The Role of Cover Crops in North American Cropping Systems

SUMMARY

The benefits of cover crops in cropping systems have long been recognized. Legumes have historically been used lo provide biologically fixed nitrogen to cash crops, and it has been shown that soil erosion can be slowed significantly with even minimal amounts of soil cover during vulnerable times of year. The role of cover crops in North American farming systems is expanding to include management of weeds, disease and pests, and overall enhancement of soil quality through organic matter enrichment, improved nutrient cycling and reduction of soil compaction. While the predominant temporal niche for cover crops in North America remains the winter, other opportunities in diverse cropping systems exist for cover crop inclusion, such as summer fallow, living mulches or full-year fallow crops. To date, the use of cover crops is constrained by economic, biological, and farm operational factors, but farmer education, continued research, and government policy changes can aid in overcoming existing barriers to adoption.     

Improving Soil Quality

Abstract

Future advancements in crop production will rely on increased understanding of ecological principles that control interactions among cropping system components. Our interest in linking soil quality and weed management derives from the belief that greater understanding of key processes and properties that define soil-weed relationships will lead to the design of agroecosystems with greater capacity and opportunity to suppress weeds. We identified seed-bank persistence, seedling establishment, and interspecific interference as key processes that affect annual weed population dynamics. We then examined how soil processes and properties can affect each of these factors and how, in turn, soil-improving management practices and cropping system design may affect weed dynamics. We established weed-related soil management objectives as: (i) reducing the persistence of seeds in the soil; (ii) reducing the abundance of safe-sites for weed establishment and the filling of available sites; and (iii) reducing crop yield loss caused by a given density of weeds. Soil factors that can be managed to achieve these goals include: (i) chemical, physical, and biological conditions that affect resources required for weed seed germination, establishment and growth; (ii) habitat for herbivores and pathogens that attack weed seeds and seedlings; and (iii) phytotoxin production. We concluded that many as yet unexplored opportunities exist to manipulate the soil environment and to design cropping systems that create multiple weed suppressive conditions at critical junctures of weed seed-bank persistence, establishment, and interference.     

Weed Seed Bank Dynamics

Summary

Weeds continue to have major impacts on crop production in spite of efforts to eliminate them. Most weed species rely on seed for regeneration and persistence. The species composition and density of weed seed in the soil vary greatly and are closely linked to the cropping history of the land. Altering tillage practices changes patterns of soil disturbance and weed seed depth in the soil, which plays a role in weed species shifts. Crop rotation and weed control practices also impact the weed seed bank in the soil. Information on the weed seed bank should be a useful tool for integrated weed management. Decision aid models are being developed that use information on the composition of the weed seed bank to estimate weed populations, crop yield loss, and to recommend weed control tactics. Understanding weed seed bank dynamics can also be used to guide management practices. Improving and applying our understanding of weed seed and seed bank dynamics is essential to developing improved weed management systems.     

Allelopathy and Its Implications in Agroecosystems

Summary

Allelopathy includes both positive and negative effects of one plant on the other through environment, though most of the studies seem to focus on its deleterious impacts. It plays a key role in both natural and managed ecosystems. In agroecosystems, several weeds, crops, agroforestry trees and fruit trees have been shown to exert allelopathic influence on the crops, thus, affecting their germination and growth adversely. Some of the agricultural and horticultural crops affect their own seedlings grown in succession which is commonly known as replant problem/syndrome. Available studies indicate that allelochemicals act via bringing certain changes in physiological functions like respiration, photosynthesis and ion uptake. These, in turn, result in visible changes in seed germination, further growth reduction and overall performance of the target plants. The studies on interplant interactions assume significance in agroforestry programmes for selecting the types of crops complementary to the selective tree species. In the recent past, however, scientific attention has also been drawn to exploit the positive significant roles this phenomenon can play in enhancing crop productivity. In this context, we discuss the tremendous scope of allelopathy towards weed and pest management, apart from nitrogen conservation, and synthesis of novel agrochemicals based on natural product chemistry. The use of natural products of plant or microbial origin as pesticides/herbicides have gained much attention of the scientists as they offer many advantages over synthetic chemicals. The production of such chemicals should be enhanced by devising suitable protocols based on biotechnological procedures for their widespread utilization.     

The Ecology of Crop-Weed Interactions

Summary

Understanding the ecology of crop-weed interactions includes a wide array of population and community ecology theory. The first thorough application of theory in Weed Ecology was predicting weed impacts on crops. The generality of crop yield response to weeds has been well supported with a wealth of empirical studies, however, inclusion of these models into weed management decision support systems (DSS) has been less fruitful. Parameterization of the empirical models has indicated extreme variability over space and time, even in experimental plots. Thus, further development and implementation of ecologically based weed management must depend on understanding sources of crop response variation, understanding complexity of interactions among the many sources of variation, and the realization that forecasting crop response will always have some level of uncertainty. Ecological theory may help us understand how to best construct conceptual and predictive models of crop-weed communities to accomplish our applied goals.     

Genetic Diversity in Crop Improvement

SUMMARY

The use of genetic diversity to form modern crops is one of the most remarkable accomplishments of agriculture. Even in the age of genomics, genetic diversity remains the cornerstone of crop improvement. There is extensive diversity in soybean and its ancestors. Much of this diversity has been collected though opportunities to extend collections remain. Genetic diversity has been used extensively in Asian breeding but utilization of exotic germplasm has been limited in North America. Capturing the value of diversity is easy for some traits but quite difficult for other traits, such as yield. New procedures and technology may greatly facilitate understanding and effective use of these exotic yield alleles. For the foreseeable future though, progress in capturing yield value from exotic germplasm through traditional breeding will continue to outstrip our scientific understanding of the alleles themselves. Public institutions will need to facilitate access to germplasm to increase utilization of diversity so it favorably impacts humanity.     

Cloacal papillomatosis in the absence of herpesvirus and papillomavirus in a sulphur-crested cockatoo (Cacatua galerita)

CASE HISTORY A 21-year-old male sulphur-crested cockatoo (Cacatua galerita) was presented following the sudden appearance of blood associated with the passage of faeces and urates.

CLINICAL AND PATHOLOGICAL FINDINGS: There was fresh blood-staining of the feathers around the vent. The dorsal mucosal wall of the proctodeum was erythematous and roughened in appearance. An endoscopic biopsy was performed, and histological examination revealed multiple fronds of epithelium; the mucosa varied from simple to pseudostratified columnar epithelium, with diffuse hyperplasia of goblet cells. The underlying connective tissue stroma was well vascularised and was infiltrated with mixed inflammatory cells, comprising granulocytic cells and macrophages. PCR testing for both herpesvirus and papillomavirus, using consensus primers, was negative.

DIAGNOSIS: Cloacal papillomatosis.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE: This case manifested typical clinical signs and histological lesions of cloacal papillomatosis in the absence of demonstrable herpesvirus or papillomavirus. Veterinarians need to consider this disease in the differential diagnosis of blood in the droppings of parrots and cockatoos even in countries where psittacine herpesviruses are exotic diseases.     

广东省茶叶主产区杂草防控技术及成本研究

【目的】明确广东省茶叶主产区杂草防控策略与成本,为控草技术研发、改进和推广提供参考依据。【方法】通过调查问卷和实地走访相结合的方式,对广东省茶叶主产区茶企(茶农)所采用控草方式、次数、成本和期望成本,以及对绿色控草技术的认知度与接受程度等进行调查。【结果】结果表明,广东省茶叶主产区控草策略以人工除草为主(93.94%),机械除草次之(42.93%),化学除草约占8.59%,而绿色控草技术如覆盖稻草、覆盖防草布、间作绿肥等仅占4.55%～7.07%。年均控草成本11507.55元/hm2,平均除草次数4.16次,期望年均控草成本6512.55元/hm~2。各项控草技术中,纯化学农药控草年均成本最低,约为2 805元/hm~2,纯人工控草年均成本最高,约为12 525元/hm~2,人工+绿肥、人工+地膜(防草布)等绿色控草模式成本介于7 500～8 985元/hm~2。绿色控草技术接受程度为84%,实际使用率不到10%。【结论】广东省茶叶主产区以人工除草为主,成本偏高,茶企(茶农)接受绿色控草技术意愿高,但实际使用率偏低。因此需进一步简化现有绿色控草技术实施难度,制定杂草防控规程,并加强绿色控草技术的宣传和推广。     

人字形板式换热器流道传热特性及参数优化

为实现田间条件下快速、准确识别棉花与杂草,该文以自然光照下田间棉花与杂草为研究对象,采用垂直向下拍摄的方式获取棉花杂草视频,按1帧/s的速率从视频中提取图像,在人工去除冗余度过多的图片后,建立1 000幅图片的数据集。对比了Faster R-CNN和YOLOv3 2种典型卷积神经网络,将Faster R-CNN卷积神经网络的深度学习模型引入到棉花杂草图像识别中,并提出一种结构优化的方法,使之适用于复杂背景下的棉田杂草识别。该文选用残差卷积网络提取图像特征,Max-pooling 为下采样方法,RPN网络中引入特征金字塔网络生成目标候选框,对卷积神经网络结构进行优化。在使用700幅图片进行训练后,通过200 幅田间棉花杂草图像识别测试,结果表明：该方法的平均目标识别准确率达95.5%,识别单幅图像的平均耗时为1.51 s,采用GPU 硬件加速后识别单幅图像的平均耗时缩短为0.09 s。优化后的Faster R-CNN卷积神经网络相对于YOLOv3平均正确率MAP高0.3以上。特别是对于小目标对象,其平均正确率之差接近0.6。所提方法对复杂背景下棉花杂草有较好的检测效果,可为精确除草的发展提供参考。     

海南及粤西外来入侵植物假臭草染色体核型分析

对海南岛及粤西地区8个样区,3种生境（旷野、林缘和林中）假臭草（Praxelis clematidea）的染色体核型进行分析。结果表明,染色体均为二倍体,染色体数目2n=28。染色体核型表现为2A,2B,3B和3A。核型属较不对称类型,不同居群假臭草的居群亲缘关系与地理分布不完全一致,说明假臭草在入侵和传播过程中受到环境因子和人为干扰的影响较大。