Search Results (26)

Making effective decisions about scaling up on-farm irrigation practices to the district level requires a comprehensive assessment of irrigation management at the farm level. In this context, a bucket-type water mass balance model was developed, calibrated, and validated over five irrigation seasons on a 121-hectare rice farm located in the lower Ter River valley (north-east Spain), to assess the water use efficiency and the impact of different irrigation practices on water savings. The model was implemented considering the spatial variability of the soils within the farm. It showed a satisfactory performance in both the calibration (2020, 2021, 2022) and validation (2023, 2024) cropping seasons, with NSE values greater than 0.50, PBIAS lower than ±20%, and RSR lower than 0.70. After model validation, the simulation of alternative water management practices revealed that the 10-day fixed-turn irrigation reduced irrigation water use by 30% compared to the traditional water management, although it may negatively impact rice yield. Simulations of an early irrigation cut-off at the end of the season and dry seeding with delayed flooding accounted for 17% and 15% irrigation water savings, respectively. The implementation of the no-runoff practice only accounted for a 6% reduction in water use. The water-saving potential of the simulated strategies was mainly driven by shortening the flooded period of rice paddies, thus demonstrating that managing the ponding water level is critical to diminishing water use in rice irrigation. Full article

This study investigates the potential of utilizing livestock waste and vineyard residues for sustainable energy production in Portugal. Through the physical and chemical characterization of swine waste, grape seeds and skins, cork powder, sawdust, and biochar, 53 distinct samples, including 11 individual biomasses and their derived mixtures, were analyzed to identify optimal combinations for biofuel pellet production. The best-performing mixture, composed of 50% swine waste, 25% grape seeds and skins, and 25% cork powder, achieved a Lower Heating Value (LHV) of 18.34 MJ/kg and low ash content, qualifying it as a class B pellet. This mixture offers significant energy potential while minimizing environmental impacts. The research also presents three energy valorization scenarios, with the most balanced scenario meeting up to 6% of Portugal’s electricity demand and providing energy savings equivalent to 485,463 tons of oil equivalent (toe) annually. A case study on a “Case Study Farm” in the Douro region, managing 2000 pigs and producing 500 tons of wine grapes annually, demonstrated that implementing the optimal biomass mixture could generate 3854 MWh of heat and 1156 MWh of electricity per year. This could result in annual revenues of EUR 189,258 from pellet sales, covering the initial investment of EUR 283,938 within 6.36 years, with a total surplus of EUR 689,666 over 20 years. These findings highlight the economic viability and environmental benefits of converting agricultural waste into renewable energy, contributing to Portugal’s carbon neutrality and reducing energy dependence. Full article

Crop yields remain significantly low in underdeveloped countries, such as Pakistan, primarily due to the prevalent use of traditional farming methods by most farmers. Resource-saving strategies, like ridge and raised flat bed systems, could boost water use efficiency and production per acre. However, further research is needed to investigate the effectiveness of these methods, along with different levels of soil moisture depletion (SMD), on wheat development in the climatic conditions of Sindh Province. Thus, field trials were undertaken at Sindh Agriculture University’s Tandojam for two years (2022 and 2023) during the wheat growing seasons. The experiment included six treatments, viz., T1 (raised flat bed method under 40% depletion), T2 (ridge method under 40% depletion), T3 (raised flat bed method under 50% depletion), T4 (ridge method under 50% depletion), T5 (raised flat bed method under 60% depletion), and T6 (ridge method under 60% depletion). The bed planter was employed to make raised flat beds, and the ridges were prepared using a ridge planter. Wheat variety (TJ-83) was sown. Under all treatments, the plant population, plant height, and seed index were statistically significant (p < 0.05), although spike length, grain spikes⁻¹, and grain weight spikes⁻¹ were non-significant at different SMD levels. To compute water saving through the ridge and raised flat methods, the recommended delta value for wheat crops under the traditional method was used as a benchmark. Both irrigation technologies conserve water compared to traditional irrigation methods. The T5 treatment conserved the most water, followed by T6. Under a 60% depletion level, the ridge approach produced the highest yield of 2175 kg ha⁻¹, compared to 601 kg ha⁻¹ with the raised flat bed method. The best crop water productivity (CWP) of 1.34 kg m⁻³ was achieved under T6, whereas raised flat beds attained the lowest CWP of 0.27 kg m⁻³ under T1. In terms of wheat grain production and CWP, the ridge furrow method outperformed the raised flat bed furrow method. Based on the results, it is recommended that farmers should use the ridge furrow method and allow a 60% depletion of soil moisture to obtain a high yield of wheat crops. Full article

The Philippines is an archipelagic country composed of different indigenous cultural communities (ICCs) spread across various islands. Indigenous peoples (IP) often face marginalization and lack access to the same resources available in lowland areas, creating inequality and barriers to their well-being and development. This study documents the indigenous knowledge systems and practices of the Matigsalog and Ata tribes in Davao City, focusing on their unique agricultural techniques, rituals, and conservation practices. Furthermore, we assessed their current livelihood options and explored opportunities for government support to improve their well-being. A focus group discussion was used to assess the knowledge and perception of participants from the Matigsalog tribe (N = 42) and Ata tribe (N = 15) of Davao City. Validation of the study took place separately through a brief presentation of the results before 15 members of the tribes and a hiking visit to their farmlands. The study determined the existing livelihoods in the two areas, which were mainly agricultural, farming of crops (rice, corn, cassava, sweet potato) and fruit trees (coconut, banana, durian, jackfruit, pomelo) and the community’s resources as well as knowledge, systems, and practices with regard to agricultural crops including climate change. Their sustainable farming practices include intercropping, seed-saving, and exchange practices, preserving these crop varieties and ensuring their availability for future planting seasons, with no usage of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. In conclusion, the tribe’s aspirations and the resulting recommendations are consolidated to facilitate and enhance governmental assistance in a more focused and efficient manner. Full article

Cover crops, as either a living plant or mulch, can suppress weeds by reducing weed germination, emergence and growth, either through direct competition for resources, allelopathy, or by providing a physical barrier to emergence. Farmers implementing conservation agriculture, organic farming, or agroecological principles are increasingly adopting cover crops as part of their farming strategy. However, cover crop adoption remains limited by poor and/or unstable establishment in dry conditions, the weediness of cover crop volunteers as subsequent cash crops, and seed costs. This study is the first to review the scientific literature on seed traits of cover crops to identify the key biotic and abiotic factors influencing germination and early establishment (density, biomass, cover). Knowledge about seed traits would be helpful in choosing suitable cover crop species and/or mixtures adapted to specific environments. Such information is crucial to improve cover crops’ establishment and growth and the provision of ecosystem services, while allowing farmers to save seeds and therefore money. We discuss how to improve cover crop establishment by seed priming and coating, and appropriate seed sowing patterns and depth. Here, three cover crop families, namely, Poaceae, Brassicaceae, and Fabaceae, were examined in terms of seed traits and response to environmental conditions. The review showed that seed traits related to germination are crucial as they affect the germination timing and establishment of the cover crop, and consequently soil coverage uniformity, factors that directly relate to their suppressive effect on weeds. Poaceae and Brassicaceae exhibit a higher germination percentage than Fabaceae under water deficit conditions. The seed dormancy of some Fabaceae species/cultivars limits their agricultural use as cover crops because the domestication of some wild ecotypes is not complete. Understanding the genetic and environmental regulation of seed dormancy is necessary. The appropriate selection of cover crop cultivars is crucial to improve cover crop establishment and provide multiple ecosystem services, including weed suppression, particularly in a climate change context. Full article

This study was conducted to evaluate the management of smart irrigation in grain maize production (KSC 715 cultivar) at the Seed and Plant Improvement Institute (SPII) located in Karaj, Iran, in the year 2020. Irrigation was performed based on 40% moisture discharge farm capacity and was compared with irrigation based on long-term meteorological statistics that have become common in the field (drip irrigation system, type strip, and determining the irrigation time based on the apparent reaction of the plant). The experimental results showed that under the conditions of smart irrigation management, sensitive phenological stages of the plant occur earlier, and the field is ready to be harvested approximately one month earlier; moreover, 35% of irrigation water consumption can be saved. Water consumption decreased from 8839.5 to 5675.67 m³/ha; in addition, grain yield and water productivity decreased. Although the moisture stress applied in the intelligent irrigation system completed the plant phenology period faster and due to earlier harvest, irrigation water consumption was decreased by 35%, water productivity was reduced. Finally, it seems that by adjusting the drought stress application time in more tolerant stages of maize growth in future studies and experiments, it will be possible to decrease irrigation water consumption while increasing the physical productivity of water. Full article

Seed-borne fungi are solemn and deleterious pathogens capable of causing significant losses of quantity and quality losses in maize seeds and seedlings. They infect the crop at all points of the production chain from farms to stores. A yield loss of up to 50% can be encountered. Currently, chemical control of the disease is being implemented, though it is accompanied by several negative effects. This study aimed at identifying seed-borne fungi of maize and effective management options. A deep-freezing blotter method and morphological identification of the fungal species were implemented. The seed-borne fungi detected were Fusarium verticillioides, Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus niger, Penicillium spp., Rhizopus spp., and Curvularia spp. However, in farmer-saved seeds, fungal incidences were significantly higher (p < 0.01) than in certified seeds. To identify more effective management options, the efficacy of water and ethanol-extracted bio-fungicides from three plant species, namely, neem (Azadirachta indica), ginger (Zingiber officinale), and coffee (Coffea arabica) were evaluated. From in vitro assays, ethanol-extracted bio-fungicides have a 100% inhibitory effect on fungal growth, whilst the inhibitory effects of water-extracted bio-fungicides are 55.88% (Azadirachta indica) and 46.31% (Zingiber officinale), followed by 5.15% (Coffea arabica). For the case of an in vivo assay, maize seeds treated with water-extracted bio-fungicides have higher seed germination and seedling vigor percentages. For germination, seeds treated with water-extracted bio-fungicides have higher percentages (neem and ginger (90%) followed by coffee (72.5%)) than ethanol-extracted bio-fungicides (neem (0%), ginger (2.5%), and coffee (0%)). A similar observation is made for seedling weight. Therefore, the tested water-extracted bio-fungicides can be used in treating seeds before sowing them. Further studies on effective methods of extracting bioactive compounds, and improving their shelf life, are recommended. Full article

Direct seeding has been widely adopted in rice production due to its advantages of water- and labor-saving characteristics in China and other countries. This study aims to examine the effects of farmers’ adoption of direct seeding on the yield and fertilizer use in rice production in China. Using survey data of 1002 rice farmers in the Yangtze River Basin in China, the endogenous switching regression model is used to address the self-selectivity bias from both observed and unobserved heterogeneity. The results show that about 79% of surveyed farmers adopted direct seeding in rice production. After addressing the self-selectivity bias, the adoption of direct seeding increased rice yield among the adopters by 3.65%, and would have increased rice yield among the non-adopters by 1.54% if direct seeding had been adopted. In addition to its positive effect on rice yield, however, the adoption of direct seeding was also found to increase fertilizer use among the adopters by 19.84%, and would have increased fertilizer use among the non-adopters by 37.75% if direct seeding had been adopted. Moreover, farmers’ adoption of direct seeding exerted heterogeneous effects on rice yield and fertilizer use in terms of farm size and location. Full article

The objective of this study is to examine the impact of land fragmentation in rice production on household food insecurity in Vietnam. This study provides the first evidence on the effect of land fragmentation on household food insecurity in rice production. This study uses a relatively rich panel dataset of rice farming households across different regions from the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) 2012, 2014, and 2016. The research applies the ordered probit model to identify land fragmentation and other factors affecting household food insecurity at different food insecurity levels. Findings indicate that land fragmentation and rice seed types are positively correlated with household food insecurity. Importantly, the odds of an increase of 1% fragmentation land index increase the probability of household food insecurity at a very high level of 4.79% after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity. Other factors such as total cultivated area, access to credit, and household savings help reduce household food insecurity. These findings suggest that the government needs to foster the process of consolidating fragmented rice plots to help households produce efficiently and reduce food insecurity for their families. In addition, other approaches such as increasing farm size for each rice farmer and access to credit can increase the probability of food security for rural households in Vietnam. Full article

Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) is a robust legume; nevertheless, yield is always affected by drought, especially when it occurs during reproductive growth and seed filling. Considered a key crop in the effort to attain food security, and a suitable crop for a scenario of climate change, modern disregard for cowpea landraces is particularly detrimental as it causes genetic variability loss, compromising breeding efforts. To contribute to the evaluation of the cowpea germplasm, four Portuguese landraces (L1, L2, L3, L4) were compared with a commercial variety (CV) to evaluate their physiological responses to terminal drought and their inter-variation on productivity, under semi-controlled conditions. Despite no differences in relative water content (RWC) between the CV and the landraces under water deficit (WD), differences in leaf water potential (Ψ) defined the CV as having an isohydric control of stomata in contrast with anisohydric control for landraces. There was an identical decrease in the photosynthetic rate for all plants under stress, caused by both stomatal and non-stomatal limitations, namely, damages at the level of photosystem II as indicated by fluorescence measurements. Instantaneous water use efficiency (iWUE) was improved with stress in L1 and L3. Maintenance of higher relative chlorophyll content for longer periods in the CV revealed a stay-green phenotype. The slim differences observed in terms of stomatal control, iWUE and progression of senescence between the CV and the landraces under WD led to quite important differences in terms of productivity, as inferred from improved yield (number of pods and number of grains per plant). This is a clear result of pragmatic on-farm selection. On one hand it shows that small differences in stomatal responses or water saving strategies under WD may lead to desirable outcomes and should therefore be considered during breeding. On the other hand, it suggests that other traits could be explored in view of drought adaptation. These results highlight the need to preserve and characterize as many genetic pools as possible within a species. Full article

This study evaluates how much technology adoption could cost in a variety of crop-production scenarios. Cost-reduction simulations consider scenarios of higher input use efficiency such as reducing the usage of diesel, labor, irrigation, fertilizer, herbicide, and seed, among others. The scenarios aim to increase yields by integrating the effect of each input-reduction on the total operating costs. Agricultural production estimates for Nebraska in the US indicates that a technology that saves 1% of diesel is cost-effective, costing between USD 0.15/ha and USD 0.32/ha (for corn). Improvements on input use efficiency should be prioritized to incentivize technology development and adoption. This study balances input costs and crop production, allowing the identification of adoption cost thresholds tailored to specific farming scenarios. It also enabled interpretations regarding optimal scenarios for technology adoption. In addition, this study indicates that irrigated systems foster the adoption of technologies more than in dryland cropping systems. Full article

The tractor is a vehicle often used in agriculture. It is mainly used to tow other unpowered agricultural machinery for farming, harvesting, and seeding. They consume a lot of fuel with emissions that often contain a large amount of toxic gases, which seriously jeopardize human health and the ecological environment. Therefore, the electrical tractor is bound to become a future trend. The objective of this study is to design and implement a lightweight, energy-saving, and less polluting electric tractor, which meets the requirements of existing smallholder farmers, equipped with unmanned technology and multi-functions to assist labor and to provide the potential for unmanned operation. We reduced the weight of the tractor body structure to 101 kg, and the bending rigidity and torsional rigidity reached 11,579 N/mm and 4923 Nm/deg, respectively. Two 7.5 kW induction motors driven by lithium batteries were applied, which allows at least 3.5 h of working time. Full article

To meet policy goals targeting increasing the share of organic agriculture, an organic seed needs to be provided. Currently, this is far from being the case. This study investigates two cases of important crop country combinations in organic agriculture, namely perennial ryegrass in South-West England and durum wheat in Italy. A novel multi-agent value chain approach was developed to assess public and private-sector interventions aiming at increasing organic seed use. Phasing out of derogations for non-organic seed comes with 2–7% gross margin losses at the farm level. Seed producers and breeders profit by 9–24%. Mitigating measures can be subsidies of 28 €/ha or price premiums of 12 €/ton at the farm gate for durum wheat, in the case of durum wheat in Italy, and subsidies of 13 €/ha or price premiums of 70 €/ton for lamb meat, in the case of perennial ryegrass in England. Further mitigating measures are the promotion of farm-saved durum wheat seed and investments in breeding for better nitrogen efficiency in organic perennial ryegrass seed production. Full article

This article engages with the resistance against the global erosion of seed diversity following the modernization and industrialization of agriculture over the 20th century. This resistance spans from local farming communities that preserve and safeguard traditional landraces to international movements which oppose proprietary seed regulations and promote free sharing of seeds. The article focuses on the latter and presents a study of the open source seed movement: an initiative to apply strategies from the open source software movement to ensure the free circulation of seeds. The erosion of seed diversity can be seen not only as a loss of genetic diversity but also a memory loss where traditional, collective knowledge about how to grow certain landraces is forgotten. Consequently, the open source seed movement is not only about saving seeds but also about preserving and revitalizing local and traditional ecological knowledge against privatization and enclosure through intellectual property rights. The aim of this article is, thus, to analyze the open source seed movement as an act of revitalization in relation to intellectual property rights and in the context of information politics. Full article

Intensive agriculture is among the main drivers of diversity decline worldwide. In Central Europe, pressures related with agriculture include habitat loss due to the consolidation of farming units, pesticide and fertilizer use, and shortened crop rotations. In recent decades, this development has resulted in a severe decline of agrestal plant communities. Organic farming has been suggested as a biodiversity friendly way of farming, as it strongly restricts the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers and relies on longer crop rotations. It may thus help in saving agrestal plant communities in the future. In this study, we assessed the long-term effects of three types of arable field management (conventional farming, organic farming, and bio-dynamic farming) on three farms in the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein, Northern Germany. We collected data on above-ground plant communities and seed banks and analyzed them with regards to the impact of the farming system and their position in the field using nonmetric multi-dimensional scaling (NMDS) and linear mixed effects models (LME) combined with ANOVA and Tukey contrast tests. Plants in organically or bio-dynamically managed fields differed in their composition and traits from those occurring in conventionally managed fields, i.e., they showed a preference for higher temperatures and were dominated by insect-pollinated species. While conventional farming had negative effects on vegetation and the seed bank, organic and bio-dynamic farms had neutral or slightly positive effects on both. This highlights the potential of the latter two to conserve species even in an intensively managed landscape. In addition, this may halt or even reverse the decrease in arthropod, bird, and mammal species, since agrestal plants constitute an important component of food-webs in agricultural landscapes. Full article