Global CA-CoP CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE COMMUNITY OF

for sustainable agriculture, land use and ecosystem management


Dear Colleagues,


Please see below the April Cornell Conservation Agriculture Scoopit newsletter from Prof. Peter Hobbs at Cornell.


Thank you Peter 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/

 

The national CA area data up to 2018/19 is in the article: Successful Experiences and Lessons from Conservation Agriculture Worldwide. Amir Kassam, Theodor Friedrich and Rolf Derpsch. Agronomy 12, 769. 2022.



---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Peter Hobbs <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2023 at 18:56
Subject: April Cornell CA Scoopit newsletter
To: Amir Kassam <[log in to unmask]>


Dear Amir: Here is our April 2023 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:

https://www.zotero.org/groups/348525/cornell_conservation_agriculture/collections/KGBFX8BX

 

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



Conservation Agriculture Research Updates - April 2023
Powered by Scoop.it
This paper looks at practices to reverse declining soil fertility resulting from excessive tillage and crop residue removal, while decreasing production costs and increasing farm profits in two sites in Bangladesh. Crop establishment methods included strip planting (SP), bed planting (BP), and conventional tillage (CT). Residue levels used were high (HR) and low (LR). The SP and BP of non-rice crops were rotated with non-puddled rice establishment; CT of non-rice crops was rotated with puddled transplanted rice. In the legume-dominated system (rice-lentil-mung bean), lentil yields were similar in SP and CT, while lower in BP in crop season 1. A positive effect of high residue over low residue was apparent by crop season 2 and persisted in crop season 3. In crop season 3, the lentil yield increased in SP and BP compared to CT. In the cereal-dominated system (rice-wheat-mung bean), significant yield increases of wheat in SP and BP over CT, and of HR over LR, were found by crop season 3 but not before. Rice yields under CA practices (non-puddled and HR) were comparable with CT (puddled and LR) in both systems.
This paper looks at Permanent Raised Beds (PRB) a form of NT on ridges and furrows for their potential to conserve soil and water resources. In this 6-year field study with a maize-wheat rotation in the North China Plains on the soil's hydraulic properties of no-tillage (NT) and traditional tillage (TT) on flat fields and no-till PRB treatments were assessed. Soil samples were taken from 0-15 and 15-30 cm depth. Total porosity and SOC under PRB were significantly improved compared to TT . Changes in the slope (b) of the soil water retention characteristic curve under the PRB treatment were indicative of an improvement in the pore size distribution, increased soil water retention, and greater infiltration rates. In addition, positive changes in lateral water infiltration from furrow irrigation were observed under PRB. They conclude that the application of PRB and the principles of conservation agriculture have potential for effective water use efficiency and for improving the quality of soil.
This 2-year study in Hawaii had 3 treatments: 1) Black Oats (BO) as a pre-plant cover crop followed by no-till (NT); 2) bare ground (BG) followed by conventional tillage (CT); and 3) BG followed by soil solarization (SOL). Various soil properties and the soil food web structure using nematodes as soil health indicators were monitored throughout the subsequent corn crops. SOL served as a negative control pre-plant treatment known to manage plant-parasitic nematodes but be destructive to the soil food web. No-till cropping with BO resulted in higher levels of volumetric soil moisture, field capacity, and soil organic matter, and supported a fungal-dominated decomposition pathway in trial I and more structured nematode communities than BG and SOL in trial II. No-till cropping with BO in Oxisol decreased the soil macroporosity and increased the soil bulk density, which were not favorable outcomes for water infiltration. SOL following conventional tillage was successful in generating lethal temperatures to suppress plant-parasitic nematodes and increased water infiltration in both years but was destructive to the soil food web and reduced the soil organic matter and soil moisture in both years
This article was selected because it covers crop rotation (CR), one of the pillars of CA, affects on soil organic carbon (SOC). The study used 513 pairwise data from 167 global studies and did a meta-analysis to look at the role of CR on SOC content. Their results showed that CR overall enhanced SOC content by 6.6%. SOC content increased more in regions with intermediate mean annual temperature and precipitation. CR had greater impact on SOC in neutral soil pH, loamy texture and medium levels of initial SOC and total N. CR also performed better for SOC in soybean -based cropping systems with more rotation cycles, longer rotation length, medium N use, and where NT, residue retention, and organic fertilizer was used. They concluded that their study helps establish and manage site-specific CR systems that could enhance SOC in agroecosystems, ultimately facilitating carbon neutrality.
The objective of this study was to determine spatio-temporal dynamics of soil hydraulic properties and pore characteristics on a silt loam long-term tillage field experiment, in NE Spain, during two cropping years. Undisturbed soil samples were used to determine soil water retention, and soil hydraulic conductivity curves in two different tillage systems (intensive tillage, IT vs no-tillage, NT), two crop sequences (short fallow-maize, FM vs legume-maize, LM) and two positions (within the crop row W-row vs between the crop rows B-row). This study shows that LM increases specific hydraulic conductivity of soil macroporosity by increasing the number of effective macropores and the effective porosity. Further, long-term NT formed a stable number of effective macropores and coarse mesopores, and showed a greater pore continuity in coarse and fine mesopores, resulting in improved soil water flux.
This field experiment had three treatments 1) no-till or rotary tillage under the maize-wheat-soybean-wheat system (NT-MWSW, RT-MWSW); 2) no-till or rotary tillage under the maize-wheat system (NT-MW, RT-MW), and 3) no-till or rotary tillage under the soybean-wheat system (NT-SW, RT-SW)] in the North China Plain (NCP) to assess their effects on aggregation and SOC. Results showed that macroaggregates (> 0.25 mm) were the main contributors to the soil carbon (C) pool. NT increased not only the proportion of macroaggregates but also aggregate stability. Significant positive effects from soybeans were observed under NT. The conversion rate of straw C input under NT-SW was higher than that in other treatments. The total potential mineralization of macroaggregates under NT legume-based crop rotations was higher than that of MW.
This paper evaluated CA as practiced by farmers and compared farmer understanding of soil health in three East African countries. CA and non-CA fields were compared by sampling for 2-3 years. CA and non-CA fields were located close, on soils with the same texture, growing similar crops. Most of the CA fields were planted in basins. Farmers and technicians collected the data together. Farmers said that CA improved hoe-ability, crusting, smell and water infiltration. Fields under the CA treatment had a higher probability of rating better than non-CA fields. The paper discusses both benefits and drawbacks of using participatory, on-farm research. They conclude that farmer participation as citizen scientists will advance soil restoration in East Africa and increase the potential for farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchange of soil-improving practices.
This paper looks at 14 bread and 13 durum wheat varieties for yield and agronomic performance under different tillage and irrigation treatments. The authors suggest that genotype × tillage effects on yield are not well understood and it is unclear whether tillage should be an evaluation factor in breeding programs. The treatments used were conventional and permanent raised beds (no-till on beds) with full and reduced irrigation. Data was collected on an array of different traits including days to emergence, flowering, maturity and various harvest traits. Six years of data of 26 genotypes were published along with the Honsdorf et al. (2018) paper in Field Crops Research (DOI: s10.1016/j.fcr.2017.11.011). This updated dataset includes three additional seasons of data (harvest years 2016 to 2018) and an additional bread wheat genotype (Borlaug100).



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