (different years) or local factors. They conclude that targeted timing of roller-crimped hairy vetch in no-till sunflower can result in equal agronomic and economic performances as addition of glyphosate.
Cornell Conservation Agriculture Group (soilhealth.org)'s insight:
Cornell Conservation Agriculture Group (soilhealth.org)'s insight:
The aim of this danish study was to investigate how CA induced SOM stratification affects carbon and nitrogen turnover. Two Danish farms were selected with conventional ploughing (CP) and CA. They looked at SOM stratification to 50cm depth from the two treatments. They also looked at C and N mineralization patterns in lab incubation studies. Average stratification ratio, the ratio between soil C and N content in the upper 5 cm and at 20–30 cm, the depth of the plough layer in the ploughed system, was 1.86 and 1.61 under CA and 1.04 and 1.06 under P. Carbon respiration from intact soil core incubation was affected by soil total carbon content, and showed stronger stratification in CA than in P. They conclude that carbon and nitrogen mineralization, as well as microbial metabolic capacity were strongly affected by an increased stratification ratio of organic matter in CA.
Cornell Conservation Agriculture Group (soilhealth.org)'s insight:
This paper from Bangladesh looked at intensively grown (3 crops per year) rice-based cropping systems and various management options. This 9-year study examined various 2 soil disturbance - strip tillage (ST) and conventional tillage (CT); two residue retention levels –15% residue by height (low residue, LR) and 30% residue (high residue, HR) and five N rates (60%, 80%, 100%, 120%, and 140% of the recommended N for a rice-wheat-mungbean system. Rice yields were comparable between the two tillage systems for up to year-6, wheat for up to year-3 but mungbean yield markedly increased in ST from year-1. Introduction of ST increased land equivalent ratio by 26% relative to CT, N use efficiency and partial factor productivity. They conclude that by practicing CA with increased residue retention under strip tillage, the crops had higher N use efficiency, grain yield, land equivalent ratio and annual gross margin in the rice-wheat-mungbean cropping system.
Cornell Conservation Agriculture Group (soilhealth.org)'s insight:
This paper looks at ways to solve the issue of managing soil organic cover in CA in China. It looks at the effects of this organic mulch and what equipment/machinery works best. The aim of this review was to improve the soil organic cover quality and reduce energy consumption by reviewing the common and commercial equipment available in China. The current problems and technical difficulties of the machines were expounded. Simultaneously, the method of design and optimization of the device (chopper, spreader, rotary tiller, and plow) and its key parts (blades, discs, and plows) were reviewed and compared. Their conclusions look at future directions for soil organic cover technology and machinery development including clarifying the soil organic cover effect, selecting the suitable soil organic cover patterns, and developing soil organic cover machinery.
Cornell Conservation Agriculture Group (soilhealth.org)'s insight:




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