Soil carbon balance of rice-based cropping systems of the Indo-Gangetic Plains

An agricultural land use system centred on rice-based cropping systems as common in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP), with its annual cycles of wet and dry, puddling and ploughing, is unique and exerts a specific influence on soil organic matter (SOM) dynamics. Reports of yield ‘stagnation’ in some parts of the IGP with a decline in SOM quantity and quality raises concerns about the sustainability of the rice-wheat system in the region. Proper understanding of the soil carbon balance and of measures required to build up or maintain the soil carbon status of such a production system is therefore important for its sustainable production. Long-term experiments conducted in this region are especially useful in gaining understanding of soil carbon dynamics, since the processes affecting carbon dynamics are slow in nature. We used a simple analytical model—Yang's model—to calculate carbon balances in the rice-based cropping systems of the IGP in India. We used eight data sets from rice-based cropping systems from different sub-regions in the IGP, with different crop managements applied to rice, wheat or a third crop. Carbon input into the soil from crop biomass was calculated using data on crop yield and Harvest Index (HI). The values of soil organic carbon content predicted by the model were comparable to the observed values (r = 0.91). The model performs well in situations with porous soils (low clay content), with a pH values in the neutral range (7-7.5) and low annual rainfall as in the situation of Ludhiana-1 and 2. However, it underperforms in situations with heavy clay soils with high rainfall, causing severe anaerobic conditions. The model projections for the long-term (by 2080) show a decline in SOC at all sites in the IGP. Hence, the yield stagnation in the IGP, which has been attributed to a decline in SOC and the associated reduction in nutrient supply, could lead to further decreases in SOC levels, aggravated by climate change-induced higher temperatures.     

浅析油稻轮作双免栽培模式下直播稻田杂草群落演替及综合治理策略

随着油稻轮作双免栽培模式的长期推广与应用,稻田耕作制度、栽培方式、水分管理、田间温室效应发生了相应的变化,稻田杂草害日益突出,草相更加复杂,稻田杂草的优势种群和群落演替较快,现已成为免耕直播稻生产上的一大灾害。针对油稻轮作双免栽培模式下直播稻田杂草种群的变化特点、发生演替的原因及杂草发生的态势作了具体分析,并提出了合理的治理策略。     

Nutrient use efficiencies and crop responses to N, P and manure applications in Zimbabwean soils: Exploring management strategies across soil fertility gradients

The spatial variability in crop yields commonly observed in smallholder farms of sub-Saharan Africa is often caused by gradients of declining soil fertility with increasing distance from the homestead. This heterogeneity means that recommendations based on regional soil surveys are of limited value. The variability in soil qualities within farms must be considered when designing management strategies, and their feasibility analysed by integrating results at the farm livelihood scale. For this purpose, we have developed the model FARMSIM, a dynamic bio-economic model for analysis and exploration of trade-offs in resource and labour allocation in heterogeneous smallholder farms. Focusing on farm-scale strategies, the approach to simulation of soil and crop processes in FARMSIM (the sub-model FIELD) is designed to be simple, but to keep the necessary degree of complexity to capture heterogeneity in resource use efficiencies. To test our approach, the sub-model FIELD was calibrated against chronosequences of woodland clearance in three agroecological zones of Zimbabwe (with soil textures of 3, 10, 35% clay), and used to simulate: (i) the creation of soil fertility gradients, and (ii) different strategies of N, P and manure applications to maize and soyabean rotations in homefields and outfields of smallholder farms on clayey and sandy soils. The results of the simulation of management strategies were tested against on-farm experimental data from Murewa, Zimbabwe. The model produced satisfactory predictions (r²: 0.6–0.9) of long-term changes in soil organic C, of crop responses to N and P and of nutrient use efficiencies across a wide range of yields and different field types. This demonstrated the broad applicability of the model despite the sparse data required for initialisation. However, the model results were less accurate in predicting crop responses to N and P applications in the outfields on sandy soils. Experimental evidence indicated yield limitation by Ca and Zn deficiencies in highly depleted outfields on sandy soils, which were not included mechanistically in the current version of FIELD. Repeated applications of 16 t ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ of manure allowed larger responses to applied N and P after 3 years of experimentation; such a corrective effect of manure was simulated to be due to improved N and P recovery efficiencies in the model. In combination with the experimental data, the simulation results suggested that soil fertility gradients affect nutrient use efficiencies, operating mostly on the efficiencies of nutrient capture rather than conversion. A typology of fields according to the type of management interventions needed is introduced, based on a generic application of FIELD with this parameterisation.     

Effect of long term crop rotations and rewetting of soil on stability

Abstract. Soils, of clay texture, were taken from two crop rotations in a long term trial, (i) maize - spring oats - maize, (ii) maize - spring oats - autumn oats - red clover, and from an adjacent uncropped fenceline. Wet sieving was preceded by wetting under vacuum, wetting under tension or by direct immersion. The undisturbed soil was the most stable; the inclusion of clover in the rotation improved aggregate stability. Direct immersion was most disruptive in disintegrating aggregates followed by vacuum and pre-wetting under tension.     

Tactical management of pasture fallows in Western Australian cropping systems

Agricultural systems in the Western Australian wheatbelt are increasingly moving towards specialist crop production due to elevated cereal prices, depressed markets for livestock products, and ongoing labour scarcity. However, the profitability of crop-only farms is threatened by increasing levels of herbicide resistance and declining soil fertility. This study determines the value of ungrazed pasture fallows grown tactically between crop phases to address these agronomic constraints. A novel metaheuristic optimisation technique, compressed annealing, is used to determine profitable flexible land-use sequences in a complex simulation model. Tactical use of single-year, ungrazed pasture phases is found to be more valuable than the use of break crops in crop-only systems. In contrast to previous analysis, it is identified that rotation of short periods of crop and pasture is more profitable than extended phases of both. Effective weed control without dependence on selective herbicides is the key agronomic characteristic determining the value of intermittent pasture phases. Accordingly, the number of single-year pasture phases employed in a sequence should increase with the severity of herbicide resistance. Compressed annealing is shown to be a practical method of identifying profitable land-use sequences that respond to information that unfolds dynamically.     

定西地区不同轮作田杂草生态位研究

为明确定西地区不同轮作田杂草生态位,采用倒置"W"九点取样法,对定西地区不同轮作田苗期杂草进行了调查。利用Levins生态位宽度指数和Schoener重叠指数对定西地区不同轮作田主要杂草生态位进行分析,了解不同轮作对农田杂草生态位的影响。研究表明:苦苣菜、藜的生态位宽度最大,在群落中处于绝对的优势地位,对农田危害严重。研究结果可以为农田杂草防治和建立合理的轮作顺序提供依据。     

Productivity and rotational benefits of grass, medic pastures and faba beans in a rainfall limited environment

This study was undertaken to ascertain whether pulses, instead of pasture legumes, were more beneficial to grain yields by the following cereals in ley rotation systems. We evaluated growth processes for pastures or pulses and growth and yields for the following sequential crops of wheat and barley in a 3-crop rotation. The pasture or pulse phase that formed the main treatments consisted of grass pastures (Grass), medics (Medic) or faba beans that was either green manured (Faba-gm) or harvested for grain (Faba-gr). The rotations were initiated in two phases with Phase 1 starting in 1994 and Phase 2 in 1995, and each phase ran over 2 rotation cycles lasting 6 years. Despite differences in dry matter (DM) produced in the shoots and roots by the pastures and faba beans in the first years, they had similar seasonal evapotranspiration (ET) so water stored in the 100 cm profile of the soil was always similar when wheat was planted. By contrast, inorganic N in soil at wheat planting was always higher in legume rotations than in Grass and these differences persisted to the barley crop. Cereals in rotations with faba beans (Faba-gr and Faba-gm) produced more DM and grains than in Grass. In only 2 out of 8 croppings of cereals did wheat or barley in Medic out-yield those in Grass. These yield differences were not associated with uptake of soil N or use of soil-water by the cereals, but possibly due to lower levels of Pratylenchus neglectus in the soil under rotations with faba beans compared with pasture. Increased N supply after legumes or from fertilizer, however, increased grain protein in the cereals. This study showed that rotations with faba beans produced higher yields for the following cereals than with grassy or legume pastures, also green manuring of faba beans produced no advantage in yield for the cereals.     

Developing disease-suppressive soils through crop rotation and tillage management practices

A field laboratory was established in Prince Edward Island, Canada, to determine the effects of 2- and 3-year crop rotations, with conventional and minimum tillage treatments, on the severity of soilborne diseases of potato. The 2-year rotation consisted of spring barley and potato (cv. ‘Russet Burbank’), and the 3-year rotation was barley (undersown with red clover), red clover and potato. Examination of potato stem, stolon, and tuber tissues revealed significantly (P=0.05) lower levels of canker and black scurf caused by Rhizoctonia solani, in plants grown in 3-year vs. 2-year rotations. The severity of dry rot (Fusarium spp.) and silver scurf (Helminthosporium solani) was significantly (P=0.05) lower in tubers from plots managed with 3-year rotations and minimum tillage practices. Potato tubers harvested from 3-year rotational soils were significantly (P=0.05) less diseased than those from 2-year rotational soils following inoculation with Phytophthora erythroseptica, causal agent of pink rot. In greenhouse experiments using field soils from 2- and 3-year rotations, we found that potato plants growing in 3-year rotational soils were significantly (P=0.05) less diseased than those growing in 2-year rotational soils following inoculation with P. erythroseptica. Analysis of root zone bacteria recovered from the rhizosphere (exoroot) and potato root tissues (endoroot) showed that the greatest antibiosis activity inhibiting the growth of soilborne pathogens in vitro occurred in bacterial isolates recovered from the endoroot tissues of 3-year rotation crops under minimum tillage management. Our evidence supports the view that soil agroecosystems can be modified through rotation and conservation tillage practices to improve disease suppression by enhancing the antibiosis abilities of endophytic and root zone bacteria (endo- and exoroot).     

Infiltrability of an Oxisol in Paraná, Brazil as Influenced by Different Crop Rotations

Infiltrability of various soybean and maize rotations under conventional tillage and no-tillage was studied to evaluate these rotations with respect to soil conservation practices. Measurements were carried out with a rainfall simulator on an Oxisol in two trials in northern Paraná, Brazil.
Differences between rotations were greatest in the conventional tillage treatments and here maize/soybean rotations showed a higher infiltrability than continuous cropping. In the no-tillage treatments, there were hardly any significant differences. On the whole, rotations grown with maize at the time of measurement resulted in the lowest infiltrabilities. Tillage effects were of greater importance than rotation effects, infiltrability being consistently highest under no-tillage.
Soil surface sealing in dependence of the degree of soil cover was shown to be the prime factor governing infiltrability.     

Organic and mineral fertilization management improvements to a double-annual cropping system under humid Mediterranean conditions

The efficient use by crops of nitrogen from manures is an agronomic and environmental issue, mainly in double-annual forage cropping systems linked to livestock production. A six-year trial was conducted for a biennial rotation of four forage crops: oat-sorghum (first year) and ryegrass-maize (second year) in a humid Mediterranean area. Ten fertilization treatments were introduced: a control (without N); two minerals equivalent to 250 kg N ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ applied at sowing or as sidedressing; dairy cattle manure at a rate of 170, 250 and 500 kg N ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ and four treatments where the two lowest manure rates were supplemented with 80 or 160 kg mineral N ha⁻¹ year⁻¹. They were distributed according to a randomized block design with three blocks. The highest N mineral soil content was found in the summer of the third rotation, in plots where no manure was applied. The yearly incorporation of manure reduced, in successive cropping seasons, the amount of additional mineral N needed as sidedressing to achieve the highest yields. Besides, in the last two years, there was no need for mineral N application for the manure rate of 250 kg N ha⁻¹ year⁻¹. This amount always covered the oat-sorghum N uptake. In the ryegrass-maize sequence uptakes were as high as 336 kg N ha⁻¹ year⁻¹. In the medium term, the intermediate manure rate (250 kg N ha⁻¹ year⁻¹) optimizes nutrient recycling within the farming system, and it should be considered in the analysis of thresholds for N of organic origin to be applied to systems with high N demand.