7 CFR 201.18 - Other agricultural seeds (crop seeds).

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 3 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Other agricultural seeds (crop seeds). 201.18 Section 201.18 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Standards, Inspections, Marketing Practices), DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE (CONTINUED) FEDERAL SEED ACT FEDERAL SEED ACT REGULATIONS Labeling...

7 CFR 201.18 - Other agricultural seeds (crop seeds).

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 3 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Other agricultural seeds (crop seeds). 201.18 Section 201.18 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Standards, Inspections, Marketing Practices), DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE (CONTINUED) FEDERAL SEED ACT FEDERAL SEED ACT REGULATIONS Labeling...

7 CFR 201.18 - Other agricultural seeds (crop seeds).

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 3 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Other agricultural seeds (crop seeds). 201.18 Section 201.18 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Standards, Inspections, Marketing Practices), DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE (CONTINUED) FEDERAL SEED ACT FEDERAL SEED ACT REGULATIONS Labeling...

7 CFR 201.18 - Other agricultural seeds (crop seeds).

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 3 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Other agricultural seeds (crop seeds). 201.18 Section 201.18 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Standards, Inspections, Marketing Practices), DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE (CONTINUED) FEDERAL SEED ACT FEDERAL SEED ACT REGULATIONS Labeling...

7 CFR 201.18 - Other agricultural seeds (crop seeds).

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 3 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Other agricultural seeds (crop seeds). 201.18 Section 201.18 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Standards, Inspections, Marketing Practices), DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE (CONTINUED) FEDERAL SEED ACT FEDERAL SEED ACT REGULATIONS Labeling...

Topography Mediates the Influence of Cover Crops on Soil Nitrate Levels in Row Crop Agricultural Systems

PubMed Central

Ladoni, Moslem; Kravchenko, Alexandra N.; Robertson, G. Phillip

2015-01-01

Supplying adequate amounts of soil N for plant growth during the growing season and across large agricultural fields is a challenge for conservational agricultural systems with cover crops. Knowledge about cover crop effects on N comes mostly from small, flat research plots and performance of cover crops across topographically diverse agricultural land is poorly understood. Our objective was to assess effects of both leguminous (red clover) and non-leguminous (winter rye) cover crops on potentially mineralizable N (PMN) and NO3--N levels across a topographically diverse landscape. We studied conventional, low-input, and organic managements in corn-soybean-wheat rotation. The rotations of low-input and organic managements included rye and red clover cover crops. The managements were implemented in twenty large undulating fields in Southwest Michigan starting from 2006. The data collection and analysis were conducted during three growing seasons of 2011, 2012 and 2013. Observational micro-plots with and without cover crops were laid within each field on three contrasting topographical positions of depression, slope and summit. Soil samples were collected 4–5 times during each growing season and analyzed for NO3--N and PMN. The results showed that all three managements were similar in their temporal and spatial distributions of NO3 —N. Red clover cover crop increased NO3--N by 35% on depression, 20% on slope and 32% on summit positions. Rye cover crop had a significant 15% negative effect on NO3--N in topographical depressions but not in slope and summit positions. The magnitude of the cover crop effects on soil mineral nitrogen across topographically diverse fields was associated with the amount of cover crop growth and residue production. The results emphasize the potential environmental and economic benefits that can be generated by implementing site-specific topography-driven cover crop management in row-crop agricultural systems. PMID:26600462

Topography Mediates the Influence of Cover Crops on Soil Nitrate Levels in Row Crop Agricultural Systems.

PubMed

Ladoni, Moslem; Kravchenko, Alexandra N; Robertson, G Phillip

2015-01-01

Supplying adequate amounts of soil N for plant growth during the growing season and across large agricultural fields is a challenge for conservational agricultural systems with cover crops. Knowledge about cover crop effects on N comes mostly from small, flat research plots and performance of cover crops across topographically diverse agricultural land is poorly understood. Our objective was to assess effects of both leguminous (red clover) and non-leguminous (winter rye) cover crops on potentially mineralizable N (PMN) and [Formula: see text] levels across a topographically diverse landscape. We studied conventional, low-input, and organic managements in corn-soybean-wheat rotation. The rotations of low-input and organic managements included rye and red clover cover crops. The managements were implemented in twenty large undulating fields in Southwest Michigan starting from 2006. The data collection and analysis were conducted during three growing seasons of 2011, 2012 and 2013. Observational micro-plots with and without cover crops were laid within each field on three contrasting topographical positions of depression, slope and summit. Soil samples were collected 4-5 times during each growing season and analyzed for [Formula: see text] and PMN. The results showed that all three managements were similar in their temporal and spatial distributions of NO3-N. Red clover cover crop increased [Formula: see text] by 35% on depression, 20% on slope and 32% on summit positions. Rye cover crop had a significant 15% negative effect on [Formula: see text] in topographical depressions but not in slope and summit positions. The magnitude of the cover crop effects on soil mineral nitrogen across topographically diverse fields was associated with the amount of cover crop growth and residue production. The results emphasize the potential environmental and economic benefits that can be generated by implementing site-specific topography-driven cover crop management in row-crop

Development of CRISPR/Cas9 mediated virus resistance in agriculturally important crops.

PubMed

Khatodia, Surender; Bhatotia, Kirti; Tuteja, Narendra

2017-05-04

Clustered regulatory interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR associated nuclease 9 (Cas9) system of targeted genome editing has already revolutionized the plant science research. This is a RNA guided programmable endonuclease based system composed of 2 components, the Cas9 nuclease and an engineered guide RNA targeting any DNA sequence of the form N20-NGG for novel genome editing applications. The CRISPR/Cas9 technology of targeted genome editing has been recently applied for imparting virus resistance in plants. The robustness, wide adaptability, and easy engineering of this system has proved its potential as an antiviral tool for plants. Novel DNA free genome editing by using the preassembled Cas9/gRNA ribonucleoprotein complex for development of virus resistance in any plant species have been prospected for the future. Also, in this review we have discussed the reports of CRISPR/Cas9 mediated virus resistance strategy against geminiviruses by targeting the viral genome and transgene free strategy against RNA viruses by targeting the host plant factors. In conclusion, CRISPR/Cas9 technology will provide a more durable and broad spectrum viral resistance in agriculturally important crops which will eventually lead to public acceptance and commercialization in the near future.

Increasing plant diversity with border crops reduces insecticide use and increases crop yield in urban agriculture

PubMed Central

Shen, Yan-Jun; Ji, Xiang-Yun; Wu, Xiang-Wen; Zheng, Xiang-Rong; Cheng, Wei; Li, Jun; Jiang, Yao-Pei; Chen, Xin; Weiner, Jacob; Nie, Ming; Ju, Rui-Ting; Yuan, Tao; Tang, Jian-Jun; Tian, Wei-Dong; Zhang, Hao

2018-01-01

Urban agriculture is making an increasing contribution to food security in large cities around the world. The potential contribution of biodiversity to ecological intensification in urban agricultural systems has not been investigated. We present monitoring data collected from rice fields in 34 community farms in mega-urban Shanghai, China, from 2001 to 2015, and show that the presence of a border crop of soybeans and neighboring crops (maize, eggplant and Chinese cabbage), both without weed control, increased invertebrate predator abundance, decreased the abundance of pests and dependence on insecticides, and increased grain yield and economic profits. Two 2 year randomized experiments with the low and high diversity practices in the same locations confirmed these results. Our study shows that diversifying farming practices can make an important contribution to ecological intensification and the sustainable use of associated ecosystem services in an urban ecosystem. PMID:29792597

Increasing plant diversity with border crops reduces insecticide use and increases crop yield in urban agriculture.

PubMed

Wan, Nian-Feng; Cai, You-Ming; Shen, Yan-Jun; Ji, Xiang-Yun; Wu, Xiang-Wen; Zheng, Xiang-Rong; Cheng, Wei; Li, Jun; Jiang, Yao-Pei; Chen, Xin; Weiner, Jacob; Jiang, Jie-Xian; Nie, Ming; Ju, Rui-Ting; Yuan, Tao; Tang, Jian-Jun; Tian, Wei-Dong; Zhang, Hao; Li, Bo

2018-05-24

Urban agriculture is making an increasing contribution to food security in large cities around the world. The potential contribution of biodiversity to ecological intensification in urban agricultural systems has not been investigated. We present monitoring data collected from rice fields in 34 community farms in mega-urban Shanghai, China, from 2001 to 2015, and show that the presence of a border crop of soybeans and neighboring crops (maize, eggplant and Chinese cabbage), both without weed control, increased invertebrate predator abundance, decreased the abundance of pests and dependence on insecticides, and increased grain yield and economic profits. Two 2 year randomized experiments with the low and high diversity practices in the same locations confirmed these results. Our study shows that diversifying farming practices can make an important contribution to ecological intensification and the sustainable use of associated ecosystem services in an urban ecosystem. © 2018, Wan et al.

Introducing perennial biomass crops into agricultural landscapes to address water quality challenges and provide other environmental services: Integrating perennial bioenergy crops into agricultural landscapes

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Cacho, J. F.; Negri, M. C.; Zumpf, C. R.

The world is faced with a difficult multiple challenge of meeting nutritional, energy, and other basic needs, under a limited land and water budget, of between 9 and 10 billion people in the next three decades, mitigating impacts of climate change, and making agricultural production resilient. More productivity is expected from agricultural lands, but intensification of production could further impact the integrity of our finite surface water and groundwater resources. Integrating perennial bioenergy crops in agricultural lands could provide biomass for biofuel and potential improvements on the sustainability of commodity crop production. This article provides an overview of ways inmore » which research has shown that perennial bioenergy grasses and short rotation woody crops can be incorporated into agricultural production systems with reduced indirect land use change, while increasing water quality benefits. Current challenges and opportunities as well as future directions are also highlighted.« less

Crop Farm Employee. Agricultural Cooperative Training. Vocational Agriculture. Revised.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boyd, Chester; And Others

Designed for students enrolled in the Vocational Agricultural Cooperative Part-Time Training Program, this course of study contains 13 units for crop farm employees. Units include (examples of unit topics in parentheses): introduction (opportunities in farming, farming as a science, and farming in the United States), farm records (keeping farm…

GEOGLAM Crop Assessment Tool: Adapting from global agricultural monitoring to food security monitoring

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Humber, M. L.; Becker-Reshef, I.; Nordling, J.; Barker, B.; McGaughey, K.

2014-12-01

The GEOGLAM Crop Monitor's Crop Assessment Tool was released in August 2013 in support of the GEOGLAM Crop Monitor's objective to develop transparent, timely crop condition assessments in primary agricultural production areas, highlighting potential hotspots of stress/bumper crops. The Crop Assessment Tool allows users to view satellite derived products, best available crop masks, and crop calendars (created in collaboration with GEOGLAM Crop Monitor partners), then in turn submit crop assessment entries detailing the crop's condition, drivers, impacts, trends, and other information. Although the Crop Assessment Tool was originally intended to collect data on major crop production at the global scale, the types of data collected are also relevant to the food security and rangelands monitoring communities. In line with the GEOGLAM Countries at Risk philosophy of "foster[ing] the coordination of product delivery and capacity building efforts for national and regional organizations, and the development of harmonized methods and tools", a modified version of the Crop Assessment Tool is being developed for the USAID Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET). As a member of the Countries at Risk component of GEOGLAM, FEWS NET provides agricultural monitoring, timely food security assessments, and early warnings of potential significant food shortages focusing specifically on countries at risk of food security emergencies. While the FEWS NET adaptation of the Crop Assessment Tool focuses on crop production in the context of food security rather than large scale production, the data collected is nearly identical to the data collected by the Crop Monitor. If combined, the countries monitored by FEWS NET and GEOGLAM Crop Monitor would encompass over 90 countries representing the most important regions for crop production and food security.

Economic importance of bats in agriculture

USGS Publications Warehouse

Boyles, Justin G.; Cryan, Paul M.; McCracken, Gary F.; Kunz, Thomas H.

2011-01-01

White-nose syndrome (WNS) and the increased development of wind-power facilities are threatening populations of insectivorous bats in North America. Bats are voracious predators of nocturnal insects, including many crop and forest pests. We present here analyses suggesting that loss of bats in North America could lead to agricultural losses estimated at more than $3.7 billion/year. Urgent efforts are needed to educate the public and policy-makers about the ecological and economic importance of insectivorous bats and to provide practical conservation solutions.

An Analysis of the Impact of Heat Waves in Labor and Crop Productivity in the Agricultural Sector in California

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Castillo, F.; Wehner, M. F.; Gilless, J. K.

2017-12-01

California agriculture is an important economic activity for the state. California leads the nation in farms sales since 1950. In addition, agricultural employment in California reached approximately 410,000. Production of many fruits and vegetables is labor intensive and labor costs represent anywhere from 20% to 40% of total production costs. In additon, agricutlural production growth has been the highest for labor intensive crops such as berries (all types) and nuts. Given the importance of the agricultural sector and the labor component whithin it, the analysis of the impact of climate change on the agricultural sector of California becomes imperative. Heat waves are a weather related extreme that impact labor productivity, specially outdoor labor producitivity. We use crop production function analysis that incorporates socio economic variables such as crop prices, total acreage, production levels and harvest timiline with climate related variables such as an estimated Heat Index (HI) to analize the impact of heat waves on crop production via an impact on labor productivity for selected crops in the Central and Imperial Valleys in California. The analysis finds that the impact of heat waves varies by the degree of labor intensity of the crop and the relative intensity of the heat wave.

WEBGIS based CropWatch online agriculture monitoring system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, X.; Wu, B.; Zeng, H.; Zhang, M.; Yan, N.

2015-12-01

CropWatch, which was developed by the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth (RADI), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), has achieved breakthrough results in the integration of methods, independence of the assessments and support to emergency response by periodically releasing global agricultural information. Taking advantages of the multi-source remote sensing data and the openness of the data sharing policies, CropWatch group reported their monitoring results by publishing four bulletins one year. In order to better analysis and generate the bulletin and provide an alternative way to access agricultural monitoring indicators and results in CropWatch, The CropWatch online system based on the WEBGIS techniques has been developed. Figure 1 shows the CropWatch online system structure and the system UI in Clustering mode. Data visualization is sorted into three different modes: Vector mode, Raster mode and Clustering mode. Vector mode provides the statistic value for all the indicators over each monitoring units which allows users to compare current situation with historical values (average, maximum, etc.). Users can compare the profiles of each indicator over the current growing season with the historical data in a chart by selecting the region of interest (ROI). Raster mode provides pixel based anomaly of CropWatch indicators globally. In this mode, users are able to zoom in to the regions where the notable anomaly was identified from statistic values in vector mode. Data from remote sensing image series at high temporal and low spatial resolution provide key information in agriculture monitoring. Clustering mode provides integrated information on different classes in maps, the corresponding profiles for each class and the percentage of area of each class to the total area of all classes. The time series data is categorized into limited types by the ISODATA algorithm. For each clustering type, pixels on the map, profiles, and percentage legend are all linked

Preparing Youths for Careers in Agriculture through State Crop Scouting Competitions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Freije, Anna N.; Sisson, Adam; VanDeWalle, Brandy; Gerber, Corey; Mueller, Daren; Wise, Kiersten A.

2017-01-01

State crop scouting competitions (CSCs) promote agriculture by introducing youths in Indiana, Iowa, and Nebraska to various agricultural disciplines while focusing on integrated pest management (IPM). High school students compete as teams to address crop management issues at various stations. Each station is led by university representatives. Two…

Agricultural sectoral demand and crop productivity response across the world

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Johnston, M.; Ray, D. K.; Cassidy, E. S.; Foley, J. A.

2013-12-01

With an increasing and increasingly affluent population, humans will need to roughly double agricultural production by 2050. Continued yield growth forms the foundation of all future strategies aiming to increase agricultural production while slowing or eliminating cropland expansion. However, a recent analysis by one of our co-authors has shown that yield trends in many important maize, wheat and rice growing regions have begun stagnating or declining from the highs seen during the green revolution (Ray et al. 2013). Additional research by our group has shown that nearly 50% of new agricultural production since the 1960s has gone not to direct human consumption, but instead to animal feed and other industrial uses. Our analysis for GLP looks at the convergence of these two trends by examining time series utilization data for 16 of the biggest crops to determine how demand from different sectors has shaped our land-use and intensification strategies around the world. Before rushing headlong into the next agricultural doubling, it would be prudent to first consult our recent agricultural history to better understand what was driving past changes in production. Using newly developed time series dataset - a fusion of cropland maps with historic agricultural census data gathered from around the world - we can examine yield and harvested area trends over the last half century for 16 top crops. We combine this data with utilization rates from the FAO Food Balance Sheet to see how demand from different sectors - food, feed, and other - has influenced long-term growth trends from the green revolution forward. We will show how intensification trends over time and across regions have grown or contracted depending on what is driving the change in production capacity. Ray DK, Mueller ND, West PC, Foley JA (2013) Yield Trends Are Insufficient to Double Global Crop Production by 2050. PLoS ONE 8(6): e66428. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0066428

[Wildlife damage mitigation in agricultural crops in a Bolivian montane forest].

PubMed

Perez, Eddy; Pacheco, Luis F

2014-12-01

Wildlife is often blamed for causing damage to human activities, including agricultural practices and the result may be a conflict between human interests and species conservation. A formal assessment of the magnitude of damage is necessary to adequately conduct management practices and an assessment of the efficiency of different management practices is necessary to enable managers to mitigate the conflict with rural people. This study was carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of agricultural management practices and controlled hunting in reducing damage to subsistence annual crops at the Cotapata National Park and Natural Area of Integrated Management. The design included seven fields with modified agricultural practices, four fields subjected to control hunting, and five fields held as controls. We registered cultivar type, density, frequency of visiting species to the field, crops lost to wildlife, species responsible for damage, and crop biomass. Most frequent species in the fields were Dasyprocta punctata and Dasypus novemcinctus. Hunted plots were visited 1.6 times more frequently than agriculturally managed plots. Crop lost to wildlife averaged 7.28% at agriculturally managed plots, 4.59% in plots subjected to hunting, and 27.61% in control plots. Species mainly responsible for damage were Pecari tajacu, D. punctata, and Sapajus apella. We concluded that both management strategies were effective to reduce damage by >50% as compared to unmanaged crop plots.

Agricultural biotechnology for crop improvement in a variable climate: hope or hype?

PubMed

Varshney, Rajeev K; Bansal, Kailash C; Aggarwal, Pramod K; Datta, Swapan K; Craufurd, Peter Q

2011-07-01

Developing crops that are better adapted to abiotic stresses is important for food production in many parts of the world today. Anticipated changes in climate and its variability, particularly extreme temperatures and changes in rainfall, are expected to make crop improvement even more crucial for food production. Here, we review two key biotechnology approaches, molecular breeding and genetic engineering, and their integration with conventional breeding to develop crops that are more tolerant of abiotic stresses. In addition to a multidisciplinary approach, we also examine some constraints that need to be overcome to realize the full potential of agricultural biotechnology for sustainable crop production to meet the demands of a projected world population of nine billion in 2050. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Agricultural field reclamation utilizing native grass crop production

Treesearch

J. Cure

2013-01-01

Developing a method of agricultural field reclamation to native grasses in the Lower San Pedro Watershed could prove to be a valuable tool for educational and practical purposes. Agricultural field reclamation utilizing native grass crop production will address water table depletion, soil degradation and the economic viability of the communities within the watershed....

Agriculture sows pests: how crop domestication, host shifts, and agricultural intensification can create insect pests from herbivores.

PubMed

Bernal, Julio S; Medina, Raul F

2018-04-01

We argue that agriculture as practiced creates pests. We use three examples (Corn leafhopper, Dalbulus maidis; Western corn rootworm, Diabrotica virgifera virgifera; Cotton fleahopper, Pseudatomoscelis seriatus) to illustrate: firstly, how since its origins, agriculture has proven conducive to transforming selected herbivores into pests, particularly through crop domestication and spread, and agricultural intensification, and; secondly, that the herbivores that became pests were among those hosted by crop wild relatives or associates, and were pre-adapted either as whole species or component subpopulations. Two of our examples, Corn leafhopper and Western corn rootworm, illustrate how following a host shift to a domesticated host, emergent pests 'hopped' onto crops and rode expansion waves to spread far beyond the geographic ranges of their wild hosts. Western corn rootworm exemplifies how an herbivore-tolerant crop was left vulnerable when it was bred for yield and protected with insecticides. Cotton fleahopper illustrates how removing preferred wild host plants from landscapes and replacing them with crops, allows herbivores with flexible host preferences to reach pest-level populations. We conclude by arguing that in the new geological epoch we face, the Anthropocene, we can improve agriculture by looking to our past to identify and avoid missteps of early and recent farmers. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Proximity to crops and residential to agricultural herbicides in Iowa

USGS Publications Warehouse

Ward, M.H.; Lubin, J.; Giglierano, J.; Colt, J.S.; Wolter, C.; Bekiroglu, N.; Camann, D.; Hartge, P.; Nuckols, J.R.

2006-01-01

Rural residents can be exposed to agricultural pesticides through the proximity of their homes to crop fields. Previously, we developed a method to create historical crop maps using a geographic information system. The aim of the present study was to determine whether crop maps are useful for predicting levels of crop herbicides in carpet dust samples from residences. From homes of participants in a case-control study of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in Iowa (1998-2000), we collected vacuum cleaner dust and measured 14 herbicides with high use on corn and soybeans in Iowa. Of 112 homes, 58% of residences had crops within 500 m of their home, an intermediate distance for primary drift from aerial and ground applications. Detection rates for herbicides ranged from 0% for metribuzin and cyanazine to 95% for 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid. Six herbicides used almost exclusively in agriculture were detected in 28% of homes. Detections and concentrations were highest in homes with an active farmer. Increasing acreage of corn and soybean fields within 750 m of homes was associated with significantly elevated odds of detecting agricultural herbicides compared with homes with no crops within 750 m (adjusted odds ratio per 10 acres = 1.06; 95% confidence interval, 1.02-1.11). Herbicide concentrations also increased significantly with increasing acreage within 750 m. We evaluated the distance of crop fields from the home at < 100, 101-250, 251-500, and 501-750 m. Including the crop buffer distance parameters in the model did not significantly improve the fit compared with a model with total acres within 750 m. Our results indicate that crop maps may be a useful method for estimating levels of herbicides in homes from nearby crop fields.

Plant growth promotion in cereal and leguminous agricultural important plants: from microorganism capacities to crop production.

PubMed

Pérez-Montaño, F; Alías-Villegas, C; Bellogín, R A; del Cerro, P; Espuny, M R; Jiménez-Guerrero, I; López-Baena, F J; Ollero, F J; Cubo, T

2014-01-01

Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) are free-living bacteria which actively colonize plant roots, exerting beneficial effects on plant development. The PGPR may (i) promote the plant growth either by using their own metabolism (solubilizing phosphates, producing hormones or fixing nitrogen) or directly affecting the plant metabolism (increasing the uptake of water and minerals), enhancing root development, increasing the enzymatic activity of the plant or "helping" other beneficial microorganisms to enhance their action on the plants; (ii) or may promote the plant growth by suppressing plant pathogens. These abilities are of great agriculture importance in terms of improving soil fertility and crop yield, thus reducing the negative impact of chemical fertilizers on the environment. The progress in the last decade in using PGPR in a variety of plants (maize, rice, wheat, soybean and bean) along with their mechanism of action are summarized and discussed here. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

AquaCrop-OS: A tool for resilient management of land and water resources in agriculture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Foster, Timothy; Brozovic, Nicholas; Butler, Adrian P.; Neale, Christopher M. U.; Raes, Dirk; Steduto, Pasquale; Fereres, Elias; Hsiao, Theodore C.

2017-04-01

Water managers, researchers, and other decision makers worldwide are faced with the challenge of increasing food production under population growth, drought, and rising water scarcity. Crop simulation models are valuable tools in this effort, and, importantly, provide a means of quantifying rapidly crop yield response to water, climate, and field management practices. Here, we introduce a new open-source crop modelling tool called AquaCrop-OS (Foster et al., 2017), which extends the functionality of the globally used FAO AquaCrop model. Through case studies focused on groundwater-fed irrigation in the High Plains and Central Valley of California in the United States, we demonstrate how AquaCrop-OS can be used to understand the local biophysical, behavioural, and institutional drivers of water risks in agricultural production. Furthermore, we also illustrate how AquaCrop-OS can be combined effectively with hydrologic and economic models to support drought risk mitigation and decision-making around water resource management at a range of spatial and temporal scales, and highlight future plans for model development and training. T. Foster, et al. (2017) AquaCrop-OS: An open source version of FAO's crop water productivity model. Agricultural Water Management. 181: 18-22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2016.11.015.

Agriculturally important microbial biofilms: Present status and future prospects.

PubMed

Velmourougane, Kulandaivelu; Prasanna, Radha; Saxena, Anil Kumar

2017-07-01

Microbial biofilms are a fascinating subject, due to their significant roles in the environment, industry, and health. Advances in biochemical and molecular techniques have helped in enhancing our understanding of biofilm structure and development. In the past, research on biofilms primarily focussed on health and industrial sectors; however, lately, biofilms in agriculture are gaining attention due to their immense potential in crop production, protection, and improvement. Biofilms play an important role in colonization of surfaces - soil, roots, or shoots of plants and enable proliferation in the desired niche, besides enhancing soil fertility. Although reports are available on microbial biofilms in general; scanty information is published on biofilm formation by agriculturally important microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, bacterial-fungal) and their interactions in the ecosystem. Better understanding of agriculturally important bacterial-fungal communities and their interactions can have several implications on climate change, soil quality, plant nutrition, plant protection, bioremediation, etc. Understanding the factors and genes involved in biofilm formation will help to develop more effective strategies for sustainable and environment-friendly agriculture. The present review brings together fundamental aspects of biofilms, in relation to their formation, regulatory mechanisms, genes involved, and their application in different fields, with special emphasis on agriculturally important microbial biofilms. © 2017 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Designing bioenergy crop buffers to mitigate nitrous oxide emissions and water quality impacts from agriculture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gopalakrishnan, G.; Negri, C. M.

2010-12-01

corn fields. The bioenergy crops used in this study were miscanthus, switchgrass and native prairie grasses. Results indicated that growing bioenergy crops in buffer strips mitigated nutrient runoff and reduced nitrate concentrations in groundwater to below EPA’s mandated drinking water limit (10 mg/l). Additionally, nitrous oxide emissions in these systems were reduced by 50-90% when compared to corn fields without the bioenergy buffer strips. While all the bioenergy crop buffers had significant positive environmental benefits, switchgrass performed the best with respect to minimizing nutrient runoff and nitrous oxide emissions. The findings of this research have important implications with respect to land management for agriculture and bioenergy.

Assessing the agricultural costs of climate change: Combining results from crop and economic models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Howitt, R. E.

2016-12-01

Any perturbation to a resource system used by humans elicits both technical and behavioral changes. For agricultural production, economic criteria and their associated models are usually good predictors of human behavior in agricultural production. Estimation of the agricultural costs of climate change requires careful downscaling of global climate models to the level of agricultural regions. Plant growth models for the dominant crops are required to accurately show the full range of trade-offs and adaptation mechanisms needed to minimize the cost of climate change. Faced with the shifts in the fundamental resource base of agriculture, human behavior can either exacerbate or offset the impact of climate change on agriculture. In addition, agriculture can be an important source of increased carbon sequestration. However the effectiveness and timing of this sequestration depends on agricultural practices and farmer behavior. Plant growth models and economic models have been shown to interact in two broad fashions. First there is the direct embedding of a parametric representation plant growth simulations in the economic model production function. A second and more general approach is to have plant growth and crop process models interact with economic models as they are simulated. The development of more general wrapper programs that transfer information between models rapidly and efficiently will encourage this approach. However, this method does introduce complications in terms of matching up disparate scales both in time and space between models. Another characteristic behavioral response of agricultural production is the distinction between the intensive margin which considers the quantity of resource, for example fertilizer, used for a given crop, and the extensive margin of adjustment that measures how farmers will adjust their crop proportions in response to climate change. Ideally economic models will measure the response to both these margins of adjustment

Comparative genomics of Clavibacter michiganensis subspecies, pathogens of important agricultural crops.

PubMed

Tambong, James T

2017-01-01

Subspecies of Clavibacter michiganensis are important phytobacterial pathogens causing devastating diseases in several agricultural crops. The genome organizations of these pathogens are poorly understood. Here, the complete genomes of 5 subspecies (C. michiganensis subsp. michiganensis, Cmi; C. michiganensis subsp. sepedonicus, Cms; C. michiganensis subsp. nebraskensis, Cmn; C. michiganensis subsp. insidiosus, Cmi and C. michiganensis subsp. capsici, Cmc) were analyzed. This study assessed the taxonomic position of the subspecies based on 16S rRNA and genome-based DNA homology and concludes that there is ample evidence to elevate some of the subspecies to species-level. Comparative genomics analysis indicated distinct genomic features evident on the DNA structural atlases and annotation features. Based on orthologous gene analysis, about 2300 CDSs are shared across all the subspecies; and Cms showed the highest number of subspecies-specific CDS, most of which are mobile elements suggesting that Cms could be more prone to translocation of foreign genes. Cms and Cmi had the highest number of pseudogenes, an indication of potential degenerating genomes. The stress response factors that may be involved in cold/heat shock, detoxification, oxidative stress, osmoregulation, and carbon utilization are outlined. For example, the wco-cluster encoding for extracellular polysaccharide II is highly conserved while the sucrose-6-phosphate hydrolase that catalyzes the hydrolysis of sucrose-6-phosphate yielding glucose-6-phosphate and fructose is highly divergent. A unique second form of the enzyme is only present in Cmn NCPPB 2581. Also, twenty-eight plasmid-borne CDSs in the other subspecies were found to have homologues in the chromosomal genome of Cmn which is known not to carry plasmids. These CDSs include pathogenesis-related factors such as Endocellulases E1 and Beta-glucosidase. The results presented here provide an insight of the functional organization of the genomes of

Comparative genomics of Clavibacter michiganensis subspecies, pathogens of important agricultural crops

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

Subspecies of Clavibacter michiganensis are important phytobacterial pathogens causing devastating diseases in several agricultural crops. The genome organizations of these pathogens are poorly understood. Here, the complete genomes of 5 subspecies (C. michiganensis subsp. michiganensis, Cmi; C. michiganensis subsp. sepedonicus, Cms; C. michiganensis subsp. nebraskensis, Cmn; C. michiganensis subsp. insidiosus, Cmi and C. michiganensis subsp. capsici, Cmc) were analyzed. This study assessed the taxonomic position of the subspecies based on 16S rRNA and genome-based DNA homology and concludes that there is ample evidence to elevate some of the subspecies to species-level. Comparative genomics analysis indicated distinct genomic features evident on the DNA structural atlases and annotation features. Based on orthologous gene analysis, about 2300 CDSs are shared across all the subspecies; and Cms showed the highest number of subspecies-specific CDS, most of which are mobile elements suggesting that Cms could be more prone to translocation of foreign genes. Cms and Cmi had the highest number of pseudogenes, an indication of potential degenerating genomes. The stress response factors that may be involved in cold/heat shock, detoxification, oxidative stress, osmoregulation, and carbon utilization are outlined. For example, the wco-cluster encoding for extracellular polysaccharide II is highly conserved while the sucrose-6-phosphate hydrolase that catalyzes the hydrolysis of sucrose-6-phosphate yielding glucose-6-phosphate and fructose is highly divergent. A unique second form of the enzyme is only present in Cmn NCPPB 2581. Also, twenty-eight plasmid-borne CDSs in the other subspecies were found to have homologues in the chromosomal genome of Cmn which is known not to carry plasmids. These CDSs include pathogenesis-related factors such as Endocellulases E1 and Beta-glucosidase. The results presented here provide an insight of the functional organization of the genomes of

Separability of agricultural crops with airborne scatterometry

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mehta, N. C.

1983-01-01

Backscattering measurements were acquired with airborne scatterometers over a site in Cass County, North Dakota on four days in the 1981 crop growing season. Data were acquired at three frequencies (L-, C- and Ku-bands), two polarizations (like and cross) and ten incidence angles (5 degrees to 50 degrees in 5 degree steps). Crop separability is studied in an hierarchical fashion. A two-class separability measure is defined, which compares within-class to between-class variability, to determine crop separability. The scatterometer channels with the best potential for crop separability are determined, based on this separability measure. Higher frequencies are more useful for discriminating small grains, while lower frequencies tend to separate non-small grains better. Some crops are more separable when row direction is taken into account. The effect of pixel purity is to increase the separability between all crops while not changing the order of useful scatterometer channels. Crude estimates of separability errors are calculated based on these analyses. These results are useful in selecting the parameters of active microwave systems in agricultural remote sensing.

Crop insurance: a tool to stabilize Spanish agricultural income

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Calatayud Piñero, E.; Escribano Pintor, S.

2009-04-01

Agricultural insurance was born as a need for farmers, opposite to the erratic behavior of the climatology, natural disaster, which strangles the farmer during the cycle of his crops and harvest, reverberating negatively in the economy of the farmer. Before this situation, it became necessary to determine, inside the agricultural policies, a specific regulation of the agricultural insurance across a participation of the State by means of contributions to the agricultural insurance which result was, in Spain, the current Law 87/1978, of December 28 of Agricultural Insurance. The benefits of the existence of a good system of agricultural insurance not only are to level of the farmer but also to regional level and top areas, since to the regional production turns diminished, it reverberates in the economic productivity and in the rest of economic sectors, with the consequent tensions and imbalances, and the probability of being translated in a decrease of the quality of life of the rural way. But the analysis of the importance of his situation, not only must be carried out from a theoretical perspective, where already there exist numerous studies that treat the relation and importance of the agricultural insurance with regard to the traditional agriculture characterized by his limited capacity of innovation. For it, in this paper, we will proceed to realize an empirical analysis, inside our country, across the principal agrarian information statistics, as faithful reflection of the economic dimension of the sector, for across his evolution as well as that of the indemnifications paid for the agricultural insurance, to be able to show the importance of the same one in his contribution to the maintenance and improvement of the agriculture, avoiding the uncertainty of the farmer By means of the utilization of mobile averages, which eliminate the erratic behavior in the annual series, first we will realize a national analysis for the set of the lines of agricultural

"Development of an interactive crop growth web service architecture to review and forecast agricultural sustainability"

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Seamon, E.; Gessler, P. E.; Flathers, E.; Walden, V. P.

2014-12-01

As climate change and weather variability raise issues regarding agricultural production, agricultural sustainability has become an increasingly important component for farmland management (Fisher, 2005, Akinci, 2013). Yet with changes in soil quality, agricultural practices, weather, topography, land use, and hydrology - accurately modeling such agricultural outcomes has proven difficult (Gassman et al, 2007, Williams et al, 1995). This study examined agricultural sustainability and soil health over a heterogeneous multi-watershed area within the Inland Pacific Northwest of the United States (IPNW) - as part of a five year, USDA funded effort to explore the sustainability of cereal production systems (Regional Approaches to Climate Change for Pacific Northwest Agriculture - award #2011-68002-30191). In particular, crop growth and soil erosion were simulated across a spectrum of variables and time periods - using the CropSyst crop growth model (Stockle et al, 2002) and the Water Erosion Protection Project Model (WEPP - Flanagan and Livingston, 1995), respectively. A preliminary range of historical scenarios were run, using a high-resolution, 4km gridded dataset of surface meteorological variables from 1979-2010 (Abatzoglou, 2012). In addition, Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project (CMIP5) global climate model (GCM) outputs were used as input to run crop growth model and erosion future scenarios (Abatzoglou and Brown, 2011). To facilitate our integrated data analysis efforts, an agricultural sustainability web service architecture (THREDDS/Java/Python based) is under development, to allow for the programmatic uploading, sharing and processing of variable input data, running model simulations, as well as downloading and visualizing output results. The results of this study will assist in better understanding agricultural sustainability and erosion relationships in the IPNW, as well as provide a tangible server-based tool for use by researchers and farmers - for both

An overview of crop growing condition monitoring in China agriculture remote sensing monitoring system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huang, Qing; Zhou, Qing-bo; Zhang, Li

2009-07-01

China is a large agricultural country. To understand the agricultural production condition timely and accurately is related to government decision-making, agricultural production management and the general public concern. China Agriculture Remote Sensing Monitoring System (CHARMS) can monitor crop acreage changes, crop growing condition, agriculture disaster (drought, floods, frost damage, pest etc.) and predict crop yield etc. quickly and timely. The basic principles, methods and regular operation of crop growing condition monitoring in CHARMS are introduced in detail in the paper. CHARMS can monitor crop growing condition of wheat, corn, cotton, soybean and paddy rice with MODIS data. An improved NDVI difference model was used in crop growing condition monitoring in CHARMS. Firstly, MODIS data of every day were received and processed, and the max NDVI values of every fifteen days of main crop were generated, then, in order to assessment a certain crop growing condition in certain period (every fifteen days, mostly), the system compare the remote sensing index data (NDVI) of a certain period with the data of the period in the history (last five year, mostly), the difference between NDVI can indicate the spatial difference of crop growing condition at a certain period. Moreover, Meteorological data of temperature, precipitation and sunshine etc. as well as the field investigation data of 200 network counties were used to modify the models parameters. Last, crop growing condition was assessment at four different scales of counties, provinces, main producing areas and nation and spatial distribution maps of crop growing condition were also created.

An integrated model for assessing both crop productivity and agricultural water resources at a large scale

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Okada, M.; Sakurai, G.; Iizumi, T.; Yokozawa, M.

2012-12-01

climate change on crop productivity in a watershed. The first was carried out by the large-scale crop model alone. The second was carried out by the integrated model of the large-scale crop model and the H08 model. The former projected that changes in temperature and precipitation due to future climate change would give rise to increasing the water stress in crops. Nevertheless, the latter projected that the increasing amount of agricultural water resources in the watershed would supply sufficient amount of water for irrigation, consequently reduce the water stress. The integrated model demonstrated the importance of taking into account the water circulation in watershed when predicting the regional crop production.

Attitudes of Agricultural Experts Toward Genetically Modified Crops: A Case Study in Southwest Iran.

PubMed

Ghanian, Mansour; Ghoochani, Omid M; Kitterlin, Miranda; Jahangiry, Sheida; Zarafshani, Kiumars; Van Passel, Steven; Azadi, Hossein

2016-04-01

The production of genetically modified (GM) crops is growing around the world, and with it possible opportunities to combat food insecurity and hunger, as well as solutions to current problems facing conventional agriculture. In this regard the use of GMOs in food and agricultural applications has increased greatly over the past decade. However, the development of GM crops has been a matter of considerable interest and worldwide public controversy. This, in addition to skepticism, has stifled the use of this practice on a large scale in many areas, including Iran. It stands to reason that a greater understanding of this practice could be formed after a review of the existing expert opinions surrounding GM crops. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to analyze the predictors that influence agricultural experts' attitudes toward the development of and policies related to GM crops. Using a descriptive correlational research method, questionnaire data was collected from 65 experts from the Agricultural Organization in the Gotvand district in Southwest Iran. Results indicated that agricultural experts were aware of the environmental benefits and possible risks associated with GM crops. The majority of participants agreed that GM crops could improve food security and accelerate rural development, and were proponents of labeling practices for GM crops. Finally, there was a positive correlation between the perception of benefits and attitudes towards GM crops.

Agricultural Management Practices Explain Variation in Global Yield Gaps of Major Crops

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mueller, N. D.; Gerber, J. S.; Ray, D. K.; Ramankutty, N.; Foley, J. A.

2010-12-01

The continued expansion and intensification of agriculture are key drivers of global environmental change. Meeting a doubling of food demand in the next half-century will further induce environmental change, requiring either large cropland expansion into carbon- and biodiversity-rich tropical forests or increasing yields on existing croplands. Closing the “yield gaps” between the most and least productive farmers on current agricultural lands is a necessary and major step towards preserving natural ecosystems and meeting future food demand. Here we use global climate, soils, and cropland datasets to quantify yield gaps for major crops using equal-area climate analogs. Consistent with previous studies, we find large yield gaps for many crops in Eastern Europe, tropical Africa, and parts of Mexico. To analyze the drivers of yield gaps, we collected sub-national agricultural management data and built a global dataset of fertilizer application rates for over 160 crops. We constructed empirical crop yield models for each climate analog using the global management information for 17 major crops. We find that our climate-specific models explain a substantial amount of the global variation in yields. These models could be widely applied to identify management changes needed to close yield gaps, analyze the environmental impacts of agricultural intensification, and identify climate change adaptation techniques.

A regionally-adapted implementation of conservation agriculture delivers rapid improvements to soil properties associated with crop yield stability.

PubMed

Williams, Alwyn; Jordan, Nicholas R; Smith, Richard G; Hunter, Mitchell C; Kammerer, Melanie; Kane, Daniel A; Koide, Roger T; Davis, Adam S

2018-05-31

Climate models predict increasing weather variability, with negative consequences for crop production. Conservation agriculture (CA) may enhance climate resilience by generating certain soil improvements. However, the rate at which these improvements accrue is unclear, and some evidence suggests CA can lower yields relative to conventional systems unless all three CA elements are implemented: reduced tillage, sustained soil cover, and crop rotational diversity. These cost-benefit issues are important considerations for potential adopters of CA. Given that CA can be implemented across a wide variety of regions and cropping systems, more detailed and mechanistic understanding is required on whether and how regionally-adapted CA can improve soil properties while minimizing potential negative crop yield impacts. Across four US states, we assessed short-term impacts of regionally-adapted CA systems on soil properties and explored linkages with maize and soybean yield stability. Structural equation modeling revealed increases in soil organic matter generated by cover cropping increased soil cation exchange capacity, which improved soybean yield stability. Cover cropping also enhanced maize minimum yield potential. Our results demonstrate individual CA elements can deliver rapid improvements in soil properties associated with crop yield stability, suggesting that regionally-adapted CA may play an important role in developing high-yielding, climate-resilient agricultural systems.

A study on agricultural drought vulnerability at disaggregated level in a highly irrigated and intensely cropped state of India.

PubMed

Murthy, C S; Yadav, Manoj; Mohammed Ahamed, J; Laxman, B; Prawasi, R; Sesha Sai, M V R; Hooda, R S

2015-03-01

Drought is an important global hazard, challenging the sustainable agriculture and food security of nations. Measuring agricultural drought vulnerability is a prerequisite for targeting interventions to improve and sustain the agricultural performance of both irrigated and rain-fed agriculture. In this study, crop-generic agricultural drought vulnerability status is empirically measured through a composite index approach. The study area is Haryana state, India, a prime agriculture state of the country, characterised with low rainfall, high irrigation support and stable cropping pattern. By analysing the multiyear rainfall and crop condition data of kharif crop season (June-October) derived from satellite data and soil water holding capacity and groundwater quality, nine contributing indicators were generated for 120 blocks (sub-district administrative units). Composite indices for exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity components were generated after assigning variance-based weightages to the respective input indicators. Agricultural Drought Vulnerability Index (ADVI) was developed through a linear combination of the three component indices. ADVI-based vulnerability categorisation revealed that 51 blocks are with vulnerable to very highly vulnerable status. These blocks are located in the southern and western parts of the state, where groundwater quality is saline and water holding capacity of soils is less. The ADVI map has effectively captured the spatial pattern of agricultural drought vulnerability in the state. Districts with large number of vulnerable blocks showed considerably larger variability of de-trended crop yields. Correlation analysis reveals that crop condition variability, groundwater quality and soil factors are closely associated with ADVI. The vulnerability index is useful to prioritise the blocks for implementation of long-term drought management plans. There is scope for improving the methodology by adding/fine-tuning the indicators and

Agricultural Issues of Significance to Iowa Crop Producers and Their Educational Implications

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Licht, Melea A. R.; Martin, Robert A.

2007-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine the agricultural information preferences of crop producers in Iowa and the implications for agricultural extension education. The objective was to identify agricultural information issues producers perceive as significant to their businesses. The results will help agricultural extension educators and…

Some Important Diseases of Tree Fruits - Diseases of Vegetable Crops - Diseases of Grapes - Diseases of Tree Nuts.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Petersen, Donald H.; And Others

This agriculture extension service publication from Pennsylvania State University consists of four sections on plant disease recognition and control. The titles of these four sections are: (1) Some Important Diseases of Tree Fruits; (2) Diseases of Vegetable Crops; (3) Diseases of Crops; and (4) Diseases of Tree Nuts. The first section discusses…

E-precision agriculture for small scale cash crops in Tobasa regency

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Putra Simanjuntak, Panca; Tiurniari Napitupulu, Pangeran; Pratama Silalahi, Soni; Kisno; Pasaribu, Norlina; Valešová, Libuše

2017-09-01

Cash crop is a promising sector in Tobasa regency; however, the trend showed a negative change of the cash crop production in. This research aims to develop an application which is based on Arduino for watering and fertilizing corn land. The result of using e-precision agriculture based on embedded system is 100% higher than the conventional one and the risk of harvesting failure using the embedded system decreased to 50%. Embedded system in this study acquired critical environment measurements which at last affected the yield raising and risk reduction. As the result, the use of e-precision agriculture provided a framework to be used by different stakeholders to implement e-agriculture platform that supports marketing of agricultural production since the system is proven to save the material and time which finally reduces the risk of harvesting failure and increases the yield. In other words, the system is able to economize the use of water and fertilizer on a small corn land. The system will be developed for more efficiency in material loss and the mobile-based application development to reach sustainable rural development particularly for cash-crop farmers.

Technical Guidelines and References: Crops Training Component. From: Agricultural Development Workers Training Manual. Volume III: Crops.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Peace Corps, Washington, DC. Information Collection and Exchange Div.

This reference manual for training Peace Corps agricultural development workers deals with crops. The document begins with common units of area, length, weight, volume, and conversions between them. A practice problem is worked and other conversion problems are given. The second section is intended to show agricultural field workers how to survey…

Why we need GMO crops in agriculture

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The fact that in a very short period of 35 years the global population will reach an estimated 9 billion people presents a massive challenge to agriculture: how do we feed all of these people with nutritious food in a sustainable way? At the present time the yields of most of our major crops are sta...

Commercial Crop Yields Reveal Strengths and Weaknesses for Organic Agriculture in the United States.

PubMed

Kniss, Andrew R; Savage, Steven D; Jabbour, Randa

2016-01-01

Land area devoted to organic agriculture has increased steadily over the last 20 years in the United States, and elsewhere around the world. A primary criticism of organic agriculture is lower yield compared to non-organic systems. Previous analyses documenting the yield deficiency in organic production have relied mostly on data generated under experimental conditions, but these studies do not necessarily reflect the full range of innovation or practical limitations that are part of commercial agriculture. The analysis we present here offers a new perspective, based on organic yield data collected from over 10,000 organic farmers representing nearly 800,000 hectares of organic farmland. We used publicly available data from the United States Department of Agriculture to estimate yield differences between organic and conventional production methods for the 2014 production year. Similar to previous work, organic crop yields in our analysis were lower than conventional crop yields for most crops. Averaged across all crops, organic yield averaged 67% of conventional yield [corrected]. However, several crops had no significant difference in yields between organic and conventional production, and organic yields surpassed conventional yields for some hay crops. The organic to conventional yield ratio varied widely among crops, and in some cases, among locations within a crop. For soybean (Glycine max) and potato (Solanum tuberosum), organic yield was more similar to conventional yield in states where conventional yield was greatest. The opposite trend was observed for barley (Hordeum vulgare), wheat (Triticum aestevum), and hay crops, however, suggesting the geographical yield potential has an inconsistent effect on the organic yield gap.

Commercial Crop Yields Reveal Strengths and Weaknesses for Organic Agriculture in the United States

PubMed Central

Savage, Steven D.; Jabbour, Randa

2016-01-01

Land area devoted to organic agriculture has increased steadily over the last 20 years in the United States, and elsewhere around the world. A primary criticism of organic agriculture is lower yield compared to non-organic systems. Previous analyses documenting the yield deficiency in organic production have relied mostly on data generated under experimental conditions, but these studies do not necessarily reflect the full range of innovation or practical limitations that are part of commercial agriculture. The analysis we present here offers a new perspective, based on organic yield data collected from over 10,000 organic farmers representing nearly 800,000 hectares of organic farmland. We used publicly available data from the United States Department of Agriculture to estimate yield differences between organic and conventional production methods for the 2014 production year. Similar to previous work, organic crop yields in our analysis were lower than conventional crop yields for most crops. Averaged across all crops, organic yield averaged 80% of conventional yield. However, several crops had no significant difference in yields between organic and conventional production, and organic yields surpassed conventional yields for some hay crops. The organic to conventional yield ratio varied widely among crops, and in some cases, among locations within a crop. For soybean (Glycine max) and potato (Solanum tuberosum), organic yield was more similar to conventional yield in states where conventional yield was greatest. The opposite trend was observed for barley (Hordeum vulgare), wheat (Triticum aestevum), and hay crops, however, suggesting the geographical yield potential has an inconsistent effect on the organic yield gap. PMID:27552217

Selected historic agricultural data important to environmental quality in the United States

USGS Publications Warehouse

Grey, Katia M.; Capel, Paul D.; Baker, Nancy T.; Thelin, Gail P.

2012-01-01

This report and the accompanying tables summarize some of the important changes in American agriculture in the form of a timeline and a compilation of selected annual time-series data that can be broadly related to environmental quality. Although these changes have been beneficial for increasing agricultural production, some of them have resulted in environmental concerns. The agriculture timeline is divided into four categories (1) crop and animal changes, (2) mechanical changes, (3) biological and chemical changes, and (4) regulatory and societal changes. The timeline attempts to compile events that have had a lasting impact on agriculture in the United States. The events and data presented in this report may help to improve the connections between agricultural activist and environmental concerns.

Selected examples of dispersal of arthropods associated with agricultural crop and animal production

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Henneberry, T. J.

1979-01-01

The economic importance of arthropods in agricultural production systems and the possibilities of using dispersal behavior to develop and manipulate control are examined. Examples of long and short distance dispersal of economic insect pests and beneficial species from cool season host reservoirs and overwintering sites are presented. Significant dispersal of these species often occurring during crop and animal production is discussed.

A spectrum fractal feature classification algorithm for agriculture crops with hyper spectrum image

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Su, Junying

2011-11-01

A fractal dimension feature analysis method in spectrum domain for hyper spectrum image is proposed for agriculture crops classification. Firstly, a fractal dimension calculation algorithm in spectrum domain is presented together with the fast fractal dimension value calculation algorithm using the step measurement method. Secondly, the hyper spectrum image classification algorithm and flowchart is presented based on fractal dimension feature analysis in spectrum domain. Finally, the experiment result of the agricultural crops classification with FCL1 hyper spectrum image set with the proposed method and SAM (spectral angle mapper). The experiment results show it can obtain better classification result than the traditional SAM feature analysis which can fulfill use the spectrum information of hyper spectrum image to realize precision agricultural crops classification.

Using a Decision Support System to Optimize Production of Agricultural Crop Residue Biofeedstock

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Reed L. Hoskinson; Ronald C. Rope; Raymond K. Fink

2007-04-01

For several years the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) has been developing a Decision Support System for Agriculture (DSS4Ag) which determines the economically optimum recipe of various fertilizers to apply at each site in a field to produce a crop, based on the existing soil fertility at each site, as well as historic production information and current prices of fertilizers and the forecast market price of the crop at harvest, for growing a crop such as wheat, potatoes, corn, or cotton. In support of the growing interest in agricultural crop residues as a bioenergy feedstock, we have extended the capability ofmore » the DSS4Ag to develop a variable-rate fertilizer recipe for the simultaneous economically optimum production of both grain and straw, and have been conducting field research to test this new DSS4Ag. In this paper we report the results of two years of field research testing and enhancing the DSS4Ag’s ability to economically optimize the fertilization for the simultaneous production of both grain and its straw, where the straw is an agricultural crop residue that can be used as a biofeedstock.« less

The biospeckle method for the investigation of agricultural crops: A review

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zdunek, Artur; Adamiak, Anna; Pieczywek, Piotr M.; Kurenda, Andrzej

2014-01-01

Biospeckle is a nondestructive method for the evaluation of living objects. It has been applied to medicine, agriculture and microbiology for monitoring processes related to the movement of material particles. Recently, this method is extensively used for evaluation of quality of agricultural crops. In the case of botanical materials, the sources of apparent biospeckle activity are the Brownian motions and biological processes such as cyclosis, growth, transport, etc. Several different applications have been shown to monitor aging and maturation of samples, organ development and the detection and development of defects and diseases. This review will focus on three aspects: on the image analysis and mathematical methods for biospeckle activity evaluation, on published applications to botanical samples, with special attention to agricultural crops, and on interpretation of the phenomena from a biological point of view.

Differential Impacts of Climate Change on Crops and Agricultural Regions in India

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sharma, A. N.

2015-12-01

As India's farmers and policymakers consider potential adaptation strategies to climate change, some questions loom large: - Which climate variables best explain the variability of crop yields? - How does the vulnerability of crop yields to climate vary regionally? - How are these risks likely to change in the future? While process-based crop modelling has started to answer many of these questions, we believe statistical approaches can complement these in improving our understanding of climate vulnerabilities and appropriate responses. We use yield data collected over three decades for more than ten food crops grown in India along with a variety of statistical approaches to answer the above questions. The ability of climate variables to explain yield variation varies greatly by crop and season, which is expected. Equally important, the ability of models to predict crop yields as well as their coefficients varies greatly by district even for districts which are relatively close to each other and similar in their agricultural practices. We believe these results encourage caution and nuance when making projections about climate impacts on crop yields in the future. Most studies about climate impacts on crop yields focus on a handful of major food crops. By extending our analysis to all the crops with long-term district level data in India as well as two growing seasons we gain a more comprehensive picture. Our results indicate that there is a great deal of variability even at relatively small scales, and that this must be taken into account if projections are to be made useful to policymakers.

Changing techniques in crop plant classification: molecularization at the National Institute of Agricultural Botany during the 1980s.

PubMed

Holmes, Matthew

2017-04-01

Modern methods of analysing biological materials, including protein and DNA sequencing, are increasingly the objects of historical study. Yet twentieth-century taxonomic techniques have been overlooked in one of their most important contexts: agricultural botany. This paper addresses this omission by harnessing unexamined archival material from the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB), a British plant science organization. During the 1980s the NIAB carried out three overlapping research programmes in crop identification and analysis: electrophoresis, near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and machine vision systems. For each of these three programmes, contemporary economic, statutory and scientific factors behind their uptake by the NIAB are discussed. This approach reveals significant links between taxonomic practice at the NIAB and historical questions around agricultural research, intellectual property and scientific values. Such links are of further importance given that the techniques developed by researchers at the NIAB during the 1980s remain part of crop classification guidelines issued by international bodies today.

Daily monitoring of 30 m crop condition over complex agricultural landscapes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sun, L.; Gao, F.; Xie, D.; Anderson, M. C.; Yang, Y.

2017-12-01

Crop progress provides information necessary for efficient irrigation, scheduling fertilization and harvesting operations at optimal times for achieving higher yields. In the United States, crop progress reports are released online weekly by US Department of Agriculture (USDA) - National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). However, the ground data collection is time consuming and subjective, and these reports are provided at either district (multiple counties) or state level. Remote sensing technologies have been widely used to map crop conditions, to extract crop phenology, and to predict crop yield. However, for current satellite-based sensors, it is difficult to acquire both high spatial resolution and frequent coverage. For example, Landsat satellites are capable to capture 30 m resolution images, while the long revisit cycles, cloud contamination further limited their use in detecting rapid surface changes. On the other hand, MODIS can provide daily observations, but with coarse spatial resolutions range from 250 to 1000 m. In recent years, multi-satellite data fusion technology such as the Spatial and Temporal Adaptive Reflectance Fusion Model (STARFM) has been used to combine the spatial resolution of Landsat with the temporal frequency of MODIS. It has been found that this synthetic dataset could provide more valuable information compared to the images acquired from only one single sensor. However, accuracy of STARFM depends on heterogeneity of landscape and available clear image pairs of MODIS and Landsat. In this study, a new fusion method was developed using the crop vegetation index (VI) timeseries extracted from "pure" MODIS pixels and Landsat overpass images to generate daily 30 m VI for crops. The fusion accuracy was validated by comparing to the original Landsat images. Results show that the relative error in non-rapid growing period is around 3-5% and in rapid growing period is around 6-8% . The accuracy is much better than that of STARFM which

USDA Foreign Agricultural Service overview for operational monitoring of current crop conditions and production forecasts.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Crutchfield, J.

2016-12-01

The presentation will discuss the current status of the International Production Assessment Division of the USDA ForeignAgricultural Service for operational monitoring and forecasting of current crop conditions, and anticipated productionchanges to produce monthly, multi-source consensus reports on global crop conditions including the use of Earthobservations (EO) from satellite and in situ sources.United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) International Production AssessmentDivision (IPAD) deals exclusively with global crop production forecasting and agricultural analysis in support of the USDAWorld Agricultural Outlook Board (WAOB) lockup process and contributions to the World Agricultural Supply DemandEstimates (WASE) report. Analysts are responsible for discrete regions or countries and conduct in-depth long-termresearch into national agricultural statistics, farming systems, climatic, environmental, and economic factors affectingcrop production. IPAD analysts become highly valued cross-commodity specialists over time, and are routinely soughtout for specialized analyses to support governmental studies. IPAD is responsible for grain, oilseed, and cotton analysison a global basis. IPAD is unique in the tools it uses to analyze crop conditions around the world, including customweather analysis software and databases, satellite imagery and value-added image interpretation products. It alsoincorporates all traditional agricultural intelligence resources into its forecasting program, to make the fullest use ofavailable information in its operational commodity forecasts and analysis. International travel and training play animportant role in learning about foreign agricultural production systems and in developing analyst knowledge andcapabilities.

Ecology and genomics of an important crop wild relative as a prelude to agricultural innovation.

PubMed

von Wettberg, Eric J B; Chang, Peter L; Başdemir, Fatma; Carrasquila-Garcia, Noelia; Korbu, Lijalem Balcha; Moenga, Susan M; Bedada, Gashaw; Greenlon, Alex; Moriuchi, Ken S; Singh, Vasantika; Cordeiro, Matilde A; Noujdina, Nina V; Dinegde, Kassaye Negash; Shah Sani, Syed Gul Abbas; Getahun, Tsegaye; Vance, Lisa; Bergmann, Emily; Lindsay, Donna; Mamo, Bullo Erena; Warschefsky, Emily J; Dacosta-Calheiros, Emmanuel; Marques, Edward; Yilmaz, Mustafa Abdullah; Cakmak, Ahmet; Rose, Janna; Migneault, Andrew; Krieg, Christopher P; Saylak, Sevgi; Temel, Hamdi; Friesen, Maren L; Siler, Eleanor; Akhmetov, Zhaslan; Ozcelik, Huseyin; Kholova, Jana; Can, Canan; Gaur, Pooran; Yildirim, Mehmet; Sharma, Hari; Vadez, Vincent; Tesfaye, Kassahun; Woldemedhin, Asnake Fikre; Tar'an, Bunyamin; Aydogan, Abdulkadir; Bukun, Bekir; Penmetsa, R Varma; Berger, Jens; Kahraman, Abdullah; Nuzhdin, Sergey V; Cook, Douglas R

2018-02-13

Domesticated species are impacted in unintended ways during domestication and breeding. Changes in the nature and intensity of selection impart genetic drift, reduce diversity, and increase the frequency of deleterious alleles. Such outcomes constrain our ability to expand the cultivation of crops into environments that differ from those under which domestication occurred. We address this need in chickpea, an important pulse legume, by harnessing the diversity of wild crop relatives. We document an extreme domestication-related genetic bottleneck and decipher the genetic history of wild populations. We provide evidence of ancestral adaptations for seed coat color crypsis, estimate the impact of environment on genetic structure and trait values, and demonstrate variation between wild and cultivated accessions for agronomic properties. A resource of genotyped, association mapping progeny functionally links the wild and cultivated gene pools and is an essential resource chickpea for improvement, while our methods inform collection of other wild crop progenitor species.

Biofuels, bioenergy, and bioproducts from sustainable agricultural and forest crops: proceedings of the short rotation crops international conference

Treesearch

Ronald S., Jr. Zalesny; Rob Mitchell; Jim, eds. Richardson

2008-01-01

The goal of this conference was to initiate and provide opportunities for an international forum on the science and application of producing both agricultural and forest crops for biofuels, bioenergy, and bioproducts. There is a substantial global need for development of such systems and technologies that can economically and sustainably produce short rotation crops...

Effects of agricultural practices of three crops on the soil communities under Mediterranean conditions: field evaluation.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Leitão, Sara; José Cerejeira, Maria; Abreu, Manuela; Sousa, José Paulo

2014-05-01

Sustainable agricultural production relies on soil communities as the main actors in key soil processes necessary to maintain sustainable soil functioning. Soil biodiversity influences soil physical and chemical characteristics and thus the sustainability of crop and agro-ecosystems functioning. Agricultural practices (e.g.: soil tillage, pesticides and fertilizer applications, irrigation) may affects negatively or positively soil biodiversity and abundances by modifying the relationships between organisms in the soil ecosystem. The present study aimed to study the influence of agricultural practices of three crops (potato, onion and maize) under Mediterranean climate conditions on soil macro- and mesofauna during their entire crop cycles. Effects on soil communities were assessed at a higher tier of environmental risk assessment comprising field testing of indigenous edaphic communities in a selected study-site located in a major agriculture region of Central Portugal, Ribatejo e Oeste, neighbouring protected wetlands. A reference site near the agricultural field site was selected as a Control site to compare the terrestrial communities' composition and variation along the crop cycle. The field soil and Control site soil are sandy loam soils. Crops irrigation was performed by center-pivot (automated sprinkler that rotates in a half a circle area) and by sprinklers. Soil macro- and mesofauna were collected at both sites (field and Control) using two methodologies through pitfall trapping and soil sampling. The community of soil macro- and mesofauna of the three crops field varied versus control site along the crops cycles. Main differences were due to arachnids, coleopterans, ants and adult Diptera presence and abundance. The feeding activity of soil fauna between control site and crop areas varied only for potato and onion crops vs. control site but not among crops. Concentration of pesticides residues in soil did not cause apparent negative effects on the soil

Estimating Hydrologic Fluxes, Crop Water Use, and Agricultural Land Area in China using Data Assimilation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Smith, Tiziana; McLaughlin, Dennis B.; Hoisungwan, Piyatida

2016-04-01

Crop production has significantly altered the terrestrial environment by changing land use and by altering the water cycle through both co-opted rainfall and surface water withdrawals. As the world's population continues to grow and individual diets become more resource-intensive, the demand for food - and the land and water necessary to produce it - will continue to increase. High-resolution quantitative data about water availability, water use, and agricultural land use are needed to develop sustainable water and agricultural planning and policies. However, existing data covering large areas with high resolution are susceptible to errors and can be physically inconsistent. China is an example of a large area where food demand is expected to increase and a lack of data clouds the resource management dialogue. Some assert that China will have insufficient land and water resources to feed itself, posing a threat to global food security if they seek to increase food imports. Others believe resources are plentiful. Without quantitative data, it is difficult to discern if these concerns are realistic or overly dramatized. This research presents a quantitative approach using data assimilation techniques to characterize hydrologic fluxes, crop water use (defined as crop evapotranspiration), and agricultural land use at 0.5 by 0.5 degree resolution and applies the methodology in China using data from around the year 2000. The approach uses the principles of water balance and of crop water requirements to assimilate existing data with a least-squares estimation technique, producing new estimates of water and land use variables that are physically consistent while minimizing differences from measured data. We argue that this technique for estimating water fluxes and agricultural land use can provide a useful basis for resource management modeling and policy, both in China and around the world.

Agricultural pesticide emissions associated with common crops in the United States

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Benjey, W.G.

Annual emissions for the year 1987 from the application of agricultural pesticides have been estimated by crop type by county for the United States using a geographic information system. The emissions estimates are based upon computed volatilization rates accounting for the properties of each pesticide, evaporation rates, mode of application (surface or soil incorporation) and percent of interception by leaves. Key pesticide properties include the Henry's Law constant, half-life in soil and the organic carbon partitioning coefficient. The volatilization rates are multiplied by the amount of pesticide applied by crop acreage in each county as determined from agricultural census andmore » pesticide sales data. The geographic distribution of the dominant emissions, such as atrazine and diazinon, etc. are presented by crop type and state. For a given pesticide, the geographic variability is controlled principally by amount applied and water availability as reflected in evaporation rates.« less

Ruminant Grazing of Cover Crops: Effects on Soil Properties and Agricultural Production

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Poffenbarger, Hanna

2010-01-01

Integrating livestock into a cropping system by allowing ruminant animals to graze cover crops may yield economic and environmental benefits. The effects of grazing on soil physical properties, soil organic matter, nitrogen cycling and agricultural production are presented in this literature review. The review found that grazing cover crops…

Watershed-Scale Cover Crops Reduce Nutrient Export From Agricultural Landscapes.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tank, J. L.; Hanrahan, B.; Christopher, S. F.; Trentman, M. T.; Royer, T. V.; Prior, K.

2016-12-01

The Midwestern US has undergone extensive land use change as forest, wetlands, and prairies have been converted to agroecosystems. Today, excess fertilizer nutrients from farm fields enter Midwestern agricultural streams, which degrades both local and downstream water quality, resulting in algal blooms and subsequent hypoxic "dead zones" far from the nutrient source. We are quantifying the benefits of watershed-scale conservation practices that may reduce nutrient runoff from adjacent farm fields. Specifically, research is lacking on whether the planting of winter cover crops in watersheds currently dominated by row-crop agriculture can significantly reduce nutrient inputs to adjacent streams. Since 2013, farmers have planted cover crops on 70% of croppable acres in the Shatto Ditch Watershed (IN), and "saturation level" implementation of this conservation practice has been sustained for 3 years. Every 14 days, we have quantified nutrient loss from fields by sampling nutrient fluxes from multiple subsurface tile drains and longitudinally along the stream channel throughout the watershed. Cover crops improved stream water quality by reducing dissolved inorganic nutrients exported downstream; nitrate-N and DRP concentrations and fluxes were significantly lower in tiles draining fields with cover crops compared to those without. Annual watershed nutrient export also decreased, and reductions in N and P loss ( 30-40%) exceeded what we expected based on only a 6-10% reduction in runoff due to increased watershed water holding capacity. We are also exploring the processes responsible for increased nutrient retention, where they are occurring (terrestrial vs. aquatic) and when (baseflow vs. storms). For example, whole-stream metabolism also responded to cover crop planting, showing reduced variation in primary production and respiration in years after watershed-scale planting of cover crops. In summary, widespread land cover change, through cover crop planting, can

Drought Effects on Agricultural Yield: Comparison Across Regions and Crop Types

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Daryanto, S.; Wang, L.; Jacinthe, P. A.

2014-12-01

Global agricultural production is dominated by rainfed agriculture, and is therefore prone to disruption from climate extreme weathers. These uncertainties become more problematic when considering the projection of increased drought frequency suggested by several climate models for various world regions. Curiously, few regional analyses of drought impact of food production have been attempted. We collated and analyzed data from the last 25 years to disentangle the effects of drought (i.e. timing, intensity and duration) on agricultural production in different eco-regions and with varying crop types. Our preliminary results suggested greater yield reduction in annual (-21.5%) than perennial plants (-16%), in C4 (-21%) compared to C3 crops (-17%), and when drought occurred during generative (i.e. flowering until maturity; -16.5%) than vegetative stage (-15.5%). Although drought caused similar amounts of yield reduction in both tropical and subtropical regions (i.e. -17%), it carries a greater food security risk in the tropics due to inherently low productivity (i.e. less than half than in the subtropical regions). Consequently, cultivating drought-resistant C3 perennial plants (e.g. sweet potato and cassava) in the tropics could prove a viable adaptive strategy to mitigate the effects of climate variability. In addition, these crops have limited input requirements, are well adapted to nutrient-poor Oxisols and Ultisols of the tropics, and generally outyield cereal crops in the region. Our analysis is ongoing and needs to take into account agronomic traits (e.g. water requirement), as well as the energy and nutritional values (e.g. protein, minerals) of alternative crops. Our results could inform the selection and development of new cultivars for the drought-prone regions of the world.

Potential impacts of agricultural drought on crop yield variability under a changing climate in Texas

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, K.; Leng, G.; Huang, M.; Sheffield, J.; Zhao, G.; Gao, H.

2017-12-01

Texas has the largest farm area in the U.S, and its revenue from crop production ranks third overall. With the changing climate, hydrological extremes such as droughts are becoming more frequent and intensified, causing significant yield reduction in rainfed agricultural systems. The objective of this study is to investigate the potential impacts of agricultural drought on crop yields (corn, sorghum, and wheat) under a changing climate in Texas. The Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model, which is calibrated and validated over 10 major Texas river basins during the historical period, is employed in this study.The model is forced by a set of statistically downscaled climate projections from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) model ensembles at a spatial resolution of 1/8°. The CMIP5 projections contain four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) that represent different greenhouse gas concentration (4.5 and 8.5 w/m2 are selected in this study). To carry out the analysis, VIC simulations from 1950 to 2099 are first analyzed to investigate how the frequency and severity of agricultural droughts will be altered in Texas (under a changing climate). Second, future crop yields are projected using a statistical crop model. Third, the effects of agricultural drought on crop yields are quantitatively analyzed. The results are expected to contribute to future water resources planning, with a goal of mitigating the negative impacts of future droughts on agricultural production in Texas.

Hydrological Responses of Weather Conditions and Crop Change of Agricultural Area in the Rincon Valley, New Mexico

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ahn, S.; Sheng, Z.; Abudu, S.

2017-12-01

Hydrologic cycle of agricultural area has been changing due to the impacts of climate and land use changes (crop coverage changes) in an arid region of Rincon Valley, New Mexico. This study is to evaluate the impacts of weather condition and crop coverage change on hydrologic behavior of agricultural area in Rincon Valley (2,466km2) for agricultural watershed management using a watershed-scale hydrologic model, SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool). The SWAT model was developed to incorporate irrigation of different crops using auto irrigation function. For the weather condition and crop coverage change evaluation, three spatial crop coverages including a normal (2008), wet (2009), and dry (2011) years were prepared using USDA crop data layer (CDL) for fourteen different crops. The SWAT model was calibrated for the period of 2001-2003 and validated for the period of 2004-2006 using daily-observed streamflow data. Scenario analysis was performed for wet and dry years based on the unique combinations of crop coverages and releases from Caballo Reservoir. The SWAT model simulated the present vertical water budget and horizontal water transfer considering irrigation practices in the Rincon Valley. Simulation results indicated the temporal and spatial variability for irrigation and non-irrigation seasons of hydrologic cycle in agricultural area in terms of surface runoff, evapotranspiration, infiltration, percolation, baseflow, soil moisture, and groundwater recharge. The water supply of the dry year could not fully cover whole irrigation period due to dry weather conditions, resulting in reduction of crop acreage. For extreme weather conditions, the temporal variation of water budget became robust, which requires careful irrigation management of the agricultural area. The results could provide guidelines for farmers to decide crop patterns in response to different weather conditions and water availability.

Alternative scenarios of bioenergy crop production in an agricultural landscape and implications for bird communities.

PubMed

Blank, Peter J; Williams, Carol L; Sample, David W; Meehan, Timothy D; Turner, Monica G

2016-01-01

Increased demand and government mandates for bioenergy crops in the United States could require a large allocation of agricultural land to bioenergy feedstock production and substantially alter current landscape patterns. Incorporating bioenergy landscape design into land-use decision making could help maximize benefits and minimize trade-offs among alternative land uses. We developed spatially explicit landscape scenarios of increased bioenergy crop production in an 80-km radius agricultural landscape centered on a potential biomass-processing energy facility and evaluated the consequences of each scenario for bird communities. Our scenarios included conversion of existing annual row crops to perennial bioenergy grasslands and conversion of existing grasslands to annual bioenergy row crops. The scenarios explored combinations of four biomass crop types (three potential grassland crops along a gradient of plant diversity and one annual row crop [corn]), three land conversion percentages to bioenergy crops (10%, 20%, or 30% of row crops or grasslands), and three spatial configurations of biomass crop fields (random, clustered near similar field types, or centered on the processing plant), yielding 36 scenarios. For each scenario, we predicted the impact on four bird community metrics: species richness, total bird density, species of greatest conservation need (SGCN) density, and SGCN hotspots (SGCN birds/ha ≥ 2). Bird community metrics consistently increased with conversion of row crops to bioenergy grasslands and consistently decreased with conversion of grasslands to bioenergy row crops. Spatial arrangement of bioenergy fields had strong effects on the bird community and in some cases was more influential than the amount converted to bioenergy crops. Clustering grasslands had a stronger positive influence on the bird community than locating grasslands near the central plant or at random. Expansion of bioenergy grasslands onto marginal agricultural lands will

7 CFR 996.3 - Crop year.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... DOMESTIC AND IMPORTED PEANUTS MARKETED IN THE UNITED STATES Definitions § 996.3 Crop year. Crop year means the 12-month period beginning with July 1 of any year and ending with June 30 of the following year... 7 Agriculture 8 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Crop year. 996.3 Section 996.3 Agriculture Regulations...

Importance of impacts scenarios for the adaptation of agriculture to climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zullo, J.; Macedo, C.; Pinto, H. S.; Assad, E. D.; Koga Vicente, A.

2012-12-01

The great possibility that the climate is already changing, and the most drastic way possible, increases the challenge of agricultural engineering, especially in environmentally vulnerable areas and in regions where agriculture has a high economic and social importance. Knowledge of potential impacts that may be caused by changes in water and thermal regimes in coming decades is increasingly strategic, as they allow the development of techniques to adapt agriculture to climate change and therefore minimizes the risk of undesirable impacts, for example, in food and nutritional security. Thus, the main objective of this paper is to describe a way to generate impacts scenarios caused by anomalies of precipitation and temperature in the definition of climate risk zoning of an agricultural crop very important in the tropics, such as the sugar cane, especially in central-southern Brazil, which is one of its main world producers. A key point here is the choice of the climate model to be used, considering that 23 different models were used in the fourth IPCC report published in 2007. The number and range of available models requires the definition of criteria for choosing the most suitable for the preparation of the impacts scenarios. One way proposed and used in this work is based on the definition of two groups of models according to 27 technical attributes of them. The clustering of 23 models in two groups, with a model representing each group (UKMO_HadCM3 and MIROC3.2_medres), assists the generation and comparison of impacts scenarios, making them more representative and useful. Another important aspect in the generation of impacts scenarios is the estimate of the relative importance of the anomalies of precipitation and temperature, which are the most commonly used. To assess the relative importance of the anomalies are generated scenarios considering an anomaly at a time and both together. The impacts scenarios for a high emission of greenhouse gases (A2), from 2010

Importance of pollinators in changing landscapes for world crops

PubMed Central

Klein, Alexandra-Maria; Vaissière, Bernard E; Cane, James H; Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf; Cunningham, Saul A; Kremen, Claire; Tscharntke, Teja

2006-01-01

The extent of our reliance on animal pollination for world crop production for human food has not previously been evaluated and the previous estimates for countries or continents have seldom used primary data. In this review, we expand the previous estimates using novel primary data from 200 countries and found that fruit, vegetable or seed production from 87 of the leading global food crops is dependent upon animal pollination, while 28 crops do not rely upon animal pollination. However, global production volumes give a contrasting perspective, since 60% of global production comes from crops that do not depend on animal pollination, 35% from crops that depend on pollinators, and 5% are unevaluated. Using all crops traded on the world market and setting aside crops that are solely passively self-pollinated, wind-pollinated or parthenocarpic, we then evaluated the level of dependence on animal-mediated pollination for crops that are directly consumed by humans. We found that pollinators are essential for 13 crops, production is highly pollinator dependent for 30, moderately for 27, slightly for 21, unimportant for 7, and is of unknown significance for the remaining 9. We further evaluated whether local and landscape-wide management for natural pollination services could help to sustain crop diversity and production. Case studies for nine crops on four continents revealed that agricultural intensification jeopardizes wild bee communities and their stabilizing effect on pollination services at the landscape scale. PMID:17164193

Importance of pollinators in changing landscapes for world crops.

PubMed

Klein, Alexandra-Maria; Vaissière, Bernard E; Cane, James H; Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf; Cunningham, Saul A; Kremen, Claire; Tscharntke, Teja

2007-02-07

The extent of our reliance on animal pollination for world crop production for human food has not previously been evaluated and the previous estimates for countries or continents have seldom used primary data. In this review, we expand the previous estimates using novel primary data from 200 countries and found that fruit, vegetable or seed production from 87 of the leading global food crops is dependent upon animal pollination, while 28 crops do not rely upon animal pollination. However, global production volumes give a contrasting perspective, since 60% of global production comes from crops that do not depend on animal pollination, 35% from crops that depend on pollinators, and 5% are unevaluated. Using all crops traded on the world market and setting aside crops that are solely passively self-pollinated, wind-pollinated or parthenocarpic, we then evaluated the level of dependence on animal-mediated pollination for crops that are directly consumed by humans. We found that pollinators are essential for 13 crops, production is highly pollinator dependent for 30, moderately for 27, slightly for 21, unimportant for 7, and is of unknown significance for the remaining 9. We further evaluated whether local and landscape-wide management for natural pollination services could help to sustain crop diversity and production. Case studies for nine crops on four continents revealed that agricultural intensification jeopardizes wild bee communities and their stabilizing effect on pollination services at the landscape scale.

Airborne Hyperspectral Imagery for the Detection of Agricultural Crop Stress

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cassady, Philip E.; Perry, Eileen M.; Gardner, Margaret E.; Roberts, Dar A.

2001-01-01

Multispectral digital imagery from aircraft or satellite is presently being used to derive basic assessments of crop health for growers and others involved in the agricultural industry. Research indicates that narrow band stress indices derived from hyperspectral imagery should have improved sensitivity to provide more specific information on the type and cause of crop stress, Under funding from the NASA Earth Observation Commercial Applications Program (EOCAP) we are identifying and evaluating scientific and commercial applications of hyperspectral imagery for the remote characterization of agricultural crop stress. During the summer of 1999 a field experiment was conducted with varying nitrogen treatments on a production corn-field in eastern Nebraska. The AVIRIS (Airborne Visible-Infrared Imaging Spectrometer) hyperspectral imager was flown at two critical dates during crop development, at two different altitudes, providing images with approximately 18m pixels and 3m pixels. Simultaneous supporting soil and crop characterization included spectral reflectance measurements above the canopy, biomass characterization, soil sampling, and aerial photography. In this paper we describe the experiment and results, and examine the following three issues relative to the utility of hyperspectral imagery for scientific study and commercial crop stress products: (1) Accuracy of reflectance derived stress indices relative to conventional measures of stress. We compare reflectance-derived indices (both field radiometer and AVIRIS) with applied nitrogen and with leaf level measurement of nitrogen availability and chlorophyll concentrations over the experimental plots (4 replications of 5 different nitrogen levels); (2) Ability of the hyperspectral sensors to detect sub-pixel areas under crop stress. We applied the stress indices to both the 3m and 18m AVIRIS imagery for the entire production corn field using several sub-pixel areas within the field to compare the relative

Sustainable Agriculture - Enhancing environmental benefits, food nutritional quality and building crop resilience to abiotic and biotic stresses

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Feeding nutrition-dense food to future world populations presents agriculture with enormous challenges as estimates indicate that crop production must as much as double. Crop production cannot be increased to meet this challenge simply by increasing land acreage or using past agricultural intensific...

Worldwide Dissemination of Radopholus similis and Its Importance in Crop Production

PubMed Central

O'Bannon, J. H.

1977-01-01

The burrowing nematode, Radopholus similis, attacks agronomic and horticultural crops and many weeds, and is reported to reproduce on more than 250 plant species. Two races of R. similis are recognized. Although one race attacks citrus and the other race does not, they are morphologically similar. At present, the citrus race is found attacking citrus only in Florida, U.S.A., but it is known to infect more than 250 species and varieties of noncitrus plants. Although it has many hosts, R. similis is probably most widely distributed on banana and is found worldwide. Although best known as a pest of Piper nigrum, Musa spp., and Citrus spp., it also attacks many crops that are important in world commerce and in subsistence-type agriculture, a factor which makes it a significant agricultural pest. Worldwide dissemination occurs primarily when parasitized plants are moved into areas where the pest could adapt. Yield losses of 12.5 tons/ha in bananas have been reported from R. similis infection. Infections suppress orange and grapefruit yields as much as 70-80%. Because of the severity of R. similis damage (particularly to banana and citrus), extensive control programs have been developed. Prevention, cultural practices, resistant varieties, and chemical pesticides interact to reduce losses. PMID:19305565

Future market scenarios for pulpwood supply from agricultural short-rotation woody crops

Treesearch

Alexander N. Moiseyev; Daniel G. de la Torre Ugarte; Peter J. Ince

2000-01-01

The North American Pulp And Paper (NAPAP) model and USDA POLYSYS agricultural policy analysis model were linked to project future market scenarios for pulpwood supply from agricultural short-rotation woody crops in the United States. Results suggest that pulpwood supply from fast- growing hybrid poplars and cottonwoods will become marginally economical but fairly...

Estimating crop yields and crop evapotranspiration distributions from remote sensing and geospatial agricultural data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Smith, T.; McLaughlin, D.

2017-12-01

Growing more crops to provide a secure food supply to an increasing global population will further stress land and water resources that have already been significantly altered by agriculture. The connection between production and resource use depends on crop yields and unit evapotranspiration (UET) rates that vary greatly, over both time and space. For regional and global analyses of food security it is appropriate to treat yield and UET as uncertain variables conditioned on climatic and soil properties. This study describes how probability distributions of these variables can be estimated by combining remotely sensed land use and evapotranspiration data with in situ agronomic and soils data, all available at different resolutions and coverages. The results reveal the influence of water and temperature stress on crop yield at large spatial scales. They also provide a basis for stochastic modeling and optimization procedures that explicitly account for uncertainty in the environmental factors that affect food production.

Vulnerability of Agriculture to Climate Change as Revealed by Relationships between Simulated Crop Yield and Climate Change Indices

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

King, A. W.; Absar, S. M.; Nair, S.; Preston, B. L.

2012-12-01

The vulnerability of agriculture is among the leading concerns surrounding climate change. Agricultural production is influenced by drought and other extremes in weather and climate. In regions of subsistence farming, worst case reductions in yield lead to malnutrition and famine. Reduced surplus contributes to poverty in agrarian economies. In more economically diverse and industrialized regions, variations in agricultural yield can influence the regional economy through market mechanisms. The latter grows in importance as agriculture increasingly services the energy market in addition to markets for food and fiber. Agriculture is historically a highly adaptive enterprise and will respond to future changes in climate with a variety of adaptive mechanisms. Nonetheless, the risk, if not expectation, of increases in climate extremes and hazards exceeding historical experience motivates scientifically based anticipatory assessment of the vulnerability of agriculture to climate change. We investigate the sensitivity component of that vulnerability using EPIC, a well established field-scale model of cropping systems that includes the simulation of economic yield. The core of our analysis is the relationship between simulated yield and various indices of climate change, including the CCI/CLIVAR/JCOM ETCCDI indices, calculated from weather inputs to the model. We complement this core with analysis using the DSSAT cropping system model and exploration of relationships between historical yield statistics and climate indices calculated from weather records. Our analyses are for sites in the Southeast/Gulf Coast region of the United States. We do find "tight" monotonic relationships between annual yield and climate for some indices, especially those associated with available water. More commonly, however, we find an increase in the variability of yield as the index value becomes more extreme. Our findings contribute to understanding the sensitivity of crop yield as part of

Amazon river flow regime and flood recessional agriculture: Flood stage reversals and risk of annual crop loss

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Coomes, Oliver T.; Lapointe, Michel; Templeton, Michael; List, Geneva

2016-08-01

The annual flood cycle is an important driver of ecosystem structure and function in large tropical rivers such as the Amazon. Riparian peasant communities rely on river fishing and annual floodplain agriculture, closely adapted to the recession phase of the flood pulse. This article reports on a poorly documented but important challenge facing farmers practicing flood recessional agriculture along the Amazon river: frequent, unpredictable stage reversals (repiquetes) which threaten to ruin crops growing on channel bars. We assess the severity of stage reversals for rice production on exposed river mud bars (barreales) near Iquitos, Peru. Crop loss risk is estimated based on a quantitative analysis of 45 years of daily Amazon stage data and field data from floodplain communities nearby in the Muyuy archipelago, upstream of Iquitos. Rice varieties selected, elevations of silt rich bars where rice is sown, as well as planting and harvest dates are analyzed in the light of the timing, frequencies and amplitudes of observed stage reversals that have the potential to destroy growing rice. We find that unpredictable stage reversals can produce substantial crop losses and shorten significantly the length of average growing seasons on lower elevation river bars. The data reveal that local famers extend planting down to lower bar elevations where the mean probabilities of re-submergence before rice maturity (due to reversals) approach 50%, below which they implicitly consider that the risk of crop loss outweighs the potential reward of planting.

Biofertilizers function as key player in sustainable agriculture by improving soil fertility, plant tolerance and crop productivity

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Current soil management strategies are mainly dependent on inorganic chemical-based fertilizers, which caused a serious threat to human health and environment. The exploitation of beneficial microbes as a biofertilizer has become paramount importance in agriculture sector for their potential role in food safety and sustainable crop production. The eco-friendly approaches inspire a wide range of application of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPRs), endo- and ectomycorrhizal fungi, cyanobacteria and many other useful microscopic organisms led to improved nutrient uptake, plant growth and plant tolerance to abiotic and biotic stress. The present review highlighted biofertilizers mediated crops functional traits such as plant growth and productivity, nutrient profile, plant defense and protection with special emphasis to its function to trigger various growth- and defense-related genes in signaling network of cellular pathways to cause cellular response and thereby crop improvement. The knowledge gained from the literature appraised herein will help us to understand the physiological bases of biofertlizers towards sustainable agriculture in reducing problems associated with the use of chemicals fertilizers. PMID:24885352

Extreme temperature trends in major cropping systems and their relation to agricultural land use change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mueller, N. D.; Butler, E. E.; McKinnon, K. A.; Rhines, A. N.; Tingley, M.; Siebert, S.; Holbrook, N. M.; Huybers, P. J.

2015-12-01

High temperature extremes during the growing season can reduce agricultural production. At the same time, agricultural practices can modify temperatures by altering the surface energy budget. Here we investigate growing season climate trends in major cropping systems and their relationship with agricultural land use change. In the US Midwest, 100-year trends exhibit a transition towards more favorable conditions, with cooler summer temperature extremes and increased precipitation. Statistically significant correspondence is found between the cooling pattern and trends in cropland intensification, as well as with trends towards greater irrigated land over a small subset of the domain. Land conversion to cropland, often considered an important influence on historical temperatures, is not significantly associated with cooling. We suggest that cooling is primarily associated with agricultural intensification increasing the potential for evapotranspiration, consistent with our finding that cooling trends are greatest for the highest temperature percentiles, and that increased evapotranspiration generally leads to greater precipitation. Temperatures over rainfed croplands show no cooling trend during drought conditions, consistent with evapotranspiration requiring adequate soil moisture, and implying that modern drought events feature greater warming as baseline cooler temperatures revert to historically high extremes. Preliminary results indicate these relationships between temperature extremes, irrigation, and intensification are also observed in other major summer cropping systems, including northeast China, Argentina, and the Canadian Prairies.

The impact of Genetically Modified (GM) crops in modern agriculture: A review.

PubMed

Raman, Ruchir

2017-10-02

Genetic modification in plants was first recorded 10,000 years ago in Southwest Asia where humans first bred plants through artificial selection and selective breeding. Since then, advancements in agriculture science and technology have brought about the current GM crop revolution. GM crops are promising to mitigate current and future problems in commercial agriculture, with proven case studies in Indian cotton and Australian canola. However, controversial studies such as the Monarch Butterfly study (1999) and the Séralini affair (2012) along with current problems linked to insect resistance and potential health risks have jeopardised its standing with the public and policymakers, even leading to full and partial bans in certain countries. Nevertheless, the current growth rate of the GM seed market at 9.83-10% CAGR along with promising research avenues in biofortification, precise DNA integration and stress tolerance have forecast it to bring productivity and prosperity to commercial agriculture.

Could Crop Height Impact the Wind Resource at Agriculturally Productive Wind Farm Sites?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vanderwende, B. J.; Lundquist, J. K.

2013-12-01

The agriculture-intensive United States Midwest and Great Plains regions feature some of the best wind resources in the nation. Collocation of cropland and wind turbines introduces complex meteorological interactions that could affect both agriculture and wind power production. Crop management practices may modify the wind resource through alterations of land-surface properties. In this study, we used the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to estimate the impact of crop height variations on the wind resource in the presence of a large turbine array. We parameterized a hypothetical array of 121 1.8 MW turbines at the site of the 2011 Crop/Wind-energy Experiment field campaign using the WRF wind farm parameterization. We estimated the impact of crop choices on power production by altering the aerodynamic roughness length in a region approximately 65 times larger than that occupied by the turbine array. Roughness lengths of 10 cm and 25 cm represent a mature soy crop and a mature corn crop respectively. Results suggest that the presence of the mature corn crop reduces hub-height wind speeds and increases rotor-layer wind shear, even in the presence of a large wind farm which itself modifies the flow. During the night, the influence of the surface was dependent on the boundary layer stability, with strong stability inhibiting the surface drag from modifying the wind resource aloft. Further investigation is required to determine the optimal size, shape, and crop height of the roughness modification to maximize the economic benefit and minimize the cost of such crop management practices.

Energy crop mapping with enhanced TM/MODIS time series in the BCAP agricultural lands

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Cuizhen; Fan, Qian; Li, Qingting; SooHoo, William M.; Lu, Linlin

2017-02-01

Since the mid-2000s, agricultural lands in the United States have been undergoing rapid change to meet the increasing bioenergy demand. In 2009 the USDA Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) was established. In its Project Area 1, land owners are financially supported to grow perennial prairie grasses (switchgrass) in their row-crop lands. To promote the program, this study tested the feasibility of biomass crop mapping based on unique timings of crop development. With a previously published data fusion algorithm - the Enhanced Spatial and Temporal Adaptive Reflectance Fusion Model (ESTARFM), a 10-day normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) time series in 2007 was established by fusing MODIS reflectance into TM image series. Two critical dates - peak growing (PG) and peak drying (PD) - were extracted and a unique "PG-0-PD" timing sequence was defined for each crop. With a knowledge-based decision tree approach, the classification of enhanced TM/MODIS time series reached an overall accuracy of 76% against the USDA Crop Data layer (CDL). Especially, our results showed that winter wheat single cropping and wheat-soybean double cropping were much better classified, which may provide additional information for the CDL product. More importantly, this study extracted the first spatial layer of warm-season prairie grasses that have not been published in any national land cover products, which could serve as a base map for decision making of bioenergy land use in BCAP land.

The Joint Experiment for Crop Assessment and Monitoring (JECAM) Initiative: Developing methods and best practices for global agricultural monitoring

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Champagne, C.; Jarvis, I.; Defourny, P.; Davidson, A.

2014-12-01

Agricultural systems differ significantly throughout the world, making a 'one size fits all' approach to remote sensing and monitoring of agricultural landscapes problematic. The Joint Experiment for Crop Assessment and Monitoring (JECAM) was established in 2009 to bring together the global scientific community to work towards a set of best practices and recommendations for using earth observation data to map, monitor and report on agricultural productivity globally across an array of diverse agricultural systems. These methods form the research and development component of the Group on Earth Observation Global Agricultural Monitoring (GEOGLAM) initiative to harmonize global monitoring efforts and increase market transparency. The JECAM initiative brings together researchers from a large number of globally distributed, well monitored agricultural test sites that cover a range of crop types, cropping systems and climate regimes. Each test site works independently as well as together across multiple sites to test methods, sensors and field data collection techniques to derive key agricultural parameters, including crop type, crop condition, crop yield and soil moisture. The outcome of this project will be a set of best practices that cover the range of remote sensing monitoring and reporting needs, including satellite data acquisition, pre-processing techniques, information retrieval and ground data validation. These outcomes provide the research and development foundation for GEOGLAM and will help to inform the development of the GEOGLAM "system of systems" for global agricultural monitoring. The outcomes of the 2014 JECAM science meeting will be discussed as well as examples of methods being developed by JECAM scientists.

Emerging Agricultural Biotechnologies for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security.

PubMed

Anderson, Jennifer A; Gipmans, Martijn; Hurst, Susan; Layton, Raymond; Nehra, Narender; Pickett, John; Shah, Dilip M; Souza, Thiago Lívio P O; Tripathi, Leena

2016-01-20

As global populations continue to increase, agricultural productivity will be challenged to keep pace without overtaxing important environmental resources. A dynamic and integrated approach will be required to solve global food insecurity and position agriculture on a trajectory toward sustainability. Genetically modified (GM) crops enhanced through modern biotechnology represent an important set of tools that can promote sustainable agriculture and improve food security. Several emerging biotechnology approaches were discussed in a recent symposium organized at the 13th IUPAC International Congress of Pesticide Chemistry meeting in San Francisco, CA, USA. This paper summarizes the innovative research and several of the new and emerging technologies within the field of agricultural biotechnology that were presented during the symposium. This discussion highlights how agricultural biotechnology fits within the context of sustainable agriculture and improved food security and can be used in support of further development and adoption of beneficial GM crops.

Residual susceptibility of the red imported fire ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) to four agricultural insecticides.

PubMed

Seagraves, Michael P; McPherson, Robert M

2003-06-01

The red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta Buren, is an abundant predator in cropping systems throughout its range. It has been documented to be an important predator of numerous crop pests, as well as being an agricultural pest itself. Information on the impact of insecticides on natural enemies such as fire ants is necessary for the integration of biological and chemical control tactics in an effective pest management program. Therefore, a residual vial bioassay was developed to determine the concentration-mortality responses of S. invicta workers to four commonly used insecticides: acephate, chlorpyrifos, methomyl and lambda-cyhalothrin. Fire ant workers showed a mortality response to serial dilutions to all four chemicals. Methomyl (LC50 0.04 microg/vial, fiducial limits 0.03-0.06) was the most toxic, followed by chlorpyrifos (LC50 0.11 microg/vial, fiducial limits 0.07-0.17) and acephate (LC50 0.76 microg/vial, fiducial limits 0.50-1.04). Of the chemicals assayed, it took a much higher concentration of lambda-cyhalothrin (LC50 2.30 microg/vial, fiducial limits 1.57-3.59) to kill 50% of the workers compared with the other three chemicals. The results of this study demonstrate the wide range in responses of fire ants to four insecticides that are labeled and commonly used on numerous agricultural crops throughout the United States. These results further suggest the possibility of using a discriminating dose of lambda-cyhalothrin to control the target pest species while conserving fire ants in the agricultural systems in which their predatory behavior is beneficial to the integrated pest management program.

Fabrication Of Biogenic Silver Nanoparticles Using Agricultural Crop Plant Leaf Extracts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rajani, P.; SriSindhura, K.; Prasad, T. N. V. K. V.; Hussain, O. M.; Sudhakar, P.; Latha, P.; Balakrishna, M.; Kambala, V.; Reddy, K. Raja

2010-10-01

Nanoparticles are being viewed as fundamental building blocks of nanotechnology. Biosynthesis of nanoparticles by plant extracts is currently under exploitation. Use of agricultural crop plant extracts for synthesis of metal nanoparticles would add a new dimension to the agricultural sector in the utilization of crop waste. Silver has long been recognized as having an inhibitory effect towards many bacterial strains and microorganisms commonly present in medical and industrial processes. Four pulse crop plants and three cereal crop plants (Vigna radiata, Arachis hypogaea, Cyamopsis tetragonolobus, Zea mays, Pennisetum glaucum, Sorghum vulgare) were used and compared for their extra cellular synthesis of metallic silver nanoparticles. Stable silver nanoparticles were formed by treating aqueous solution of AgNO3 with the plant leaf extracts as reducing agent at temperatures 50 °C-95 °C. UV-Visible spectroscopy was utilized to monitor the formation of silver nanoparticles. XRD analysis of formed silver nanoparticles revealed face centered cubic structure with (111), (200), (220) and (311) planes. SEM and EDAX analysis confirm the size of the formed silver nanoparticles to be in the range of 50-200 nm. Our proposed work offers a enviro-friendly method for biogenic silver nanoparticles production. This could provide a faster synthesis rate comparable to those of chemical methods and potentially be used in areas such as cosmetics, food and medical applications.

Development of an agricultural biotechnology crop product: testing from discovery to commercialization.

PubMed

Privalle, Laura S; Chen, Jingwen; Clapper, Gina; Hunst, Penny; Spiegelhalter, Frank; Zhong, Cathy X

2012-10-17

"Genetically modified" (GM) or "biotech" crops have been the most rapidly adopted agricultural technology in recent years. The development of a GM crop encompasses trait identification, gene isolation, plant cell transformation, plant regeneration, efficacy evaluation, commercial event identification, safety evaluation, and finally commercial authorization. This is a lengthy, complex, and resource-intensive process. Crops produced through biotechnology are the most highly studied food or food component consumed. Before commercialization, these products are shown to be as safe as conventional crops with respect to feed, food, and the environment. This paper describes this global process and the various analytical tests that must accompany the product during the course of development, throughout its market life, and beyond.

Biochemical production of bioenergy from agricultural crops and residue in Iran.

PubMed

Karimi Alavijeh, Masih; Yaghmaei, Soheila

2016-06-01

The present study assessed the potential for biochemical conversion of energy stored in agricultural waste and residue in Iran. The current status of agricultural residue as a source of bioenergy globally and in Iran was investigated. The total number of publications in this field from 2000 to 2014 was about 4294. Iran ranked 21st with approximately 54 published studies. A total of 87 projects have been devised globally to produce second-generation biofuel through biochemical pathways. There are currently no second-generation biorefineries in Iran and agricultural residue has no significant application. The present study determined the amount and types of sustainable agricultural residue and oil-rich crops and their provincial distribution. Wheat, barley, rice, corn, potatoes, alfalfa, sugarcane, sugar beets, apples, grapes, dates, cotton, soybeans, rapeseed, sesame seeds, olives, sunflowers, safflowers, almonds, walnuts and hazelnuts have the greatest potential as agronomic and horticultural crops to produce bioenergy in Iran. A total of 11.33million tonnes (Mt) of agricultural biomass could be collected for production of bioethanol (3.84gigaliters (Gl)), biobutanol (1.07Gl), biogas (3.15billion cubic meters (BCM)), and biohydrogen (0.90BCM). Additionally, about 0.35Gl of biodiesel could be obtained using only 35% of total Iranian oilseed. The potential production capacity of conventional biofuel blends in Iran, environmental and socio-economic impacts including well-to-wheel greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and the social cost of carbon dioxide reduction are discussed. The cost of emissions could decrease up to 55.83% by utilizing E85 instead of gasoline. The possible application of gaseous biofuel in Iran to produce valuable chemicals and provide required energy for crop cultivation is also studied. The energy recovered from biogas produced by wheat residue could provide energy input for 115.62 and 393.12 thousand hectares of irrigated and rain-fed wheat

Interaction of turbine-generated turbulence with agricultural crops: Conceptual framework and preliminary results

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Takle, E. S.; Rajewski, D. A.; Segal, M.; Elmore, R.; Hatfield, J.; Prueger, J. H.; Taylor, S. E.

2009-12-01

The US Midwest is a unique location for wind power production because wind farms in this region, unlike any other, are co-located within major agricultural production systems that are among the most highly productive in the world. Iowa has over 3,000 MW of installed power in wind farms typically consisting of 75-120 turbines positioned within agricultural fields with irregular spacing but inter-turbine distances in some cases less than 300 m. Wind turbines extract energy from the ambient flow and change mean and turbulent characteristics of wind flow over and within the crop canopy. Turbulent exchange of air from within the crop canopy regulates vertical fluxes of heat, moisture, momentum, and CO2. Changes in wind speed and turbulence structure by wind farms and isolated wind turbines will influence crop growth, productivity, and seed quality in unknown ways. For instance, enhanced vertical fluxes of heat and moisture may help cool the crop on hot summer days (beneficial) but may enhance loss of soil moisture (detrimental). Faster drying of dew from the crop in the morning reduces leaf wetness, which is a condition favoring growth of fungus, mold and toxins. Corn and soybeans typically draw down ambient CO2 levels by 15-20% during the day in the peak growing season, providing an opportunity to enhance downward fluxes of CO2 into the crop canopy by turbine-induced turbulence. Reduction of high winds and resulting leaf shredding and stalk lodging are documented positive effects of agricultural shelterbelts and may be benefits of turbines as well. Enhanced surface evaporation during fall dry-down would improve seed readiness for storage and reduce artificial drying costs. Modification of surface wind convergence/divergence patterns may enhance convection and change rainfall patterns and modify snow deposition, melting, and soil-moisture-recharge in winter. Wind machines are widely used in orchards and vineyards for avoiding killing freezes, but turbine benefits for

Contribution of insect pollinators to crop yield and quality varies with agricultural intensification

PubMed Central

Potts, Simon G.; Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf; Vaissière, Bernard E.; Woyciechowski, Michal; Krewenka, Kristin M.; Tscheulin, Thomas; Roberts, Stuart P.M.; Szentgyörgyi, Hajnalka; Westphal, Catrin; Bommarco, Riccardo

2014-01-01

Background. Up to 75% of crop species benefit at least to some degree from animal pollination for fruit or seed set and yield. However, basic information on the level of pollinator dependence and pollinator contribution to yield is lacking for many crops. Even less is known about how insect pollination affects crop quality. Given that habitat loss and agricultural intensification are known to decrease pollinator richness and abundance, there is a need to assess the consequences for different components of crop production. Methods. We used pollination exclusion on flowers or inflorescences on a whole plant basis to assess the contribution of insect pollination to crop yield and quality in four flowering crops (spring oilseed rape, field bean, strawberry, and buckwheat) located in four regions of Europe. For each crop, we recorded abundance and species richness of flower visiting insects in ten fields located along a gradient from simple to heterogeneous landscapes. Results. Insect pollination enhanced average crop yield between 18 and 71% depending on the crop. Yield quality was also enhanced in most crops. For instance, oilseed rape had higher oil and lower chlorophyll contents when adequately pollinated, the proportion of empty seeds decreased in buckwheat, and strawberries’ commercial grade improved; however, we did not find higher nitrogen content in open pollinated field beans. Complex landscapes had a higher overall species richness of wild pollinators across crops, but visitation rates were only higher in complex landscapes for some crops. On the contrary, the overall yield was consistently enhanced by higher visitation rates, but not by higher pollinator richness. Discussion. For the four crops in this study, there is clear benefit delivered by pollinators on yield quantity and/or quality, but it is not maximized under current agricultural intensification. Honeybees, the most abundant pollinator, might partially compensate the loss of wild pollinators in

Contribution of insect pollinators to crop yield and quality varies with agricultural intensification.

PubMed

Bartomeus, Ignasi; Potts, Simon G; Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf; Vaissière, Bernard E; Woyciechowski, Michal; Krewenka, Kristin M; Tscheulin, Thomas; Roberts, Stuart P M; Szentgyörgyi, Hajnalka; Westphal, Catrin; Bommarco, Riccardo

2014-01-01

Background. Up to 75% of crop species benefit at least to some degree from animal pollination for fruit or seed set and yield. However, basic information on the level of pollinator dependence and pollinator contribution to yield is lacking for many crops. Even less is known about how insect pollination affects crop quality. Given that habitat loss and agricultural intensification are known to decrease pollinator richness and abundance, there is a need to assess the consequences for different components of crop production. Methods. We used pollination exclusion on flowers or inflorescences on a whole plant basis to assess the contribution of insect pollination to crop yield and quality in four flowering crops (spring oilseed rape, field bean, strawberry, and buckwheat) located in four regions of Europe. For each crop, we recorded abundance and species richness of flower visiting insects in ten fields located along a gradient from simple to heterogeneous landscapes. Results. Insect pollination enhanced average crop yield between 18 and 71% depending on the crop. Yield quality was also enhanced in most crops. For instance, oilseed rape had higher oil and lower chlorophyll contents when adequately pollinated, the proportion of empty seeds decreased in buckwheat, and strawberries' commercial grade improved; however, we did not find higher nitrogen content in open pollinated field beans. Complex landscapes had a higher overall species richness of wild pollinators across crops, but visitation rates were only higher in complex landscapes for some crops. On the contrary, the overall yield was consistently enhanced by higher visitation rates, but not by higher pollinator richness. Discussion. For the four crops in this study, there is clear benefit delivered by pollinators on yield quantity and/or quality, but it is not maximized under current agricultural intensification. Honeybees, the most abundant pollinator, might partially compensate the loss of wild pollinators in

Impact of nowcasting on the production and processing of agricultural crops. [in the US

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dancer, W. S.; Tibbitts, T. W.

1973-01-01

The value was studied of improved weather information and weather forecasting to farmers, growers, and agricultural processing industries in the United States. The study was undertaken to identify the production and processing operations that could be improved with accurate and timely information on changing weather patterns. Estimates were then made of the potential savings that could be realized with accurate information about the prevailing weather and short term forecasts for up to 12 hours. This weather information has been termed nowcasting. The growing, marketing, and processing operations of the twenty most valuable crops in the United States were studied to determine those operations that are sensitive to short-term weather forecasting. Agricultural extension specialists, research scientists, growers, and representatives of processing industries were consulted and interviewed. The value of the crops included in this survey and their production levels are given. The total value for crops surveyed exceeds 24 billion dollars and represents more than 92 percent of total U.S. crop value.

Sustainability of Italian Agriculture: A Methodological Approach for Assessing Crop Water Footprint at Local Scale

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Altobelli, F.; Dalla Marta, A.; Cimino, O.; Orlandini, S.; Natali, F.

2014-12-01

In a world where population is rapidly growing and where several planetary boundaries (i.e. climate change, biodiversity loss and nitrogen cycle) have already been crossed, agriculture is called to respond to the needs of food security through a sustainable use of natural resources. In particular, water is one of the main elements of fertility so the agricultural activity, and the whole agro-food chain, is one of the productive sectors more dependent on water resource and it is able to affect, at regional level, its availability for all the other sectors. In this study, we proposed a methodology for assessing the green and blue water footprint of the main Italian crops typical of the different geographical areas (northwest, northeast, center, and south) based on data extracted from Italian Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN). FADN is an instrument for evaluating the income of agricultural holdings and the impacts of the Common Agricultural Policy. Crops were selected based on incidence of cultivated area on the total arable land of FADN farms net. Among others, the database contains data on irrigation management (irrigated surface, length of irrigation season, volumes of water, etc.), and crop production. Meteorological data series were obtained by a combination of local weather stations and ECAD E-obs spatialized database. Crop water footprints were evaluated against water availability and risk of desertification maps of Italy. Further, we compared the crop water footprints obtained with our methodology with already existing data from similar studies in order to highlight the effects of spatial scale and level of detail of available data.

Grassland-Cropping Rotations: An Avenue for Agricultural Diversification to Reconcile High Production with Environmental Quality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lemaire, Gilles; Gastal, François; Franzluebbers, Alan; Chabbi, Abad

2015-11-01

A need to increase agricultural production across the world to ensure continued food security appears to be at odds with the urgency to reduce the negative environmental impacts of intensive agriculture. Around the world, intensification has been associated with massive simplification and uniformity at all levels of organization, i.e., field, farm, landscape, and region. Therefore, we postulate that negative environmental impacts of modern agriculture are due more to production simplification than to inherent characteristics of agricultural productivity. Thus by enhancing diversity within agricultural systems, it should be possible to reconcile high quantity and quality of food production with environmental quality. Intensification of livestock and cropping systems separately within different specialized regions inevitably leads to unacceptable environmental impacts because of the overly uniform land use system in intensive cereal areas and excessive N-P loads in intensive animal areas. The capacity of grassland ecosystems to couple C and N cycles through microbial-soil-plant interactions as a way for mitigating the environmental impacts of intensive arable cropping system was analyzed in different management options: grazing, cutting, and ley duration, in order to minimize trade-offs between production and the environment. We suggest that integrated crop-livestock systems are an appropriate strategy to enhance diversity. Sod-based rotations can temporally and spatially capture the benefits of leys for minimizing environmental impacts, while still maintaining periods and areas of intensive cropping. Long-term experimental results illustrate the potential of such systems to sequester C in soil and to reduce and control N emissions to the atmosphere and hydrosphere.

Grassland-Cropping Rotations: An Avenue for Agricultural Diversification to Reconcile High Production with Environmental Quality.

PubMed

Lemaire, Gilles; Gastal, François; Franzluebbers, Alan; Chabbi, Abad

2015-11-01

A need to increase agricultural production across the world to ensure continued food security appears to be at odds with the urgency to reduce the negative environmental impacts of intensive agriculture. Around the world, intensification has been associated with massive simplification and uniformity at all levels of organization, i.e., field, farm, landscape, and region. Therefore, we postulate that negative environmental impacts of modern agriculture are due more to production simplification than to inherent characteristics of agricultural productivity. Thus by enhancing diversity within agricultural systems, it should be possible to reconcile high quantity and quality of food production with environmental quality. Intensification of livestock and cropping systems separately within different specialized regions inevitably leads to unacceptable environmental impacts because of the overly uniform land use system in intensive cereal areas and excessive N-P loads in intensive animal areas. The capacity of grassland ecosystems to couple C and N cycles through microbial-soil-plant interactions as a way for mitigating the environmental impacts of intensive arable cropping system was analyzed in different management options: grazing, cutting, and ley duration, in order to minimize trade-offs between production and the environment. We suggest that integrated crop-livestock systems are an appropriate strategy to enhance diversity. Sod-based rotations can temporally and spatially capture the benefits of leys for minimizing environmental impacts, while still maintaining periods and areas of intensive cropping. Long-term experimental results illustrate the potential of such systems to sequester C in soil and to reduce and control N emissions to the atmosphere and hydrosphere.

Development of an unmanned agricultural robotics system for measuring crop conditions for precision aerial application

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

An Unmanned Agricultural Robotics System (UARS) is acquired, rebuilt with desired hardware, and operated in both classrooms and field. The UARS includes crop height sensor, crop canopy analyzer, normalized difference vegetative index (NDVI) sensor, multispectral camera, and hyperspectral radiometer...

Applications of UAVs in row-crop agriculture: advantages and limitations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Basso, B.; Putnam, G.; Price, R.; Zhang, J.

2016-12-01

The application of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) to monitor agricultural fields has increased over the last few years due to advances in the technology, sensors, post-processing software for image analysis, along with more favorable regulations that allowed UAVs to be flown for commercial use. UAV have several capabilities depending on the type of sensors that are mounted onboard. The most widely used application remains crop scouting to identify areas within fields where the crops underperform for various reasons (nutritional status and water stress, presence of weeds, poor stands etc). In this talk, we present the preliminary results of UAVs field based research to better understand spatial and temporal variability of crop yield. Their advantage in providing timely information is critical, but adaptive management requires a system approach to account for the interactions occurring between genetics, environment and management.

Biotech crops: imperative for achieving the millenium development goals and sustainability of agriculture in the climate change era.

PubMed

Husaini, Amjad M; Tuteja, Narendra

2013-01-01

Biotechnological intervention in the development of crops has opened new vistas in agriculture. Central to the accomplishment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), biotech-agriculture is essential in meeting these targets. Biotech crops have already made modest contributions toward ensuring food and nutrition security by reducing losses and increasing productivity, with less pesticide input. These crops could help address some of the major challenges in agriculture-based economies created by climate change. Projections of global climate change expect the concentration of greenhouse gases to increase, aridization of the environment to increase, temperature fluctuations to occur sharply and frequently, and spatial and temporal distribution of rainfall to be disturbed-all of which will increase abiotic stress-related challenges to crops. Countering these challenges and to meet the food requirement of the ever-increasing world population (expected to reach 9 billion by 2030) we need to (1) develop and use biotech crops for mitigating adverse climatic changes; (2) develop biotech crops resilient to adverse environmental conditions; and (3) address the issues/non-issues raised by NGO's and educate the masses about the benefits of biotech crops.

Not all GMOs are crop plants: non-plant GMO applications in agriculture.

PubMed

Hokanson, K E; Dawson, W O; Handler, A M; Schetelig, M F; St Leger, R J

2014-12-01

Since tools of modern biotechnology have become available, the most commonly applied and often discussed genetically modified organisms are genetically modified crop plants, although genetic engineering is also being used successfully in organisms other than plants, including bacteria, fungi, insects, and viruses. Many of these organisms, as with crop plants, are being engineered for applications in agriculture, to control plant insect pests or diseases. This paper reviews the genetically modified non-plant organisms that have been the subject of permit approvals for environmental release by the United States Department of Agriculture/Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service since the US began regulating genetically modified organisms. This is an indication of the breadth and progress of research in the area of non-plant genetically modified organisms. This review includes three examples of promising research on non-plant genetically modified organisms for application in agriculture: (1) insects for insect pest control using improved vector systems; (2) fungal pathogens of insects to control insect pests; and (3) virus for use as transient-expression vectors for disease control in plants.

Herbicide-resistant crop biotechnology: potential and pitfalls

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Herbicide-resistant crops are an important agricultural biotechnology that can enable farmers to effectively control weeds without harming their crops. Glyphosate-resistant (i.e. Roundup Ready) crops have been the most commercially successful varieties of herbicide-resistant crops and have been plan...

The value of seasonal forecasting and crop mix adaptation to climate variability for agriculture under climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Choi, H. S.; Schneider, U.; Schmid, E.; Held, H.

2012-04-01

Changes to climate variability and frequency of extreme weather events are expected to impose damages to the agricultural sector. Seasonal forecasting and long range prediction skills have received attention as an option to adapt to climate change because seasonal climate and yield predictions could improve farmers' management decisions. The value of seasonal forecasting skill is assessed with a crop mix adaptation option in Spain where drought conditions are prevalent. Yield impacts of climate are simulated for six crops (wheat, barely, cotton, potato, corn and rice) with the EPIC (Environmental Policy Integrated Climate) model. Daily weather data over the period 1961 to 1990 are used and are generated by the regional climate model REMO as reference period for climate projection. Climate information and its consequent yield variability information are given to the stochastic agricultural sector model to calculate the value of climate information in the agricultural market. Expected consumers' market surplus and producers' revenue is compared with and without employing climate forecast information. We find that seasonal forecasting benefits not only consumers but also producers if the latter adopt a strategic crop mix. This mix differs from historical crop mixes by having higher shares of crops which fare relatively well under climate change. The corresponding value of information is highly sensitive to farmers' crop mix choices.

Mapping Crop Patterns in Central US Agricultural Systems from 2000 to 2014 Based on Landsat Data: To What Degree Does Fusing MODIS Data Improve Classification Accuracies?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhu, L.; Radeloff, V.; Ives, A. R.; Barton, B.

2015-12-01

Deriving crop pattern with high accuracy is of great importance for characterizing landscape diversity, which affects the resilience of food webs in agricultural systems in the face of climatic and land cover changes. Landsat sensors were originally designed to monitor agricultural areas, and both radiometric and spatial resolution are optimized for monitoring large agricultural fields. Unfortunately, few clear Landsat images per year are available, which has limited the use of Landsat for making crop classification, and this situation is worse in cloudy areas of the Earth. Meanwhile, the MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data has better temporal resolution but cannot capture fine spatial heterogeneity of agricultural systems. Our question was to what extent fusing imagery from both sensors could improve crop classifications. We utilized the Spatial and Temporal Adaptive Reflectance Fusion Model (STARFM) algorithm to simulate Landsat-like images at MODIS temporal resolution. Based on Random Forests (RF) classifier, we tested whether and by what degree crop maps from 2000 to 2014 of the Arlington Agricultural Research Station (Wisconsin, USA) were improved by integrating available clear Landsat images each year with synthetic images. We predicted that the degree to which classification accuracy can be improved by incorporating synthetic imagery depends on the number and acquisition time of clear Landsat images. Moreover, multi-season data are essential for mapping crop types by capturing their phenological dynamics, and STARFM-simulated images can be used to compensate for missing Landsat observations. Our study is helpful for eliminating the limits of the use of Landsat data in mapping crop patterns, and can provide a benchmark of accuracy when choosing STARFM-simulated images to make crop classification at broader scales.

Response to issues on GM agriculture in Africa: Are transgenic crops safe?

PubMed

Adenle, Ademola A

2011-10-08

The controversies surrounding transgenic crops, often called Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), call for a need to raise the level of public awareness of Genetic Modification (GM) technology in Africa. This should be accomplished by educating the public about the potential benefits and risks that may be associated with this new technology. In the last 15 years, GM crop producing countries have benefited from adoption of this new technology in the form of improved crop productivity, food security, and quality of life. The increased income to resource-poor farmers is a key benefit at the individual level especially as most countries using this technology are in the developing world, including three African countries (South Africa, Burkina Faso and Egypt). Despite clear benefits to countries and farmers who grow GMOs, many people are concerned about suspected potential risks associated with GMOs. This sparks debate as to whether GM technology should be adopted or not. Given the concerns regarding the safety of GMO products, thorough scientific investigation of safe application of GMOs is required. The objective of this paper is to respond to the issues of GM agriculture in Africa and some of the issues surrounding the adoption of GM crops between developed and developing countries. In this article, I analyse relevant papers relating to the adoption of GM technology particularly in developing countries including the few African countries that have adopted GM crops. The issues discussed span a wide range including: safety; potential benefits and risks; disputes between the United States of America (USA) and the European Union (EU) over adoption of GM crops with a focus on Africa continent. This article is concluded by summarising the issues raised and how GM technology can be adopted for agricultural development in Africa.

Response to issues on GM agriculture in Africa: Are transgenic crops safe?

PubMed Central

2011-01-01

The controversies surrounding transgenic crops, often called Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), call for a need to raise the level of public awareness of Genetic Modification (GM) technology in Africa. This should be accomplished by educating the public about the potential benefits and risks that may be associated with this new technology. In the last 15 years, GM crop producing countries have benefited from adoption of this new technology in the form of improved crop productivity, food security, and quality of life. The increased income to resource-poor farmers is a key benefit at the individual level especially as most countries using this technology are in the developing world, including three African countries (South Africa, Burkina Faso and Egypt). Despite clear benefits to countries and farmers who grow GMOs, many people are concerned about suspected potential risks associated with GMOs. This sparks debate as to whether GM technology should be adopted or not. Given the concerns regarding the safety of GMO products, thorough scientific investigation of safe application of GMOs is required. The objective of this paper is to respond to the issues of GM agriculture in Africa and some of the issues surrounding the adoption of GM crops between developed and developing countries. In this article, I analyse relevant papers relating to the adoption of GM technology particularly in developing countries including the few African countries that have adopted GM crops. The issues discussed span a wide range including: safety; potential benefits and risks; disputes between the United States of America (USA) and the European Union (EU) over adoption of GM crops with a focus on Africa continent. This article is concluded by summarising the issues raised and how GM technology can be adopted for agricultural development in Africa. PMID:21981823

Radio/antenna mounting system for wireless networking under row-crop agriculture conditions

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Interest in and deployment of wireless monitoring systems is increasing in many diverse environments, including row-crop agricultural fields. While many studies have been undertaken to evaluate various aspects of wireless monitoring and networking, such as electronic hardware components, data-colle...

Hybridization of powdery mildew strains gives rise to pathogens on novel agricultural crop species.

PubMed

Menardo, Fabrizio; Praz, Coraline R; Wyder, Stefan; Ben-David, Roi; Bourras, Salim; Matsumae, Hiromi; McNally, Kaitlin E; Parlange, Francis; Riba, Andrea; Roffler, Stefan; Schaefer, Luisa K; Shimizu, Kentaro K; Valenti, Luca; Zbinden, Helen; Wicker, Thomas; Keller, Beat

2016-02-01

Throughout the history of agriculture, many new crop species (polyploids or artificial hybrids) have been introduced to diversify products or to increase yield. However, little is known about how these new crops influence the evolution of new pathogens and diseases. Triticale is an artificial hybrid of wheat and rye, and it was resistant to the fungal pathogen powdery mildew (Blumeria graminis) until 2001 (refs. 1,2,3). We sequenced and compared the genomes of 46 powdery mildew isolates covering several formae speciales. We found that B. graminis f. sp. triticale, which grows on triticale and wheat, is a hybrid between wheat powdery mildew (B. graminis f. sp. tritici) and mildew specialized on rye (B. graminis f. sp. secalis). Our data show that the hybrid of the two mildews specialized on two different hosts can infect the hybrid plant species originating from those two hosts. We conclude that hybridization between mildews specialized on different species is a mechanism of adaptation to new crops introduced by agriculture.

Landscape simplification reduces classical biological control and crop yield.

PubMed

Grab, Heather; Danforth, Bryan; Poveda, Katja; Loeb, Greg

2018-03-01

Agricultural intensification resulting in the simplification of agricultural landscapes is known to negatively impact the delivery of key ecosystem services such as the biological control of crop pests. Both conservation and classical biological control may be influenced by the landscape context in which they are deployed; yet studies examining the role of landscape structure in the establishment and success of introduced natural enemies and their interactions with native communities are lacking. In this study, we investigated the relationship between landscape simplification, classical and conservation biological control services and importantly, the outcome of these interactions for crop yield. We showed that agricultural simplification at the landscape scale is associated with an overall reduction in parasitism rates of crop pests. Additionally, only introduced parasitoids were identified, and no native parasitoids were found in crop habitat, irrespective of agricultural landscape simplification. Pest densities in the crop were lower in landscapes with greater proportions of semi-natural habitats. Furthermore, farms with less semi-natural cover in the landscape and consequently, higher pest numbers, had lower yields than farms in less agriculturally dominated landscapes. Our study demonstrates the importance of landscape scale agricultural simplification in mediating the success of biological control programs and highlights the potential risks to native natural enemies in classical biological control programs against native insects. Our results represent an important contribution to an understanding of the landscape-mediated impacts on crop yield that will be essential to implementing effective policies that simultaneously conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services. © 2018 by the Ecological Society of America.

Impacts of crop insurance on water withdrawals for irrigation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Deryugina, Tatyana; Konar, Megan

2017-12-01

Agricultural production remains particularly vulnerable to weather fluctuations and extreme events, such as droughts, floods, and heat waves. Crop insurance is a risk management tool developed to mitigate some of this weather risk and protect farmer income in times of poor production. However, crop insurance may have unintended consequences for water resources sustainability, as the vast majority of freshwater withdrawals go to agriculture. The causal impact of crop insurance on water use in agriculture remains poorly understood. Here, we determine the empirical relationship between crop insurance and irrigation water withdrawals in the United States. Importantly, we use an instrumental variables approach to establish causality. Our methodology exploits a major policy change in the crop insurance system - the 1994 Federal Crop Insurance Reform Act - which imposed crop insurance requirements on farmers. We find that a 1% increase in insured crop acreage leads to a 0.223% increase in irrigation withdrawals, with most coming from groundwater aquifers. We identify farmers growing more groundwater-fed cotton as an important mechanism contributing to increased withdrawals. A 1% increase in insured crop acreage leads to a 0.624% increase in cotton acreage, or 95,602 acres. These results demonstrate that crop insurance causally leads to more irrigation withdrawals. More broadly, this work underscores the importance of determining causality in the water-food nexus as we endeavor to achieve global food security and water resources sustainability.

Agricultural Intensification in the Amazon: Tracking Nitrogen Fertilizer from Soy-Maize Double Cropping to Streams

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cabrera, V. D.; Jankowski, K.; Neill, C.; Macedo, M.; Deegan, L.; Brando, P. M.; Nascimento, S.; Nascimento, E.; Rocha, S.; Coe, M. T.; Nunes, D.

2015-12-01

Globalization and the increasing demand for food create pressure to both expand and intensify agriculture. These changes have potentially large consequences for the solute concentrations and functioning of streams. In the Brazilian Amazon, crop agriculture expanded greatly during the last 20 years. More recently, farmers have intensified production on existing cropland by double cropping of soy and maize during the same year. Maize, a novel crop for the region, requires much higher applications of nitrogen (N) fertilizer than soybeans. To determine whether this novel land use and associated N addition influenced N concentrations in groundwater and stream water, we measured N concentrations in groundwater wells and streams from small headwater watersheds across three land uses (soy-maize, soy, and tropical forest) in the Upper Xingu Basin, a region of rapid cropland intensification in the southern Amazon. Each watershed contained six groundwater wells arranged in a transect reaching cropland field edge on either side of the stream. Total inorganic N concentrations were higher in wells adjacent to fields where double cropping occurred, while stream concentrations did not differ overall among land uses. This suggests the riparian zones are critical in the removal of N, but as the intensification of agriculture continues the ability of the riparian zone to prevent N from traveling to streams is unknown. Their protection is critical to the functioning of tropical watersheds.

Economic potential of short-rotation woody crops on agricultural land for pulp fiber production in the United States.

Treesearch

Ralph J. Alig; Darius M. Adams; Bruce A. McCarl; Peter J. Ince

2000-01-01

A model of the U.S. forestry and agricultural sectors is used to simulate the consequences of growing short-rotation woody crops on agricultural lands as a fiber source for pulp and paper production. Hybrid poplar, a short-rotation woody crop, annually produces 4 to 7 dry tons per acre of hardwood pulpwood over a 6- to 10-year rotation. When harvested, the material...

Future Climate Impacts on Crop Water Demand and Groundwater Longevity in Agricultural Regions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Russo, T. A.; Sahoo, S.; Elliott, J. W.; Foster, I.

2016-12-01

Improving groundwater management practices under future drought conditions in agricultural regions requires three steps: 1) estimating the impacts of climate and drought on crop water demand, 2) projecting groundwater availability given climate and demand forcing, and 3) using this information to develop climate-smart policy and water use practices. We present an innovative combination of models to address the first two steps, and inform the third. Crop water demand was simulated using biophysical crop models forced by multiple climate models and climate scenarios, with one case simulating climate adaptation (e.g. modify planting or harvest time) and another without adaptation. These scenarios were intended to represent a range of drought projections and farm management responses. Nexty, we used projected climate conditions and simulated water demand across the United States as inputs to a novel machine learning-based groundwater model. The model was applied to major agricultural regions relying on the High Plains and Mississippi Alluvial aquifer systems in the US. The groundwater model integrates input data preprocessed using single spectrum analysis, mutual information, and a genetic algorithm, with an artificial neural network model. Model calibration and test results indicate low errors over the 33 year model run, and strong correlations to groundwater levels in hundreds of wells across each aquifer. Model results include a range of projected groundwater level changes from the present to 2050, and in some regions, identification and timeframe of aquifer depletion. These results quantify aquifer longevity under climate and crop scenarios, and provide decision makers with the data needed to compare scenarios of crop water demand, crop yield, and groundwater response, as they aim to balance water sustainability with food security.

The development, evaluation, and application of O3 flux and flux-response models for additional agricultural crops

Treesearch

L. D. Emberson; W. J. Massman; P. Buker; G. Soja; I. Van De Sand; G. Mills; C. Jacobs

2006-01-01

Currently, stomatal O3 flux and flux-response models only exist for wheat and potato (LRTAP Convention, 2004), as such there is a need to extend these models to include additional crop types. The possibility of establishing robust stomatal flux models for five agricultural crops (tomato, grapevine, sugar beet, maize and sunflower) was investigated. These crops were...

Per-field crop classification in irrigated agricultural regions in middle Asia using random forest and support vector machine ensemble

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Löw, Fabian; Schorcht, Gunther; Michel, Ulrich; Dech, Stefan; Conrad, Christopher

2012-10-01

Accurate crop identification and crop area estimation are important for studies on irrigated agricultural systems, yield and water demand modeling, and agrarian policy development. In this study a novel combination of Random Forest (RF) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifiers is presented that (i) enhances crop classification accuracy and (ii) provides spatial information on map uncertainty. The methodology was implemented over four distinct irrigated sites in Middle Asia using RapidEye time series data. The RF feature importance statistics was used as feature-selection strategy for the SVM to assess possible negative effects on classification accuracy caused by an oversized feature space. The results of the individual RF and SVM classifications were combined with rules based on posterior classification probability and estimates of classification probability entropy. SVM classification performance was increased by feature selection through RF. Further experimental results indicate that the hybrid classifier improves overall classification accuracy in comparison to the single classifiers as well as useŕs and produceŕs accuracy.

Selenium speciation in seleniferous agricultural soils under different cropping systems using sequential extraction and X-ray absorption spectroscopy.

PubMed

Qin, Hai-Bo; Zhu, Jian-Ming; Lin, Zhi-Qing; Xu, Wen-Po; Tan, De-Can; Zheng, Li-Rong; Takahashi, Yoshio

2017-06-01

Selenium (Se) speciation in soil is critically important for understanding the solubility, mobility, bioavailability, and toxicity of Se in the environment. In this study, Se fractionation and chemical speciation in agricultural soils from seleniferous areas were investigated using the elaborate sequential extraction and X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy. The speciation results quantified by XANES technique generally agreed with those obtained by sequential extraction, and the combination of both approaches can reliably characterize Se speciation in soils. Results showed that dominant organic Se (56-81% of the total Se) and lesser Se(IV) (19-44%) were observed in seleniferous agricultural soils. A significant decrease in the proportion of organic Se to the total Se was found in different types of soil, i.e., paddy soil (81%) > uncultivated soil (69-73%) > upland soil (56-63%), while that of Se(IV) presented an inverse tendency. This suggests that Se speciation in agricultural soils can be significantly influenced by different cropping systems. Organic Se in seleniferous agricultural soils was probably derived from plant litter, which provides a significant insight for phytoremediation in Se-laden ecosystems and biofortification in Se-deficient areas. Furthermore, elevated organic Se in soils could result in higher Se accumulation in crops and further potential chronic Se toxicity to local residents in seleniferous areas. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Even the Smallest Non-Crop Habitat Islands Could Be Beneficial: Distribution of Carabid Beetles and Spiders in Agricultural Landscape

PubMed Central

Knapp, Michal; Řezáč, Milan

2015-01-01

Carabid beetles and ground-dwelling spiders inhabiting agroecosystems are beneficial organisms with a potential to control pest species. Intensification of agricultural management and reduction of areas covered by non-crop vegetation during recent decades in some areas has led to many potentially serious environmental problems including a decline in the diversity and abundance of beneficial arthropods in agricultural landscapes. This study investigated carabid beetle and spider assemblages in non-crop habitat islands of various sizes (50 to 18,000 square metres) within one large field, as well as the arable land within the field, using pitfall traps in two consecutive sampling periods (spring to early summer and peak summer). The non-crop habitat islands situated inside arable land hosted many unique ground-dwelling arthropod species that were not present within the surrounding arable land. Even the smallest non-crop habitat islands with areas of tens of square metres were inhabited by assemblages substantially different from these inhabiting arable land and thus enhanced the biodiversity of agricultural landscapes. The non-crop habitat area substantially affected the activity density, recorded species richness and recorded species composition of carabid and ground-dwelling spider assemblages; however, the effects were weakened when species specialised to non-crop habitats species were analysed separately. Interestingly, recorded species richness of spiders increased with non-crop habitat area, whereas recorded species richness of carabid beetles exhibited an opposite trend. There was substantial temporal variation in the spatial distribution of ground-dwelling arthropods, and contrasting patterns were observed for particular taxa (carabid beetles and spiders). In general, local environmental conditions (i.e., non-crop habitat island tree cover, shrub cover, grass cover and litter depth) were better determinants of arthropod assemblages than non-crop habitat island

Even the smallest non-crop habitat islands could be beneficial: distribution of carabid beetles and spiders in agricultural landscape.

PubMed

Knapp, Michal; Řezáč, Milan

2015-01-01

Carabid beetles and ground-dwelling spiders inhabiting agroecosystems are beneficial organisms with a potential to control pest species. Intensification of agricultural management and reduction of areas covered by non-crop vegetation during recent decades in some areas has led to many potentially serious environmental problems including a decline in the diversity and abundance of beneficial arthropods in agricultural landscapes. This study investigated carabid beetle and spider assemblages in non-crop habitat islands of various sizes (50 to 18,000 square metres) within one large field, as well as the arable land within the field, using pitfall traps in two consecutive sampling periods (spring to early summer and peak summer). The non-crop habitat islands situated inside arable land hosted many unique ground-dwelling arthropod species that were not present within the surrounding arable land. Even the smallest non-crop habitat islands with areas of tens of square metres were inhabited by assemblages substantially different from these inhabiting arable land and thus enhanced the biodiversity of agricultural landscapes. The non-crop habitat area substantially affected the activity density, recorded species richness and recorded species composition of carabid and ground-dwelling spider assemblages; however, the effects were weakened when species specialised to non-crop habitats species were analysed separately. Interestingly, recorded species richness of spiders increased with non-crop habitat area, whereas recorded species richness of carabid beetles exhibited an opposite trend. There was substantial temporal variation in the spatial distribution of ground-dwelling arthropods, and contrasting patterns were observed for particular taxa (carabid beetles and spiders). In general, local environmental conditions (i.e., non-crop habitat island tree cover, shrub cover, grass cover and litter depth) were better determinants of arthropod assemblages than non-crop habitat island

Strengthening Agricultural Decisions in Countries at Risk of Food Insecurity: The GEOGLAM Crop Monitor for Early Warning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Becker-Reshef, I.; Barker, B.; McGaughey, K.; Humber, M. L.; Sanchez, A.; Justice, C. O.; Rembold, F.; Verdin, J. P.

2016-12-01

Timely, reliable information on crop conditions, and prospects at the subnational scale, is critical for making informed policy and agricultural decisions for ensuring food security, particularly for the most vulnerable countries. However, such information is often incomplete or lacking. As such, the Crop Monitor for Early Warning (CM for EW) was developed with the goal to reduce uncertainty and strengthen decision support by providing actionable information on a monthly basis to national, regional and global food security agencies through timely consensus assessments of crop conditions. This information is especially critical in recent years, given the extreme weather conditions impacting food supplies including the most recent El Nino event. This initiative brings together the main international food security monitoring agencies and organizations to develop monthly crop assessments based on satellite observations, meteorological information, field observations and ground reports, which reflect an international consensus. This activity grew out of the successful Crop Monitor for the G20 Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS), which provides operational monthly crop assessments of the main producing countries of the world. The CM for EW was launched in February 2016 and has already become a trusted source of information internationally and regionally. Its assessments have been featured in a large number of news articles, reports, and press releases, including a joint statement by the USAID's FEWS NET, UN World Food Program, European Commission Joint Research Center, and the UN Food and Agriculture Organziation, on the devastating impacts of the southern African drought due to El Nino. One of the main priorities for this activity going forward is to expand its partnership with regional and national monitoring agencies, and strengthen capacity for national crop condition assessments.

GEOGLAM Crop Monitor Assessment Tool: Developing Monthly Crop Condition Assessments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McGaughey, K.; Becker Reshef, I.; Barker, B.; Humber, M. L.; Nordling, J.; Justice, C. O.; Deshayes, M.

2014-12-01

The Group on Earth Observations (GEO) developed the Global Agricultural Monitoring initiative (GEOGLAM) to improve existing agricultural information through a network of international partnerships, data sharing, and operational research. This presentation will discuss the Crop Monitor component of GEOGLAM, which provides the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) with an international, multi-source, and transparent consensus assessment of crop growing conditions, status, and agro-climatic conditions likely to impact global production. This activity covers the four primary crop types (wheat, maize, rice, and soybean) within the main agricultural producing regions of the AMIS countries. These assessments have been produced operationally since September 2013 and are published in the AMIS Market Monitor Bulletin. The Crop Monitor reports provide cartographic and textual summaries of crop conditions as of the 28th of each month, according to crop type. This presentation will focus on the building of international networks, data collection, and data dissemination.

Systems Biology for Smart Crops and Agricultural Innovation: Filling the Gaps between Genotype and Phenotype for Complex Traits Linked with Robust Agricultural Productivity and Sustainability

PubMed Central

Pathak, Rajesh Kumar; Gupta, Sanjay Mohan; Gaur, Vikram Singh; Pandey, Dinesh

2015-01-01

Abstract In recent years, rapid developments in several omics platforms and next generation sequencing technology have generated a huge amount of biological data about plants. Systems biology aims to develop and use well-organized and efficient algorithms, data structure, visualization, and communication tools for the integration of these biological data with the goal of computational modeling and simulation. It studies crop plant systems by systematically perturbing them, checking the gene, protein, and informational pathway responses; integrating these data; and finally, formulating mathematical models that describe the structure of system and its response to individual perturbations. Consequently, systems biology approaches, such as integrative and predictive ones, hold immense potential in understanding of molecular mechanism of agriculturally important complex traits linked to agricultural productivity. This has led to identification of some key genes and proteins involved in networks of pathways involved in input use efficiency, biotic and abiotic stress resistance, photosynthesis efficiency, root, stem and leaf architecture, and nutrient mobilization. The developments in the above fields have made it possible to design smart crops with superior agronomic traits through genetic manipulation of key candidate genes. PMID:26484978

Cover crop and CO2 emissions

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Agricultural land management practices account for about 50% of soil organic carbon (SOC) loss. Restoring SOC is important to soil productivity and fertility. Management strategies to rebuild SOC include addition of manure or other organic amendments, increasing root biomass from crops, leaving crop...

Climate Change Impacts on Crop Production in Nigeria

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mereu, V.; Gallo, A.; Carboni, G.; Spano, D.

2011-12-01

The agricultural sector in Nigeria is particularly important for the country's food security, natural resources, and growth agenda. The cultivable areas comprise more than 70% of the total area; however, the cultivated area is about the 35% of the total area. The most important components in the food basket of the nation are cereals and tubers, which include rice, maize, corn, millet, sorghum, yam, and cassava. These crops represent about 80% of the total agricultural product in Nigeria (from NPAFS). The major crops grown in the country can be divided into food crops (produced for consumption) and export products. Despite the importance of the export crops, the primary policy of agriculture is to make Nigeria self-sufficient in its food and fiber requirements. The projected impacts of future climate change on agriculture and water resources are expected to be adverse and extensive in these area. This implies the need for actions and measures to adapt to climate change impacts, and especially as they affect agriculture, the primary sector for Nigerian economy. In the framework of the Project Climate Risk Analysis in Nigeria (founded by World Bank Contract n.7157826), a study was made to assess the potential impact of climate change on the main crops that characterize Nigerian agriculture. The DSSAT-CSM (Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer - Cropping System Model) software, version 4.5 was used for the analysis. Crop simulation models included in DSSAT are tools that simulate physiological processes of crop growth, development and production by combining genetic crop characteristics and environmental (soil and weather) conditions. For each selected crop, the models were calibrated to evaluate climate change impacts on crop production. The climate data used for the analysis are derived by the Regional Circulation Model COSMO-CLM, from 1971 to 2065, at 8 km of spatial resolution. The RCM model output was "perturbed" with 10 Global Climate Models to have

Cover crops support ecological intensification of arable cropping systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wittwer, Raphaël A.; Dorn, Brigitte; Jossi, Werner; van der Heijden, Marcel G. A.

2017-02-01

A major challenge for agriculture is to enhance productivity with minimum impact on the environment. Several studies indicate that cover crops could replace anthropogenic inputs and enhance crop productivity. However, so far, it is unclear if cover crop effects vary between different cropping systems, and direct comparisons among major arable production systems are rare. Here we compared the short-term effects of various cover crops on crop yield, nitrogen uptake, and weed infestation in four arable production systems (conventional cropping with intensive tillage and no-tillage; organic cropping with intensive tillage and reduced tillage). We hypothesized that cover cropping effects increase with decreasing management intensity. Our study demonstrated that cover crop effects on crop yield were highest in the organic system with reduced tillage (+24%), intermediate in the organic system with tillage (+13%) and in the conventional system with no tillage (+8%) and lowest in the conventional system with tillage (+2%). Our results indicate that cover crops are essential to maintaining a certain yield level when soil tillage intensity is reduced (e.g. under conservation agriculture), or when production is converted to organic agriculture. Thus, the inclusion of cover crops provides additional opportunities to increase the yield of lower intensity production systems and contribute to ecological intensification.

Agricultural water demand, water quality and crop suitability in Souk-Alkhamis Al-Khums, Libya

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abunnour, Mohamed Ali; Hashim, Noorazuan Bin Md.; Jaafar, Mokhtar Bin

2016-06-01

Water scarcity, unequal population distribution and agricultural activities increased in the coastal plains, and the probability of seawater intrusion with ground water. According to this, the quantitative and qualitative deterioration of underground water quality has become a potential for the occurrence, in addition to the decline in agricultural production in the study area. This paper aims to discover the use of ground water for irrigation in agriculture and their suitability and compatibility for agricultural. On the other hand, the quality is determines by the cultivated crops. 16 random samples of regular groundwater are collected and analyzed chemically. Questionnaires are also distributed randomly on regular basis to farmers.

Integrating High Resolution Water Footprint and GIS for Promoting Water Efficiency in the Agricultural Sector: A Case Study of Plantation Crops in the Jordan Valley

PubMed Central

Shtull-Trauring, Eliav; Aviani, Ido; Avisar, Dror; Bernstein, Nirit

2016-01-01

Addressing the global challenges to water security requires a better understanding of humanity's use of water, especially the agricultural sector that accounts for 70% of global withdrawals. This study combined high resolution-data with a GIS system to analyze the impact of agricultural practices, crop type, and spatial factors such as drainage basins, climate, and soil type on the Water Footprint (WF) of agricultural crops. The area of the study, the northern Lower Jordan Valley, covers 1121 ha in which three main plantation crops are grown: banana (cultivated in open-fields or net-houses), avocado and palm-dates. High-resolution data sources included GIS layers of the cultivated crops and a drainage pipe-system installed in the study area; meteorological data (2000–2013); and crop parameters (yield and irrigation recommendations). First, the study compared the WF of the different crops on the basis of yield and energy produced as well as a comparison to global values and local irrigation recommendations. The results showed that net-house banana has the lowest WF based on all different criteria. However, while palm-dates showed the highest WF for the yield criteria, it had the second lowest WF for energy produced, emphasizing the importance of using multiple parameters for low and high yield crop comparisons. Next, the regional WF of each drainage basin in the study area was calculated, demonstrating the strong influence of the Gray WF, an indication of the amount of freshwater required for pollution assimilation. Finally, the benefits of integrating GIS and WF were demonstrated by computing the effect of adopting net-house cultivation throughout the area of study with a result a reduction of 1.3 MCM irrigation water per year. Integrating the WF methodology and local high-resolution data using GIS can therefore promote and help quantify the benefits of adopting site-appropriate crops and agricultural practices that lower the WF by increasing yield, reducing

Integrating High Resolution Water Footprint and GIS for Promoting Water Efficiency in the Agricultural Sector: A Case Study of Plantation Crops in the Jordan Valley.

PubMed

Shtull-Trauring, Eliav; Aviani, Ido; Avisar, Dror; Bernstein, Nirit

2016-01-01

Addressing the global challenges to water security requires a better understanding of humanity's use of water, especially the agricultural sector that accounts for 70% of global withdrawals. This study combined high resolution-data with a GIS system to analyze the impact of agricultural practices, crop type, and spatial factors such as drainage basins, climate, and soil type on the Water Footprint (WF) of agricultural crops. The area of the study, the northern Lower Jordan Valley, covers 1121 ha in which three main plantation crops are grown: banana (cultivated in open-fields or net-houses), avocado and palm-dates. High-resolution data sources included GIS layers of the cultivated crops and a drainage pipe-system installed in the study area; meteorological data (2000-2013); and crop parameters (yield and irrigation recommendations). First, the study compared the WF of the different crops on the basis of yield and energy produced as well as a comparison to global values and local irrigation recommendations. The results showed that net-house banana has the lowest WF based on all different criteria. However, while palm-dates showed the highest WF for the yield criteria, it had the second lowest WF for energy produced, emphasizing the importance of using multiple parameters for low and high yield crop comparisons. Next, the regional WF of each drainage basin in the study area was calculated, demonstrating the strong influence of the Gray WF, an indication of the amount of freshwater required for pollution assimilation. Finally, the benefits of integrating GIS and WF were demonstrated by computing the effect of adopting net-house cultivation throughout the area of study with a result a reduction of 1.3 MCM irrigation water per year. Integrating the WF methodology and local high-resolution data using GIS can therefore promote and help quantify the benefits of adopting site-appropriate crops and agricultural practices that lower the WF by increasing yield, reducing water

The importance of an alternative for sustainability of agriculture around the periphery of the Amazon rainforest.

PubMed

Moura, Emanoel G; Sena, Virley G L; Corrêa, Mariana S; Aguiar, Alana das C F

2013-04-01

The unsustainable use of the soil of the deforested area at the Amazonian border is one of the greatest threats to the rainforest, because it is the predominant cause of shifting cultivation in the region. The sustainable management of soils with low natural fertility is a major challenge for smallholder agriculture in the humid tropics. In the periphery of Brazilian Amazonia, agricultural practices that are recommended for the Brazilian savannah, such as saturating soils with soluble nutrients do not ensure the sustainability of agroecosystems. Improvements in the tilled topsoil cannot be maintained if deterioration of the porous soil structure is not prevented and nutrient losses in the root zone are not curtailed. The information gleaned from experiments affirms that in the management of humid tropical agrosystems, the processes resulting from the interaction between climatic factors and indicators of soil quality must be taken into consideration. It must be remembered that these interactions manifest themselves in ways that cannot be predicted from the paradigm established in the other region like the southeast of Brazil, which is based only on improving the chemical indicators of soil quality. The physical indicators play important role in the sustainable management of the agrosystems of the region and for these reasons must be considered. Therefore, alley cropping is a potential substitute for slash and burn agriculture in the humid tropics with both environmental and agronomic advantages, due to its ability to produce a large amount of residues on the soil surface and its effect on the increase of economic crop productivity in the long term. The article presents some promising patents on the importance of an alternative for sustainability of agriculture.

Farmer's Incentives for Adoption of Recommended Farm Practices in Wheat Crop in Aligarh Intensive Agricultural District, India.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vidyarthy, Gopal Saran

This study was undertaken to identify farmer incentives that led them to adopt wheat crop practices in Aligarh Intensive Agricultural District Program: the association between the farmer's characteristics and adoption groups; the incentives that lead the farmers to adopt recommended wheat crop practices; relationship between identified incentives…

Bioinformatics in the orphan crops.

PubMed

Armstead, Ian; Huang, Lin; Ravagnani, Adriana; Robson, Paul; Ougham, Helen

2009-11-01

Orphan crops are those which are grown as food, animal feed or other crops of some importance in agriculture, but which have not yet received the investment of research effort or funding required to develop significant public bioinformatics resources. Where an orphan crop is related to a well-characterised model plant species, comparative genomics and bioinformatics can often, though not always, be exploited to assist research and crop improvement. This review addresses some challenges and opportunities presented by bioinformatics in the orphan crops, using three examples: forage grasses from the genera Lolium and Festuca, forage legumes and the second generation energy crop Miscanthus.

Review of anthraquinone applications for pest management and agricultural crop protection.

PubMed

DeLiberto, Shelagh T; Werner, Scott J

2016-10-01

We have reviewed published anthraquinone applications for international pest management and agricultural crop protection from 1943 to 2016. Anthraquinone (AQ) is commonly found in dyes, pigments and many plants and organisms. Avian repellent research with AQ began in the 1940s. In the context of pest management, AQ is currently used as a chemical repellent, perch deterrent, insecticide and feeding deterrent in many wild birds, and in some mammals, insects and fishes. Criteria for evaluation of effective chemical repellents include efficacy, potential for wildlife hazards, phytotoxicity and environmental persistence. As a biopesticide, AQ often meets these criteria of efficacy for the non-lethal management of agricultural depredation caused by wildlife. We summarize published applications of AQ for the protection of newly planted and maturing crops from pest birds. Conventional applications of AQ-based repellents include preplant seed treatments [e.g. corn (Zea mays L.), rice (Oryza sativa L.), sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.), wheat (Triticum spp.), millet (Panicum spp.), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.), pelletized feed and forest tree species] and foliar applications for rice, sunflower, lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.), turf, sugar beets (Beta vulgaris L.), soybean (Glycine max L.), sweet corn and nursery, fruit and nut crops. In addition to agricultural repellent applications, AQ has also been used to treat toxicants for the protection of non-target birds. Few studies have demonstrated AQ repellency in mammals, including wild boar (Sus scrofa, L.), thirteen-lined ground squirrels (Ictidomys tridecemlineatus, Mitchill), black-tailed prairie dogs (Cyomys ludovicainus, Ord.), common voles (Microtus arvalis, Pallas), house mice (Mus musculus, L.), Tristram's jirds (Meriones tristrami, Thomas) and black rats (Rattus rattus L.). Natural sources of AQ and its derivatives have also been identified as insecticides and insect repellents. As a natural or synthetic biopesticide, AQ

Time to Redefine Organic Agriculture: Can’t GM Crops Be Certified as Organics?

PubMed Central

Husaini, Amjad M.; Sohail, Muhammad

2018-01-01

The challenges of sustainable food production without damaging the environment for a growing human population have increased considerably. The current agricultural practices involving chemical fertilizers and even organic farming are not sustainable in the long run and can have deleterious effects on the environment. Thus, new, innovative solutions need to be identified and propagated for tackling this. Among such innovations, that can complement conventional as well as organic farming methods, are genetic modification (GM) and aquaculture. Yet, GM technologies often face resistance from civil groups owing to an ‘unknown’ fear, akin to Frankenstein’s monster. How real is this fear? Our discussion rests on basic questions like, why can’t ‘organics’ include GM crops that do not require chemical inputs for cultivation, and can GM crops like Golden rice qualify to be ‘organic’ if cultivated through organic practices? Do we need to rethink organic agriculture in the context of the present and future challenges of 21st century? PMID:29692789

Time to Redefine Organic Agriculture: Can't GM Crops Be Certified as Organics?

PubMed

Husaini, Amjad M; Sohail, Muhammad

2018-01-01

The challenges of sustainable food production without damaging the environment for a growing human population have increased considerably. The current agricultural practices involving chemical fertilizers and even organic farming are not sustainable in the long run and can have deleterious effects on the environment. Thus, new, innovative solutions need to be identified and propagated for tackling this. Among such innovations, that can complement conventional as well as organic farming methods, are genetic modification (GM) and aquaculture. Yet, GM technologies often face resistance from civil groups owing to an 'unknown' fear, akin to Frankenstein's monster. How real is this fear? Our discussion rests on basic questions like, why can't 'organics' include GM crops that do not require chemical inputs for cultivation, and can GM crops like Golden rice qualify to be 'organic' if cultivated through organic practices? Do we need to rethink organic agriculture in the context of the present and future challenges of 21st century?

Modeling the impact of conservation agriculture on crop production and soil properties in Mediterranean climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Moussadek, Rachid; Mrabet, Rachid; Dahan, Rachid; Laghrour, Malika; Lembiad, Ibtissam; ElMourid, Mohamed

2015-04-01

In Morocco, rainfed agriculture is practiced in the majority of agricultural land. However, the intensive land use coupled to the irregular rainfall constitutes a serious threat that affect country's food security. Conservation agriculture (CA) represents a promising alternative to produce more and sustainably. In fact, the direct seeding showed high yield in arid regions of Morocco but its extending to other more humid agro-ecological zones (rainfall > 350mm) remains scarce. In order to promote CA in Morocco, differents trials have been installed in central plateau of Morocco, to compare CA to conventional tillage (CT). The yields of the main practiced crops (wheat, lentil and checkpea) under CA and CT were analyzed and compared in the 3 soils types (Vertisol, Cambisol and Calcisol). Also, we studied the effect of CA on soil organic matter (SOM) and soil losses (SL) in the 3 different sites. The APSIM model was used to model the long term impact of CA compared to CT. The results obtained in this research have shown favorable effects of CA on crop production, SOM and soil erosion. Key words: Conservation agriculture, yield, soil properties, modeling, APSIM, Morocco.

Origins of food crops connect countries worldwide

PubMed Central

Achicanoy, Harold A.; Bjorkman, Anne D.; Navarro-Racines, Carlos; Guarino, Luigi; Flores-Palacios, Ximena; Engels, Johannes M. M.; Wiersema, John H.; Dempewolf, Hannes; Sotelo, Steven; Ramírez-Villegas, Julian; Castañeda-Álvarez, Nora P.; Fowler, Cary; Jarvis, Andy; Rieseberg, Loren H.; Struik, Paul C.

2016-01-01

Research into the origins of food plants has led to the recognition that specific geographical regions around the world have been of particular importance to the development of agricultural crops. Yet the relative contributions of these different regions in the context of current food systems have not been quantified. Here we determine the origins (‘primary regions of diversity’) of the crops comprising the food supplies and agricultural production of countries worldwide. We estimate the degree to which countries use crops from regions of diversity other than their own (‘foreign crops’), and quantify changes in this usage over the past 50 years. Countries are highly interconnected with regard to primary regions of diversity of the crops they cultivate and/or consume. Foreign crops are extensively used in food supplies (68.7% of national food supplies as a global mean are derived from foreign crops) and production systems (69.3% of crops grown are foreign). Foreign crop usage has increased significantly over the past 50 years, including in countries with high indigenous crop diversity. The results provide a novel perspective on the ongoing globalization of food systems worldwide, and bolster evidence for the importance of international collaboration on genetic resource conservation and exchange.

Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on Agricultural Water Demands and Crop Yields in California's Central Valley

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tansey, M. K.; Flores-Lopez, F.; Young, C. A.; Huntington, J. L.

2012-12-01

between crops due to plant specific sensitivities to temperature, solar radiation and the vapor pressure deficits. Shifts in the growth period to earlier in the year, shortened growth period for annual crops as well as extended fall growth can also exert important influences. Projected increases in CO2 concentrations in the late 21st century exert very significant influences on ET and yield for many crops. To characterize potential impacts and the range of uncertainty, changes in total agricultural water demands and yields were computed assuming that current crop types and acreages in 21 Central Valley regional planning areas remained constant throughout the 21st century for each of the 5 representative future climate scenarios.

The benefits of herbicide-resistant crops.

PubMed

Green, Jerry M

2012-10-01

Since 1996, genetically modified herbicide-resistant crops, primarily glyphosate-resistant soybean, corn, cotton and canola, have helped to revolutionize weed management and have become an important tool in crop production practices. Glyphosate-resistant crops have enabled the implementation of weed management practices that have improved yield and profitability while better protecting the environment. Growers have recognized their benefits and have made glyphosate-resistant crops the most rapidly adopted technology in the history of agriculture. Weed management systems with glyphosate-resistant crops have often relied on glyphosate alone, have been easy to use and have been effective, economical and more environmentally friendly than the systems they have replaced. Glyphosate has worked extremely well in controlling weeds in glyphosate-resistant crops for more than a decade, but some key weeds have evolved resistance, and using glyphosate alone has proved unsustainable. Now, growers need to renew their weed management practices and use glyphosate with other cultural, mechanical and herbicide options in integrated systems. New multiple-herbicide-resistant crops with resistance to glyphosate and other herbicides will expand the utility of existing herbicide technologies and will be an important component of future weed management systems that help to sustain the current benefits of high-efficiency and high-production agriculture. Copyright © 2012 Society of Chemical Industry.

Impacts of Watershed Characteristics and Crop Rotations on Winter Cover Crop Nitrate-Nitrogen Uptake Capacity within Agricultural Watersheds in the Chesapeake Bay Region.

PubMed

Lee, Sangchul; Yeo, In-Young; Sadeghi, Ali M; McCarty, Gregory W; Hively, W Dean; Lang, Megan W

2016-01-01

The adoption rate of winter cover crops (WCCs) as an effective conservation management practice to help reduce agricultural nutrient loads in the Chesapeake Bay (CB) is increasing. However, the WCC potential for water quality improvement has not been fully realized at the watershed scale. This study was conducted to evaluate the long-term impact of WCCs on hydrology and NO3-N loads in two adjacent watersheds and to identify key management factors that affect the effectiveness of WCCs using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) and statistical methods. Simulation results indicated that WCCs are effective for reducing NO3-N loads and their performance varied based on planting date, species, soil characteristics, and crop rotations. Early-planted WCCs outperformed late-planted WCCs on the reduction of NO3-N loads and early-planted rye (RE) reduced NO3-N loads by ~49.3% compared to the baseline (no WCC). The WCCs were more effective in a watershed dominated by well-drained soils with increased reductions in NO3-N fluxes of ~2.5 kg N·ha-1 delivered to streams and ~10.1 kg N·ha-1 leached into groundwater compared to poorly-drained soils. Well-drained agricultural lands had higher transport of NO3-N in the soil profile and groundwater due to increased N leaching. Poorly-drained agricultural lands had lower NO3-N due to extensive drainage ditches and anaerobic soil conditions promoting denitrification. The performance of WCCs varied by crop rotations (i.e., continuous corn and corn-soybean), with increased N uptake following soybean crops due to the increased soil mineral N availability by mineralization of soybean residue compared to corn residue. The WCCs can reduce N leaching where baseline NO3-N loads are high in well-drained soils and/or when residual and mineralized N availability is high due to the cropping practices. The findings suggested that WCC implementation plans should be established in watersheds according to local edaphic and agronomic

Impacts of Watershed Characteristics and Crop Rotations on Winter Cover Crop Nitrate-Nitrogen Uptake Capacity within Agricultural Watersheds in the Chesapeake Bay Region

PubMed Central

Lee, Sangchul; Yeo, In-Young; Sadeghi, Ali M.; McCarty, Gregory W.; Hively, W. Dean; Lang, Megan W.

2016-01-01

The adoption rate of winter cover crops (WCCs) as an effective conservation management practice to help reduce agricultural nutrient loads in the Chesapeake Bay (CB) is increasing. However, the WCC potential for water quality improvement has not been fully realized at the watershed scale. This study was conducted to evaluate the long-term impact of WCCs on hydrology and NO3-N loads in two adjacent watersheds and to identify key management factors that affect the effectiveness of WCCs using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) and statistical methods. Simulation results indicated that WCCs are effective for reducing NO3-N loads and their performance varied based on planting date, species, soil characteristics, and crop rotations. Early-planted WCCs outperformed late-planted WCCs on the reduction of NO3-N loads and early-planted rye (RE) reduced NO3-N loads by ~49.3% compared to the baseline (no WCC). The WCCs were more effective in a watershed dominated by well-drained soils with increased reductions in NO3-N fluxes of ~2.5 kg N·ha-1 delivered to streams and ~10.1 kg N·ha-1 leached into groundwater compared to poorly-drained soils. Well-drained agricultural lands had higher transport of NO3-N in the soil profile and groundwater due to increased N leaching. Poorly-drained agricultural lands had lower NO3-N due to extensive drainage ditches and anaerobic soil conditions promoting denitrification. The performance of WCCs varied by crop rotations (i.e., continuous corn and corn-soybean), with increased N uptake following soybean crops due to the increased soil mineral N availability by mineralization of soybean residue compared to corn residue. The WCCs can reduce N leaching where baseline NO3-N loads are high in well-drained soils and/or when residual and mineralized N availability is high due to the cropping practices. The findings suggested that WCC implementation plans should be established in watersheds according to local edaphic and agronomic

CropWatch agroclimatic indicators (CWAIs) for weather impact assessment on global agriculture.

PubMed

Gommes, René; Wu, Bingfang; Zhang, Ning; Feng, Xueliang; Zeng, Hongwei; Li, Zhongyuan; Chen, Bo

2017-02-01

CropWatch agroclimatic indicators (CWAIs) are a monitoring tool developed by the CropWatch global crop monitoring system in the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS; www.cropwatch.com.cn , Wu et al Int J Digital Earth 7(2):113-137, 2014, Wu et al Remote Sens 7:3907-3933, 2015). Contrary to most other environmental and agroclimatic indicators, they are "agronomic value-added", i.e. they are spatial values averaged over agricultural areas only and they include a weighting that enhances the contribution of the areas with the largest production potential. CWAIs can be computed for any time interval (starting from dekads) and yield one synthetic value per variable over a specific area and time interval, for instance a national annual value. Therefore, they are very compatible with socio-economic and other variables that are usually reported at regular time intervals over administrative units, such as national environmental or agricultural statistics. Two of the CWAIs are satellite-based (RAIN and Photosynthetically Active radiation, PAR) while the third is ground based (TEMP, air temperature); capitals are used when specifically referring to CWAIs rather than the climate variables in general. The paper first provides an overview of some common agroclimatic indicators, describing their procedural, systemic and normative features in subsequent sections, following the terminology of Binder et al Environ Impact Assess Rev 30:71-81 (2010). The discussion focuses on the systemic and normative aspects: the CWAIs are assessed in terms of their coherent description of the agroclimatic crop environment, at different spatial scales (systemic). The final section shows that the CWAIs retain key statistical properties of the underlying climate variables and that they can be compared to a reference value and used as monitoring and early warning variables (normative).

CropWatch agroclimatic indicators (CWAIs) for weather impact assessment on global agriculture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gommes, René; Wu, Bingfang; Zhang, Ning; Feng, Xueliang; Zeng, Hongwei; Li, Zhongyuan; Chen, Bo

2017-02-01

CropWatch agroclimatic indicators (CWAIs) are a monitoring tool developed by the CropWatch global crop monitoring system in the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS; http://www.cropwatch.com.cn, Wu et al Int J Digital Earth 7(2):113-137, 2014, Wu et al Remote Sens 7:3907-3933, 2015). Contrary to most other environmental and agroclimatic indicators, they are "agronomic value-added", i.e. they are spatial values averaged over agricultural areas only and they include a weighting that enhances the contribution of the areas with the largest production potential. CWAIs can be computed for any time interval (starting from dekads) and yield one synthetic value per variable over a specific area and time interval, for instance a national annual value. Therefore, they are very compatible with socio-economic and other variables that are usually reported at regular time intervals over administrative units, such as national environmental or agricultural statistics. Two of the CWAIs are satellite-based (RAIN and Photosynthetically Active radiation, PAR) while the third is ground based (TEMP, air temperature); capitals are used when specifically referring to CWAIs rather than the climate variables in general. The paper first provides an overview of some common agroclimatic indicators, describing their procedural, systemic and normative features in subsequent sections, following the terminology of Binder et al Environ Impact Assess Rev 30:71-81 (2010). The discussion focuses on the systemic and normative aspects: the CWAIs are assessed in terms of their coherent description of the agroclimatic crop environment, at different spatial scales (systemic). The final section shows that the CWAIs retain key statistical properties of the underlying climate variables and that they can be compared to a reference value and used as monitoring and early warning variables (normative).

Standing crops and ecology of aquatic invertebrates in agricultural drainwater ponds in California

USGS Publications Warehouse

Euliss, N.H.; Jarvis, R.L.; Gilmer, D.S.

1991-01-01

We examined standing crops and ecology of aquatic invertebrates in agricultural drainwater evaporation ponds in California from October 1982 to March 1983 and September 1983 to March 1984. Evaporation ponds supported low diversities but high standing crops of aquatic invertebrates. A water boatman (Trichocorixa reticulata) and a midge (Tanypus grodhausi) were the most abundant invertebrates, constituting 44.9% and 51.4% of total macroinvertebrate biomass. Regression models indicated that of 6 environmental variables measured, only electrical conductivity (EC) and Julian date affected biomass and density of water boatmen. EC was the only significant correlate of midge biomass in evaporation ponds.

Crop monoculture rather than agriculture reduces the spatial turnover of soil bacterial communities at a regional scale.

PubMed

Figuerola, Eva L M; Guerrero, Leandro D; Türkowsky, Dominique; Wall, Luis G; Erijman, Leonardo

2015-03-01

The goal of this study was to investigate the spatial turnover of soil bacterial communities in response to environmental changes introduced by the practices of soybean monoculture or crop rotations, relative to grassland soils. Amplicon sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene was used to analyse bacterial diversity in producer fields through three successive cropping cycles within one and a half years, across a regional scale of the Argentinean Pampas. Unlike local diversity, which was not significantly affected by land use type, agricultural management had a strong influence on β-diversity patterns. Distributions of pairwise distances between all soils samples under soybean monoculture had significantly lower β-diversity and narrower breadth compared with distributions of pairwise distances between soils managed with crop rotation. Interestingly, good agricultural practices had similar degree of β-diversity as natural grasslands. The higher phylogenetic relatedness of bacterial communities in soils under monoculture across the region was likely determined by the observed loss of endemic species, and affected mostly to phyla with low regional diversity, such as Acidobacteria, Verrucomicrobia and the candidates phyla SPAM and WS3. These results suggest that the implementation of good agricultural practices, including crop rotation, may be critical for the long-term conservation of soil biodiversity. © 2014 Society for Applied Microbiology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Improving Farm Scale Agricultural Water Management in Agriculture at a Farm Scale. A case study for field crops in the California's Central Valley

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Medellin-Azuara, J.; Morande, J. A.; Jin, Y.; Chen, Y.; Paw U, K. T.; Viers, J. H.

2016-12-01

Traditional methods for estimating consumptive water use as evapotranspiration (ET) for agriculture in areas with water limitations such as California have always been a challenge for farmers, water managers, researchers and government agencies. Direct measurement of evapotranspiration (ET) and crop water stress in agriculture can be a cumbersome and costly task. Furthermore, spatial variability of applied water and irrigation and stress level in crops, due to inherent heterogeneity in soil conditions, topography, management practices, and lack of uniformity in water applications may affect estimates water use efficiency and water balances. This situation difficult long-term management of agroecosystems. This paper presents a case study for various areas in California's Central Valley using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for a late portion of the 2016 irrigation season These estimates are compared those obtained by direct measurement (from previously deployed stations), and energy balance approaches with remotely sensed data in a selection of field crop parcels. This research improves information on water use and site conditions in agriculture by enhancing remote sensing-based estimations through the use of higher resolution multi-spectral and thermal imagery captured by UAV. We assess whether more frequent information at higher spatial resolution from UAVs can improve estimations of overall ET through energy balance and imagery. Stress levels and ET are characterized spatially to examine irrigation practices and their performance to improve water use in the agroecosystem. Ground based data such as air and crop temperature and stem water potential is collected to validate UAV aerial measurements. Preliminary results show the potential of UAV technology to improve timing, resolution and accuracy in the ET estimation and assessment of crop stress at a farm scales. Side to side comparison with ground level stations employing surface renewal, eddy covariance and

Modelling crop land use change derived from influencing factors selected and ranked by farmers in North temperate agricultural regions.

PubMed

Mehdi, Bano; Lehner, Bernhard; Ludwig, Ralf

2018-08-01

To develop meaningful land use scenarios, drivers that affect changes in the landscape are required. In this study, driving factors that influence farmers to change crops on their farm were determined. A questionnaire was administered to four independent groups of farmers who identified and ranked influencing factors pertaining to their choices of crops. The farmers were located in two mid-latitude agricultural watersheds (in Germany and Canada). The ranked influencing factors were used to develop a "farmer driven" scenario to 2040 in both watersheds. Results showed that the most important influencing factors for farmers to change crops were the "economic return of the crop" and "market factors". Yet, when the drivers of crop land use change were grouped into two categories of "financial" and "indirectly-related financial" factors, the "financial" factors made up approximately half of the influencing factors. For some responses, the "indirectly-related financial" factors (i.e. "access to farm equipment", the "farm experience", and "climate") ranked higher than or just as high as the financial factors. Overall, in the four farmer groups the differences between the rankings of the influencing factors were minor, indicating that drivers may be transferable between farms if the farmers are full-time and the farming regions have comparable growing seasons, access to markets, similar technology, and government programs for farm income. In addition to the "farmer driven" scenario, a "policy driven" scenario was derived for each watershed based only on available information on the financial incentives provided to farmers (i.e. agricultural subsidies, income support, crop insurance). The influencing factors ranked by the farmers provided in-depth information that was not captured by the "policy driven" scenario and contributed to improving predictions for crop land use development. This straight-forward method to rank qualitative data provided by farmers can easily be

Large scale maps of cropping intensity in Asia from MODIS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gray, J. M.; Friedl, M. A.; Frolking, S. E.; Ramankutty, N.; Nelson, A.

2013-12-01

Agricultural systems are geographically extensive, have profound significance to society, and also affect regional energy, carbon, and water cycles. Since most suitable lands worldwide have been cultivated, there is growing pressure to increase yields on existing agricultural lands. In tropical and sub-tropical regions, multi-cropping is widely used to increase food production, but regional-to-global information related to multi-cropping practices is poor. Such information is of critical importance to ensure sustainable food production while mitigating against negative environmental impacts associated with agriculture such as contamination and depletion of freshwater resources. Unfortunately, currently available large-area inventory statistics are inadequate because they do not capture important spatial patterns in multi-cropping, and are generally not available in a timeframe that can be used to help manage cropping systems. High temporal resolution sensors such as MODIS provide an excellent source of information for addressing this need. However, relative to studies that document agricultural extensification, systematic assessment of agricultural intensification via multi-cropping has received relatively little attention. The goal of this work is to help close this methodological and information gap by developing methods that use multi-temporal remote sensing to map multi-cropping systems in Asia. Image time series analysis is especially challenging in Asia because atmospheric conditions including clouds and aerosols lead to high frequencies of missing or low quality remote sensing observations, especially during the Asian Monsoon. The methodology that we use for this work builds upon the algorithm used to produce the MODIS Land Cover Dynamics product (MCD12Q2), but employs refined methods to segment, smooth, and gap-fill 8-day EVI time series calculated from MODIS BRDF corrected surface reflectances. Crop cycle segments are identified based on changes in slope

Monitoring Agricultural Cropping Patterns in the Great Lakes Basin Using MODIS-NDVI Time Series Data

EPA Science Inventory

This research examined changes in agricultural cropping patterns across the Great Lakes Basin (GLB) using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data. Specific research objectives were to characterize the distribut...

7 CFR 1221.6 - Crop year.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 10 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Crop year. 1221.6 Section 1221.6 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (MARKETING AGREEMENTS... INFORMATION ORDER Sorghum Promotion, Research, and Information Order Definitions § 1221.6 Crop year. Crop year...

7 CFR 1221.6 - Crop year.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 10 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Crop year. 1221.6 Section 1221.6 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (MARKETING AGREEMENTS... INFORMATION ORDER Sorghum Promotion, Research, and Information Order Definitions § 1221.6 Crop year. Crop year...

The potential of agricultural practices to increase C storage in cropped soils: an assessment for France

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chenu, Claire; Angers, Denis; Métay, Aurélie; Colnenne, Caroline; Klumpp, Katja; Bamière, Laure; Pardon, Lenaic; Pellerin, Sylvain

2014-05-01

Though large progress has been achieved in the last decades, net GHG emissions from the agricultural sector are still more poorly quantified than in other sectors. In this study, we examined i) technical mitigation options likely to store carbon in agricultural soils, ii) their potential of additional C storage per unit surface area and iii) applicable areas in mainland France. We considered only agricultural practices being technically feasible by farmers and involving no major change in either production systems or production levels. Moreover, only currently available techniques with validated efficiencies and presenting no major negative environmental impacts were taken into account. Four measures were expected to store additional C in agricultural soils: - Reducing tillage: either a switch to continuous direct seeding, direct seeding with occasional tillage once every five years, or continuous superficial (<15 cm) tillage. - Introducing cover crops in cropping systems: sown between two cash crops on arable farms, in orchards and vineyards (permanent or temporary cover cropping) . - Expanding agroforestry systems; planting of tree lines in cultivated fields and grasslands, and hedges around the field edges. - Increasing the life time of temporary sown grasslands: increase of life time to 5 years. The recent literature was reviewed in order to determine long term (>20yrs) C storage rates (MgC ha-1 y-1,) of cropping systems with and without the proposed practice. Then we analysed the conditions for potential application, in terms of feasibility, acceptance, limitation of yield losses and of other GHG emissions. According to the literature, additional C storage rates were 0.15 (0-0.3) MgC ha-1 y-1 for continuous direct seeding, 0.10 (0-0.2) MgC ha-1 y-1for occasional tillage one year in five, and 0.0 MgC ha-1 y-1 for superficial tillage. Cover crops were estimated to store 0.24 (0.13-0.37) MgC ha-1 y-1 between cash crops and 0.49 (0.23-0.72) MgC ha-1 y-1 when

7 CFR 987.6 - Crop year.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 8 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Crop year. 987.6 Section 987.6 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Marketing Agreements and... RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA Order Regulating Handling Definitions § 987.6 Crop year. Crop year means the 12...

7 CFR 987.6 - Crop year.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 8 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Crop year. 987.6 Section 987.6 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Marketing Agreements and... RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA Order Regulating Handling Definitions § 987.6 Crop year. Crop year means the 12...

The angiosperm phloem sieve tube system: a role in mediating traits important to modern agriculture.

PubMed

Ham, Byung-Kook; Lucas, William J

2014-04-01

The plant vascular system serves a vital function by distributing water, nutrients and hormones essential for growth and development to the various organs of the plant. In this review, attention is focused on the role played by the phloem as the conduit for delivery of both photosynthate and information macromolecules, especially from the context of its mediation in traits that are important to modern agriculture. Resource allocation of sugars and amino acids, by the phloem, to specific sink tissues is of importance to crop yield and global food security. Current findings are discussed in the context of a hierarchical control network that operates to integrate resource allocation to competing sinks. The role of plasmodesmata that connect companion cells to neighbouring sieve elements and phloem parenchyma cells is evaluated in terms of their function as valves, connecting the sieve tube pressure manifold system to the various plant tissues. Recent studies have also revealed that plasmodesmata and the phloem sieve tube system function cooperatively to mediate the long-distance delivery of proteins and a diverse array of RNA species. Delivery of these information macromolecules is discussed in terms of their roles in control over the vegetative-to-floral transition, tuberization in potato, stress-related signalling involving miRNAs, and genetic reprogramming through the delivery of 24-nucleotide small RNAs that function in transcriptional gene silencing in recipient sink organs. Finally, we discuss important future research areas that could contribute to developing agricultural crops with engineered performance characteristics for enhance yield potential.

Salt tolerant green crop species for sodium management in space agriculture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yamashita, Masamichi; Hashimoto, Hirofumi; Tomita-Yokotani, Kaori; Shimoda, Toshifumi; Nose, Akihiro; Space Agriculture Task Force, J.

Ecological system and materials recycling loop of space agriculture are quite tight compared to natural ecological system on Earth. Sodium management will be a keen issue for space agricul-ture. Human nutritional requirements include sodium salt. Since sodium at high concentration is toxic for most of plant growth, excreted sodium of human waste should be removed from compost fertilizer. Use of marine algae is promising for harvesting potassium and other min-erals required for plant growth and returning remained sodium to satisfy human need of its intake. Farming salt tolerant green crop species is another approach to manage sodium problem in both space and terrestrial agriculture. We chose ice plant and New Zealand spinach. These two plant species are widely accepted green vegetable with many recipe. Ice plant can grow at the salinity level of sea water, and contain sodium salt up to 30% of its dry mass. Sodium distributes mainly in its bladder cells. New Zealand spinach is a plant species found in the front zone of sea shore, and tolerant against high salinity as well. Plant body size of both species at harvest is quite large, and easy to farm. Capability of bio-remediation of high saline soil is examined with ice plant and New Zealand spinach. Incubation medium was chosen to contain high concentration of sodium and potassium at the Na/K ratio of human excreta. In case Na/K ratio of plant body grown by this medium is greatly higher than that of incubation medium or soil, these halophytes are effective to remediate soil for farming less tolerant plant crop. Experimental results was less positive in this context.

Agricultural trade and the global phosphorus cycle

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schipanski, M.; Bennett, E.; Riskin, S.; Porder, S.

2012-12-01

Trends of increasing agricultural trade, increased concentration of livestock production systems, and increased human consumption of livestock products influence the distribution of nutrients across the global landscape. Phosphorus (P) represents a unique management challenge as we are rapidly depleting mineable reserves of this essential and non-renewable resource. At the same time, its overuse can lead to pollution of aquatic ecosystems. We analyzed the relative contributions of food crop, feed crop, and livestock product trade to P flows through agricultural soils for twelve countries from 1961 to 2007. We then used case studies of P fertilizer use in the world's three major soybean export regions: Iowa (USA), Mato Grosso (Brazil), and Buenos Aires (Argentina) to examine the influence of historical P management and soil types on agriculture's environmental consequences. Due to the intensification of agricultural production, average soil surface P balances more than tripled from 6 to 21 kg P per ha between 1961 and 2007 for the twelve study countries. Consequently, countries that are primarily agricultural exporters carried increased risks for water pollution or, for Argentina, reduced soil fertility due to soil P mining to support exports. In 2007, nations imported food and feed from regions with higher apparent P fertilizer use efficiencies than if those crops were produced domestically. However, this was largely because imports were sourced from regions depleting soil P resources to support export crop production. In addition, the pattern of regional specialization and intensification of production systems also reduced the potential to recycle P resources, with greater implications for livestock production than crop production. In a globalizing world, it will be increasingly important to integrate biophysical constraints of our natural resources and environmental impacts of agricultural systems into trade policy and agreements and to develop mechanisms that

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) detects fine roots of agricultural crops in the field

Treesearch

Xiuwei Liu; Xuejun Dong; Qingwu Xue; Daniel I. Leskovar; John Jifon; John R. Butnor; Thomas Marek

2018-01-01

Aim Ground penetrating radar (GPR) as a non-invasive technique is widely used in coarse root detection. However, the applicability of the technique to detect fine roots of agricultural crops is unknown. The objective of this study was to assess the feasibility of utilizing GPR to detect fine roots in the field.

Agricultural water use, crop water footprints and irrigation strategies in the seasonally dry Guanacaste region in Costa Rica

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Morillas, Laura; Johnson, Mark S.; Hund, Silja V.; Steyn, Douw G.

2017-04-01

Agriculture is the main productive sector and a major water-consuming sector in the seasonally-dry Guanacaste region of north-western Costa Rica. Agriculture in the region is intensifying at the same time that seasonal water scarcity is increasing. The climate of this region is characterized by a prolonged dry season from December to March, followed by a bimodal wet season from April to November. The wet season has historically experienced periodic oscillations in rainfall timing and amounts resulting from variations of several large-scale climatic features (El Niño Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation). However, global circulation models now project more recurrent variations in total annual rainfall, changes in rainfall temporal distribution, and increased temperatures in this region. This may result in a lengthening of the dry season and an increase in water scarcity and water-related conflicts as water resources are already limited and disputed in this area. In fact, this region has just undergone a four-year drought over the 2012-2015 period, which has intensified water related conflicts and put agricultural production at risk. In turn, the recent drought has also increased awareness of the local communities regarding the regional threat of water scarcity and the need of a regional water planning. The overall goal of this research is to generate data to characterize water use by the agricultural sector in this region and asses its sustainability in the regional context. Towards this goal, eddy-covariance flux towers were deployed on two extensive farms growing regionally-representative crops (melon/rice rotation and sugarcane) to evaluate, monitor and quantify water use in large-scale farms. The two identically instrumented stations provide continuous measurements of evapotranspiration and CO2 fluxes, and are equipped with additional instrumentation to monitor

Comparison of soil microbial respiration and carbon turnover under perennial and annual biofuel crops in two agricultural soils

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Szymanski, L. M.; Marin-Spiotta, E.; Sanford, G. R.; Jackson, R. D.; Heckman, K. A.

2015-12-01

Bioenergy crops have the potential to provide a low carbon-intensive alternative to fossil fuels. More than a century of agricultural research has shown that conventional cropping systems can reduce soil organic matter (SOM) reservoirs, which cause long-term soil nutrient loss and C release to the atmosphere. In the face of climate change and other human disruptions to biogeochemical cycles, identifying biofuel crops that can maintain or enhance soil resources is desirable for the sustainable production of bioenergy. The objective of our study was to compare the effects of four biofuel crop treatments on SOM dynamics in two agricultural soils: Mollisols at Arlington Agricultural Research Station in Wisconsin and Alfisols at Kellogg Biological Station in Michigan, USA. We used fresh soils collected in 2013 and archived soils from 2008 to measure the effects of five years of crop management. Using a one-year long laboratory soil incubation coupled with a regression model and radiocarbon measurements, we separated soils into three SOM pools and their corresponding C turnover times. We found that the active pool, or biologically available C, was more sensitive to management and is an earlier indicator of changes to soil C dynamics than bulk soil C measurements. There was no effect of treatment on the active pool size at either site; however, the percent C in the active pool decreased, regardless of crop type, in surface soils with high clay content. At depth, the response of the slow pool differed between annual and perennial cropping systems. The distribution of C among SOM fractions varied between the two soil types, with greater C content associated with the active fraction in the coarser textured-soil and greater C content associated with the slow-cycling fraction in the soils with high clay content. These results suggest that the effects of bioenergy crops on soil resources will vary geographically, with implications for the carbon-cost of biocrop production.

Global consumptive water use for crop production: The importance of green water and virtual water

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Junguo; Zehnder, Alexander J. B.; Yang, Hong

2009-05-01

Over the last 4 decades the use of blue water has received increasing attention in water resources research, but little attention has been paid to the quantification of green water in food production and food trade. In this paper, we estimate both the blue and green water components of consumptive water use (CWU) for a wide range of agricultural crops, including seven cereal crops, cassava, cotton, groundnuts, potatoes, pulses, rapeseed, soybeans, sugar beets, sugarcane, and sunflower, with a spatial resolution of 30 arc min on the land surface. The results show that the global CWU of these crops amounted to 3823 km3 a-1 for the period 1998-2002. More than 80% of this amount was from green water. Around 94% of the world crop-related virtual water trade has its origin in green water, which generally constitutes a low-opportunity cost of green water as opposed to blue water. High levels of net virtual water import (NVWI) generally occur in countries with low CWU on a per capita basis, where a virtual water strategy is an attractive water management option to compensate for domestic water shortage for food production. NVWI is constrained by income; low-income countries generally have a low level of NVWI. Strengthening low-income countries economically will allow them to develop a virtual water strategy to mitigate malnutrition of their people.

Evaluation of Crop-Water Consumption Simulation to Support Agricultural Water Resource Management using Satellite-based Water Cycle Observations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gupta, M.; Bolten, J. D.; Lakshmi, V.

2016-12-01

Water scarcity is one of the main factors limiting agricultural development. Numerical models integrated with remote sensing datasets are increasingly being used operationally as inputs for crop water balance models and agricultural forecasting due to increasing availability of high temporal and spatial resolution datasets. However, the model accuracy in simulating soil water content is affected by the accuracy of the soil hydraulic parameters used in the model, which are used in the governing equations. However, soil databases are known to have a high uncertainty across scales. Also, for agricultural sites, the in-situ measurements of soil moisture are currently limited to discrete measurements at specific locations, and such point-based measurements do not represent the spatial distribution at a larger scale accurately, as soil moisture is highly variable both spatially and temporally. The present study utilizes effective soil hydraulic parameters obtained using a 1-km downscaled microwave remote sensing soil moisture product based on the NASA Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) using the genetic algorithm inverse method within the Catchment Land Surface Model (CLSM). Secondly, to provide realistic irrigation estimates for agricultural sites, an irrigation scheme within the land surface model is triggered when the root-zone soil moisture deficit reaches the threshold, 50% with respect to the maximum available water capacity obtained from the effective soil hydraulic parameters. An additional important criterion utilized is the estimation of crop water consumption based on dynamic root growth and uptake in root zone layer. Model performance is evaluated using MODIS land surface temperature (LST) product. The soil moisture estimates for the root zone are also validated with the in situ field data, for three sites (2- irrigated and 1- rainfed) located at the University of Nebraska Agricultural Research and Development Center near Mead, NE and monitored

Could Crop Height Affect the Wind Resource at Agriculturally Productive Wind Farm Sites?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vanderwende, Brian; Lundquist, Julie K.

2016-03-01

The collocation of cropland and wind turbines in the US Midwest region introduces complex meteorological interactions that could influence both agriculture and wind-power production. Crop management practices may affect the wind resource through alterations of land-surface properties. We use the weather research and forecasting (WRF) model to estimate the impact of crop height variations on the wind resource in the presence of a large turbine array. A hypothetical wind farm consisting of 121 1.8-MW turbines is represented using the WRF model wind-farm parametrization. We represent the impact of selecting soybeans rather than maize by altering the aerodynamic roughness length in a region approximately 65 times larger than that occupied by the turbine array. Roughness lengths of 0.1 and 0.25 m represent the mature soy crop and a mature maize crop, respectively. In all but the most stable atmospheric conditions, statistically significant hub-height wind-speed increases and rotor-layer wind-shear reductions result from switching from maize to soybeans. Based on simulations for the entire month of August 2013, wind-farm energy output increases by 14 %, which would yield a significant monetary gain. Further investigation is required to determine the optimal size, shape, and crop height of the roughness modification to maximize the economic benefit and minimize the cost of such crop-management practices. These considerations must be balanced by other influences on crop choice such as soil requirements and commodity prices.

Could crop height affect the wind resource at agriculturally productive wind farm sites?

DOE PAGES

Vanderwende, Brian; Lundquist, Julie K.

2015-11-07

The collocation of cropland and wind turbines in the US Midwest region introduces complex meteorological interactions that could influence both agriculture and wind-power production. Crop management practices may affect the wind resource through alterations of land-surface properties. We use the weather research and forecasting (WRF) model to estimate the impact of crop height variations on the wind resource in the presence of a large turbine array. A hypothetical wind farm consisting of 121 1.8-MW turbines is represented using the WRF model wind-farm parametrization. We represent the impact of selecting soybeans rather than maize by altering the aerodynamic roughness length inmore » a region approximately 65 times larger than that occupied by the turbine array. Roughness lengths of 0.1 and 0.25 m represent the mature soy crop and a mature maize crop, respectively. In all but the most stable atmospheric conditions, statistically significant hub-height wind-speed increases and rotor-layer wind-shear reductions result from switching from maize to soybeans. Based on simulations for the entire month of August 2013, wind-farm energy output increases by 14 %, which would yield a significant monetary gain. Further investigation is required to determine the optimal size, shape, and crop height of the roughness modification to maximize the economic benefit and minimize the cost of such crop-management practices. As a result, these considerations must be balanced by other influences on crop choice such as soil requirements and commodity prices.« less

Could crop height affect the wind resource at agriculturally productive wind farm sites?

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Vanderwende, Brian; Lundquist, Julie K.

The collocation of cropland and wind turbines in the US Midwest region introduces complex meteorological interactions that could influence both agriculture and wind-power production. Crop management practices may affect the wind resource through alterations of land-surface properties. We use the weather research and forecasting (WRF) model to estimate the impact of crop height variations on the wind resource in the presence of a large turbine array. A hypothetical wind farm consisting of 121 1.8-MW turbines is represented using the WRF model wind-farm parametrization. We represent the impact of selecting soybeans rather than maize by altering the aerodynamic roughness length inmore » a region approximately 65 times larger than that occupied by the turbine array. Roughness lengths of 0.1 and 0.25 m represent the mature soy crop and a mature maize crop, respectively. In all but the most stable atmospheric conditions, statistically significant hub-height wind-speed increases and rotor-layer wind-shear reductions result from switching from maize to soybeans. Based on simulations for the entire month of August 2013, wind-farm energy output increases by 14 %, which would yield a significant monetary gain. Further investigation is required to determine the optimal size, shape, and crop height of the roughness modification to maximize the economic benefit and minimize the cost of such crop-management practices. As a result, these considerations must be balanced by other influences on crop choice such as soil requirements and commodity prices.« less

Development of agriculture biotechnology in Pakistan.

PubMed

Zafar, Yusuf

2007-01-01

Agriculture plays an important role in the national economy of Pakistan, where most of the rapidly increasing population resides in rural areas and depends on agriculture for subsistence. Biotechnology has considerable potential for promoting the efficiency of crop improvement, food production, and poverty reduction. Use of modern biotechnology started in Pakistan since 1985. Currently, there are 29 biotech centers/institutes in the country. However, few centers have appropriate physical facilities and trained manpower to develop genetically modified (GM) crops. Most of the activities have been on rice and cotton, which are among the top 5 crops of Pakistan. Biotic (virus/bacterial/insect) and abiotic (salt) resistant and quality (male sterility) genes have already been incorporated in some crop plants. Despite acquiring capacity to produce transgenic plants, no GM crops, either produced locally or imported, have been released in the country. Pakistan is signatory to the World Trade Organization, Convention on Biological Diversity, and Cartagena protocols. Several legislations under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights have been promulgated in the country. National Biosafety Guidelines have been promulgated in April 2005. The Plant Breeders Rights Act, Amendment in Seed Act-1976, and Geographical Indication for Goods are still passing through discussion, evaluation, and analysis phases. Meanwhile, an illegal GM crop (cotton) has already sneaked into farmer's field. Concerted and coordinated efforts are needed among various ministries for implementation of regulation and capacity building for import/export and local handling of GM crops. Pakistan could easily benefit from the experience of Asian countries, especially China and India, where conditions are similar and the agriculture sector is almost like that of Pakistan. Thus, the exchange of information and experiences is important among these nations.

Cover Crops and Fertilization Alter Nitrogen Loss in Organic and Conventional Conservation Agriculture Systems

PubMed Central

Shelton, Rebecca E.; Jacobsen, Krista L.; McCulley, Rebecca L.

2018-01-01

Agroecosystem nitrogen (N) loss produces greenhouse gases, induces eutrophication, and is costly for farmers; therefore, conservation agricultural management practices aimed at reducing N loss are increasingly adopted. However, the ecosystem consequences of these practices have not been well-studied. We quantified N loss via leaching, NH3 volatilization, N2O emissions, and N retention in plant and soil pools of corn conservation agroecosystems in Kentucky, USA. Three systems were evaluated: (1) an unfertilized, organic system with cover crops hairy vetch (Vicia villosa), winter wheat (Triticum aestivum), or a mix of the two (bi-culture); (2) an organic system with a hairy vetch cover crop employing three fertilization schemes (0 N, organic N, or a fertilizer N-credit approach); and (3) a conventional system with a winter wheat cover crop and three fertilization schemes (0 N, urea N, or organic N). In the unfertilized organic system, cover crop species affected NO3-N leaching (vetch > bi-culture > wheat) and N2O-N emissions and yield during corn growth (vetch, bi-culture > wheat). Fertilization increased soil inorganic N, gaseous N loss, N leaching, and yield in the organic vetch and conventional wheat systems. Fertilizer scheme affected the magnitude of growing season N2O-N loss in the organic vetch system (organic N > fertilizer N-credit) and the timing of loss (organic N delayed N2O-N loss vs. urea) and NO3-N leaching (urea >> organic N) in the conventional wheat system, but had no effect on yield. Cover crop selection and N fertilization techniques can reduce N leaching and greenhouse gas emissions without sacrificing yield, thereby enhancing N conservation in both organic and conventional conservation agriculture systems. PMID:29403512

Spatial and temporal contrasts in the distribution of crops and pastures across Amazonia: A new agricultural land use data set from census data since 1950.

PubMed

Imbach, P; Manrow, M; Barona, E; Barretto, A; Hyman, G; Ciais, P

2015-06-01

Amazonia holds the largest continuous area of tropical forests with intense land use change dynamics inducing water, carbon, and energy feedbacks with regional and global impacts. Much of our knowledge of land use change in Amazonia comes from studies of the Brazilian Amazon, which accounts for two thirds of the region. Amazonia outside of Brazil has received less attention because of the difficulty of acquiring consistent data across countries. We present here an agricultural statistics database of the entire Amazonia region, with a harmonized description of crops and pastures in geospatial format, based on administrative boundary data at the municipality level. The spatial coverage includes countries within Amazonia and spans censuses and surveys from 1950 to 2012. Harmonized crop and pasture types are explored by grouping annual and perennial cropping systems, C3 and C4 photosynthetic pathways, planted and natural pastures, and main crops. Our analysis examined the spatial pattern of ratios between classes of the groups and their correlation with the agricultural extent of crops and pastures within administrative units of the Amazon, by country, and census/survey dates. Significant correlations were found between all ratios and the fraction of agricultural lands of each administrative unit, with the exception of planted to natural pastures ratio and pasture lands extent. Brazil and Peru in most cases have significant correlations for all ratios analyzed even for specific census and survey dates. Results suggested improvements, and potential applications of the database for carbon, water, climate, and land use change studies are discussed. The database presented here provides an Amazon-wide improved data set on agricultural dynamics with expanded temporal and spatial coverage. Agricultural census database covers Amazon basin municipalities from 1950 to 2012Harmonized database groups crops and pastures by cropping system, C3/C4, and main cropsWe explored

7 CFR 457.133 - Prune crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Prune crop insurance provisions. 457.133 Section 457.133 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.133 Prune crop insurance...

7 CFR 457.132 - Cranberry crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Cranberry crop insurance provisions. 457.132 Section 457.132 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.132 Cranberry crop insurance...

7 CFR 457.159 - Stonefruit crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Stonefruit crop insurance provisions. 457.159 Section 457.159 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.159 Stonefruit crop insurance...

7 CFR 457.141 - Rice crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Rice crop insurance provisions. 457.141 Section 457.141 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.141 Rice crop insurance...

7 CFR 457.138 - Grape crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Grape crop insurance provisions. 457.138 Section 457.138 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.138 Grape crop insurance...

7 CFR 457.158 - Apple crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Apple crop insurance provisions. 457.158 Section 457.158 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.158 Apple crop insurance...

7 CFR 457.157 - Plum crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Plum crop insurance provisions. 457.157 Section 457.157 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.157 Plum crop insurance...

7 CFR 457.135 - Onion crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Onion crop insurance provisions. 457.135 Section 457.135 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.135 Onion crop insurance...

7 CFR 457.136 - Tobacco crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Tobacco crop insurance provisions. 457.136 Section 457.136 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.136 Tobacco crop insurance...

7 CFR 457.134 - Peanut crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Peanut crop insurance provisions. 457.134 Section 457.134 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.134 Peanut crop insurance...

7 CFR 457.153 - Peach crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Peach crop insurance provisions. 457.153 Section 457.153 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.153 Peach crop insurance...

Catchments Under Change: Assessing Impacts and Feedbacks from New Biomass Crops in the Agricultural Midwestern USA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yaeger, Mary; Housh, Mashor; Ng, Tze Ling; Cai, Ximing; Sivapalan, Murugesu

2013-04-01

In order to meet the challenges of future change, it is essential to understand the environmental response to current conditions and historical changes. The central Midwestern US is an example of anthropogenic change and environmental feedbacks, having been transformed from a natural grassland system to an artificially-drained agricultural system. Environmental feedbacks from reduced soil residence times coupled with increasing crop fertilization have manifested as a hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico. In an effort to address these feedbacks while meeting new crop demands, large-scale planting of high-yielding perennial biomass crops has been proposed. This could be detrimental to both human and environmental streamflow users because these plants require more water than do current crops. The lowest natural flows in this shallow groundwater-dependent region coincide with the peak of the growing season, thus compounding the problem. Therefore, for large-scale biomass crop production to be sustainable, these tradeoffs between water quality and water quantity must be fully understood. To better understand the catchment response to current conditions, we have analyzed streamflow data in a central Illinois agricultural watershed. To deal with future changes, we have developed an integrated systems model which provides, among other outputs, the land usage that maximizes the benefit to the human system. This land use is then implemented in a separate hydrologic model to determine the impact to the environmental system. Interactively running the two models, taking into account the catchment response to human actions as well as possible anthropogenic responses to the environment, allows us to examine the feedbacks between the two systems. This lets us plot the trajectory of the state of the system, which we hypothesize will show emergent internal properties of the coupled system. Initial tests of this modeling framework show promise that this may indeed be the case. External

Optimization based trade-off analysis of biodiesel crop production for managing a German agricultural catchment

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

In agricultural production, the existence of multiple trade-offs among several conflicting objectives, such as food production, water quantity, water quality, biodiversity and ecosystem services, is well known. However, quantification of the trade-offs among objectives in bioenergy crop production i...

Effects of Reduced Terrestrial LiDAR Point Density on High-Resolution Grain Crop Surface Models in Precision Agriculture

PubMed Central

Hämmerle, Martin; Höfle, Bernhard

2014-01-01

3D geodata play an increasingly important role in precision agriculture, e.g., for modeling in-field variations of grain crop features such as height or biomass. A common data capturing method is LiDAR, which often requires expensive equipment and produces large datasets. This study contributes to the improvement of 3D geodata capturing efficiency by assessing the effect of reduced scanning resolution on crop surface models (CSMs). The analysis is based on high-end LiDAR point clouds of grain crop fields of different varieties (rye and wheat) and nitrogen fertilization stages (100%, 50%, 10%). Lower scanning resolutions are simulated by keeping every n-th laser beam with increasing step widths n. For each iteration step, high-resolution CSMs (0.01 m2 cells) are derived and assessed regarding their coverage relative to a seamless CSM derived from the original point cloud, standard deviation of elevation and mean elevation. Reducing the resolution to, e.g., 25% still leads to a coverage of >90% and a mean CSM elevation of >96% of measured crop height. CSM types (maximum elevation or 90th-percentile elevation) react differently to reduced scanning resolutions in different crops (variety, density). The results can help to assess the trade-off between CSM quality and minimum requirements regarding equipment and capturing set-up. PMID:25521383

Occurrence of chemical contaminants in peri-urban agricultural irrigation waters and assessment of their phytotoxicity and crop productivity.

PubMed

Margenat, Anna; Matamoros, Víctor; Díez, Sergi; Cañameras, Núria; Comas, Jordi; Bayona, Josep M

2017-12-01

Water scarcity and water pollution have increased the pressure on water resources worldwide. This pressure is particularly important in highly populated areas where water demand exceeds the available natural resources. In this regard, water reuse has emerged as an excellent water source alternative for peri-urban agriculture. Nevertheless, it must cope with the occurrence of chemical contaminants, ranging from trace elements (TEs) to organic microcontaminants. In this study, chemical contaminants (i.e., 15 TEs, 34 contaminants of emerging concern (CECs)), bulk parameters, and nutrients from irrigation waters and crop productivity (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill. cv. Bodar and Lactuca sativa L. cv. Batavia) were seasonally surveyed in 4 farm plots in the peri-urban area of the city of Barcelona. A pristine site, where rain-groundwater is used for irrigation, was selected for background concentrations. The average concentration levels of TEs and CECs in the irrigation water impacted by treated wastewater (TWW) were 3 (35±75μgL -1 ) and 13 (553±1050ngL -1 ) times higher than at the pristine site respectively. Principal component analysis was used to classify the irrigation waters by chemical composition. To assess the impact of the occurrence of these contaminants on agriculture, a seed germination assay (Lactuca sativa L) and real field-scale study of crop productivity (i.e., lettuce and tomato) were used. Although irrigation waters from the peri-urban area exhibited a higher frequency of detection and concentration of the assessed chemical contaminants than those of the pristine site (P1), no significant differences were found in seed phytotoxicity or crop productivity. In fact, the crops impacted by TWW showed higher productivity than the other farm plots studied, which was associated with the higher nutrient availability for plants. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

GIS based evaluation of crop suitability for agricultural sustainability around Kolaghat thermal power plant, India.

PubMed

Adak, Subhas; Adhikari, Kalyan; Brahmachari, Koushik

2016-09-01

Fly ash exhaust from Kolaghat thermal power plant, West Bengal, India,?? affects the areas within the radius of 3 - 4 km. Land information system indicated that surface texture within 4 km was silty loam and clay content increased with increase of distance. Soil pH was alkaline (7.58-8.01) in affected circles, whereas soil was acidic (5.95-6.41) in rest of block. Organic carbon (OC) is roving from 0.36 to 0.64% in the nearer circles which is lesser from others. The present Crop suitability analysis revealed that 96.98 % area was suitable (S1) for maize, sesame, jute, whereas these were cultivated in less than 1% of land. Flowers are the best suitable (S1) in 88.9 % but it was grown in 6.02 % area.? The present rice area within 4 km of KTPP is showing moderately suitable (S2) and S1 for the rest. Wheat is moderately suitable (S2) in the almost all the circles.? Cultivation of vegetable crops is limited in the affected circles while the highly suitable (S1) comprises 67.49 % for the remaining areas though it covered only 6.01 % of the block.? This evaluation precisely improves more than 300% from the earlier cropping intensity of 177.95 %. Suitability based land use allocation serves as stepping stone to promote agricultural sustainability. Geographic information system (GIS) model has been developed to assess site specific crop suitability for sustainable agricultural planning.

Photosynthetic Energy Conversion Efficiency: Setting a Baseline for Gauging Future Improvements in Important Food and Biofuel Crops1

PubMed Central

2015-01-01

The conversion efficiency (εc) of absorbed radiation into biomass (MJ of dry matter per MJ of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation) is a component of yield potential that has been estimated at less than half the theoretical maximum. Various strategies have been proposed to improve εc, but a statistical analysis to establish baseline εc levels across different crop functional types is lacking. Data from 164 published εc studies conducted in relatively unstressed growth conditions were used to determine the means, greatest contributors to variation, and genetic trends in εc across important food and biofuel crop species. εc was greatest in biofuel crops (0.049–0.066), followed by C4 food crops (0.046–0.049), C3 nonlegumes (0.036–0.041), and finally C3 legumes (0.028–0.035). Despite confining our analysis to relatively unstressed growth conditions, total incident solar radiation and average growing season temperature most often accounted for the largest portion of εc variability. Genetic improvements in εc, when present, were less than 0.7% per year, revealing the unrealized potential of improving εc as a promising contributing strategy to meet projected future agricultural demand. PMID:25829463

Assessing Climate Risk on Agricultural Production: Insights Using Retrospective Analysis of Crop Insurance and Climatic Trends

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Reyes, J. J.; Elias, E.; Eischens, A.; Shilts, M.; Rango, A.; Steele, R.

2017-12-01

The collaborative synthesis of existing datasets, such as long-term climate observations and farmers' crop insurance payments, can increase their overall collective value and societal application. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Climate Hubs were created to develop and deliver science-based information and technologies to agricultural and natural resource managers to enable climate-informed decision-making. As part of this mission, Hubs work across USDA and other climate service agencies to synthesize existing information. The USDA Risk Management Agency (RMA) is responsible for overseeing the Federal crop insurance program which currently insures over $100 billion in crops annually. RMA hosts data describing the cause for loss (e.g. drought, wind, irrigation failure) and indemnity amount (i.e. total cost of loss) at multiple spatio-temporal scales (i.e. state, county, year, month). The objective of this paper is to link climate information with indemnities, and their associated cause of loss, to assess climate risk on agricultural production and provide regionally-relevant information to stakeholders to promote resilient working landscapes. We performed a retrospective trend analysis at the state-level for the American Southwest (SW). First, we assessed indemnity-only trends by cause of loss and crop type at varying temporal scales. Historical monthly weather data (i.e. precipitation and temperature) and long-term drought indices (e.g. Palmer Drought Severity Index) were then linked with indemnities and grouped by different causes of loss. Climatological ranks were used to integrate historical comparative intensity of acute and long-term climatic events. Heat and drought as causes of loss were most correlated with temperature and drought indicators, respectively. Across all SW states increasing indemnities were correlated with warmer conditions. Multiple statistical trend analyses suggest a framework is necessary to appropriately measure the biophysical

Climate-Agriculture-Modeling and Decision Tool for Disease (CAMDT-Disease) for seasonal climate forecast-based crop disease risk management in agriculture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, K. H.; Lee, S.; Han, E.; Ines, A. V. M.

2017-12-01

Climate-Agriculture-Modeling and Decision Tool (CAMDT) is a decision support system (DSS) tool that aims to facilitate translations of probabilistic seasonal climate forecasts (SCF) to crop responses such as yield and water stress. Since CAMDT is a software framework connecting different models and algorithms with SCF information, it can be easily customized for different types of agriculture models. In this study, we replaced the DSSAT-CSM-Rice model originally incorporated in CAMDT with a generic epidemiological model, EPIRICE, to generate a seasonal pest outlook. The resulting CAMDT-Disease generates potential risks for selected fungal, viral, and bacterial diseases of rice over the next months by translating SCFs into agriculturally-relevant risk information. The integrated modeling procedure of CAMDT-Disease first disaggregates a given SCF using temporal downscaling methods (predictWTD or FResampler1), runs EPIRICE with the downscaled weather inputs, and finally visualizes the EPIRICE outputs as disease risk compared to that of the previous year and the 30-year-climatological average. In addition, the easy-to-use graphical user interface adopted from CAMDT allows users to simulate "what-if" scenarios of disease risks over different planting dates with given SCFs. Our future work includes the simulation of the effect of crop disease on yields through the disease simulation models with the DSSAT-CSM-Rice model, as disease remains one of the most critical yield-reducing factors in the field.

Rice crop risk map in Babahoyo canton (Ecuador)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Valverde Arias, Omar; Tarquis, Ana; Garrido, Alberto

2016-04-01

It is widely known that extreme climatic phenomena occur with more intensity and frequency. This fact has put more pressure over farming, making agricultural and livestock production riskier. In order to reduce hazards and economic loses that could jeopardize farmer's incomes and even its business continuity, it is very important to implement agriculture risk management plans by governments and institutions. One of the main strategies is transfer risk by agriculture insurance. Agriculture insurance based in indexes has a significant growth in the last decade. And consist in a comparison between measured index values with a defined threshold that triggers damage losses. However, based index insurance could not be based on an isolated measurement. It is necessary to be integrated in a complete monitoring system that uses many sources of information and tools. For example, index influence areas, crop production risk maps, crop yields, claim statistics, and so on. Crop production risk is related with yield variation of crops and livestock, due to weather, pests, diseases, and other factors that affect both the quantity and quality of commodities produced. This is the risk which farmers invest more time managing, and it is completely under their control. The aim of this study is generate a crop risk map of rice that can provide risk manager important information about the status of crop facing production risks. Then, based on this information, it will be possible to make best decisions to deal with production risk. The rice crop risk map was generated qualifying a 1:25000 scale soil and climatic map of Babahoyo canton, which is located in coast region of Ecuador, where rice is one of the main crops. The methodology to obtain crop risk map starts by establishing rice crop requirements and indentifying the risks associated with this crop. A second step is to evaluate soil and climatic conditions of the study area related to optimal crop requirements. Based on it, we can

Midwestern US Farmers Perceive Crop Advisers as Conduits of Information on Agricultural Conservation Practices

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Eanes, Francis R.; Singh, Ajay S.; Bulla, Brian R.; Ranjan, Pranay; Prokopy, Linda S.; Fales, Mary; Wickerham, Benjamin; Doran, Patrick J.

2017-11-01

Nonpoint source pollution from agricultural land uses continues to pose one of the most significant threats to water quality in the US, with measurable impacts across local, regional, and national scales. The impact and the influence of targeted conservation efforts are directly related to the degree to which farmers are familiar with and trust the entities providing the information and/or outreach. Recent research suggests that farmers consistently rank independent and retail-affiliated crop advisers as among the most trusted and influential sources for agronomic information, but little is understood about whether farmers are willing to receive advice from crop advisers on the use of practices that conserve soil and water, and, if so, whether crop advisers will be perceived as influential. We present survey data from farmers ( n = 1461) in Michigan's Saginaw Bay (Lake Huron) watershed to explore these questions. Results suggest that farmers view crop advisers as trustworthy sources of information about conservation, and influential on management practices that have large conservation implications. We discuss these results, along with perceived barriers and opportunities to crop advisers partnering with traditional conservation agencies to enhance the impact of voluntary conservation programs.

Midwestern US Farmers Perceive Crop Advisers as Conduits of Information on Agricultural Conservation Practices.

PubMed

Eanes, Francis R; Singh, Ajay S; Bulla, Brian R; Ranjan, Pranay; Prokopy, Linda S; Fales, Mary; Wickerham, Benjamin; Doran, Patrick J

2017-11-01

Nonpoint source pollution from agricultural land uses continues to pose one of the most significant threats to water quality in the US, with measurable impacts across local, regional, and national scales. The impact and the influence of targeted conservation efforts are directly related to the degree to which farmers are familiar with and trust the entities providing the information and/or outreach. Recent research suggests that farmers consistently rank independent and retail-affiliated crop advisers as among the most trusted and influential sources for agronomic information, but little is understood about whether farmers are willing to receive advice from crop advisers on the use of practices that conserve soil and water, and, if so, whether crop advisers will be perceived as influential. We present survey data from farmers (n = 1461) in Michigan's Saginaw Bay (Lake Huron) watershed to explore these questions. Results suggest that farmers view crop advisers as trustworthy sources of information about conservation, and influential on management practices that have large conservation implications. We discuss these results, along with perceived barriers and opportunities to crop advisers partnering with traditional conservation agencies to enhance the impact of voluntary conservation programs.

Photosynthetic energy conversion efficiency: setting a baseline for gauging future improvements in important food and biofuel crops.

PubMed

Slattery, Rebecca A; Ort, Donald R

2015-06-01

The conversion efficiency (ε(c)) of absorbed radiation into biomass (MJ of dry matter per MJ of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation) is a component of yield potential that has been estimated at less than half the theoretical maximum. Various strategies have been proposed to improve ε(c), but a statistical analysis to establish baseline ε(c) levels across different crop functional types is lacking. Data from 164 published ε(c) studies conducted in relatively unstressed growth conditions were used to determine the means, greatest contributors to variation, and genetic trends in ε(c )across important food and biofuel crop species. ε(c) was greatest in biofuel crops (0.049-0.066), followed by C4 food crops (0.046-0.049), C3 nonlegumes (0.036-0.041), and finally C3 legumes (0.028-0.035). Despite confining our analysis to relatively unstressed growth conditions, total incident solar radiation and average growing season temperature most often accounted for the largest portion of ε(c) variability. Genetic improvements in ε(c), when present, were less than 0.7% per year, revealing the unrealized potential of improving ε(c) as a promising contributing strategy to meet projected future agricultural demand. © 2015 American Society of Plant Biologists. All Rights Reserved.

Development of the Land-use and Agricultural Management Practice web-Service (LAMPS) for generating crop rotations in space and time

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Agroecosystem models and conservation planning tools require spatially and temporally explicit input data about agricultural management operations. The Land-use and Agricultural Management Practices web-Service (LAMPS) provides crop rotation and management information for user-specified areas within...

A methodological approach for deriving regional crop rotations as basis for the assessment of the impact of agricultural strategies using soil erosion as example.

PubMed

Lorenz, Marco; Fürst, Christine; Thiel, Enrico

2013-09-01

Regarding increasing pressures by global societal and climate change, the assessment of the impact of land use and land management practices on land degradation and the related decrease in sustainable provision of ecosystem services gains increasing interest. Existing approaches to assess agricultural practices focus on the assessment of single crops or statistical data because spatially explicit information on practically applied crop rotations is mostly not available. This provokes considerable uncertainties in crop production models as regional specifics have to be neglected or cannot be considered in an appropriate way. In a case study in Saxony, we developed an approach to (i) derive representative regional crop rotations by combining different data sources and expert knowledge. This includes the integration of innovative crop sequences related to bio-energy production or organic farming and different soil tillage, soil management and soil protection techniques. Furthermore, (ii) we developed a regionalization approach for transferring crop rotations and related soil management strategies on the basis of statistical data and spatially explicit data taken from so called field blocks. These field blocks are the smallest spatial entity for which agricultural practices must be reported to apply for agricultural funding within the frame of the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) program. The information was finally integrated into the spatial decision support tool GISCAME to assess and visualize in spatially explicit manner the impact of alternative agricultural land use strategies on soil erosion risk and ecosystem services provision. Objective of this paper is to present the approach how to create spatially explicit information on agricultural management practices for a study area around Dresden, the capital of the German Federal State Saxony. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

ADJUSTMENT, MAINTENANCE, AND REPAIR OF CROP HARVESTING MACHINERY. AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY--SERVICE OCCUPATIONS, MODULE NUMBER 11.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ohio State Univ., Columbus. Center for Vocational and Technical Education.

ONE OF A SERIES DESIGNED FOR HELPING TEACHERS PREPARE POSTSECONDARY-LEVEL STUDENTS FOR AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY SERVICE OCCUPATIONS AS PARTS MEN, MECHANICS, MECHANIC'S HELPERS, AND SERVICE SUPERVISORS, THIS GUIDE AIMS TO DEVELOP STUDENT COMPETENCY IN ADJUSTING, REPAIRING, AND MAINTAINING CROP HARVESTING MACHINERY. SUGGESTIONS FOR INTRODUCTION OF THE…

Spatial and temporal contrasts in the distribution of crops and pastures across Amazonia: A new agricultural land use data set from census data since 1950

PubMed Central

Imbach, P; Manrow, M; Barona, E; Barretto, A; Hyman, G; Ciais, P

2015-01-01

Amazonia holds the largest continuous area of tropical forests with intense land use change dynamics inducing water, carbon, and energy feedbacks with regional and global impacts. Much of our knowledge of land use change in Amazonia comes from studies of the Brazilian Amazon, which accounts for two thirds of the region. Amazonia outside of Brazil has received less attention because of the difficulty of acquiring consistent data across countries. We present here an agricultural statistics database of the entire Amazonia region, with a harmonized description of crops and pastures in geospatial format, based on administrative boundary data at the municipality level. The spatial coverage includes countries within Amazonia and spans censuses and surveys from 1950 to 2012. Harmonized crop and pasture types are explored by grouping annual and perennial cropping systems, C3 and C4 photosynthetic pathways, planted and natural pastures, and main crops. Our analysis examined the spatial pattern of ratios between classes of the groups and their correlation with the agricultural extent of crops and pastures within administrative units of the Amazon, by country, and census/survey dates. Significant correlations were found between all ratios and the fraction of agricultural lands of each administrative unit, with the exception of planted to natural pastures ratio and pasture lands extent. Brazil and Peru in most cases have significant correlations for all ratios analyzed even for specific census and survey dates. Results suggested improvements, and potential applications of the database for carbon, water, climate, and land use change studies are discussed. The database presented here provides an Amazon-wide improved data set on agricultural dynamics with expanded temporal and spatial coverage. Key Points Agricultural census database covers Amazon basin municipalities from 1950 to 2012Harmonized database groups crops and pastures by cropping system, C3/C4, and main crops

7 CFR 457.140 - Dry pea crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Dry pea crop insurance provisions. 457.140 Section 457.140 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.140 Dry pea crop insurance...

7 CFR 457.149 - Table grape crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Table grape crop insurance provisions. 457.149 Section 457.149 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.149 Table grape crop insurance...

7 CFR 457.137 - Green pea crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Green pea crop insurance provisions. 457.137 Section 457.137 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.137 Green pea crop insurance...

7 CFR 457.150 - Dry bean crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Dry bean crop insurance provisions. 457.150 Section 457.150 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.150 Dry bean crop insurance...

7 CFR 457.2 - Availability of Federal crop insurance.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Availability of Federal crop insurance. 457.2 Section 457.2 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.2 Availability of Federal crop...

Food crop production, nutrient availability, and nutrient intakes in Bangladesh: exploring the agriculture-nutrition nexus with the 2010 Household Income and Expenditure Survey.

PubMed

Fiedler, John L

2014-12-01

Systematic collection of national agricultural data has been neglected in many low- and middle-income countries for the past 20 years. Commonly conducted nationally representative household surveys collect substantial quantities of highly underutilized food crop production data. To demonstrate the potential usefulness of commonly available household survey databases for analyzing the agriculture-nutrition nexus. Using household data from the 2010 Bangladesh Household Income and Expenditure Survey, the role and significance of crop selection, area planted, yield, nutrient production, and the disposition of 34 food crops in affecting the adequacy of farming households' nutrient availability and nutrient intake status are explored. The adequacy of each farming household's available energy, vitamin A, calcium, iron, and zinc and households' apparent intakes and intake adequacies are estimated. Each household's total apparent nutrient intake adequacies are estimated, taking into account the amount of each crop that households consume from their own production, together with food purchased or obtained from other sources. Even though rice contains relatively small amounts of micronutrients, has relatively low nutrient density, and is a relatively poor source of nutrients compared with what other crops can produce on a given tract of land, because so much rice is produced in Bangladesh, it is the source of 90% of the total available energy, 85% of the zinc, 67% of the calcium, and 55% of the iron produced by the agricultural sector. The domination of agriculture and diet by rice is a major constraint to improving nutrition in Bangladesh. Simple examples of how minor changes in the five most common cropping patterns could improve farming households' nutritional status are provided. Household surveys' agricultural modules can provide a useful tool for better understanding national nutrient production realities and possibilities.

Cover crop biomass harvest for bioenergy: implications for crop productivity

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Winter cover crops, such as rye (Secale cereale), are usually used in conservation agriculture systems in the Southeast. Typically, the cover crop is terminated two to three weeks before planting the summer crop, with the cover biomass left on the soil surface as a mulch. However, these cover crops ...

Importance of genetic diversity assessment in crop plants and its recent advances: an overview of its analytical perspectives.

PubMed

Govindaraj, M; Vetriventhan, M; Srinivasan, M

2015-01-01

The importance of plant genetic diversity (PGD) is now being recognized as a specific area since exploding population with urbanization and decreasing cultivable lands are the critical factors contributing to food insecurity in developing world. Agricultural scientists realized that PGD can be captured and stored in the form of plant genetic resources (PGR) such as gene bank, DNA library, and so forth, in the biorepository which preserve genetic material for long period. However, conserved PGR must be utilized for crop improvement in order to meet future global challenges in relation to food and nutritional security. This paper comprehensively reviews four important areas; (i) the significance of plant genetic diversity (PGD) and PGR especially on agriculturally important crops (mostly field crops); (ii) risk associated with narrowing the genetic base of current commercial cultivars and climate change; (iii) analysis of existing PGD analytical methods in pregenomic and genomic era; and (iv) modern tools available for PGD analysis in postgenomic era. This discussion benefits the plant scientist community in order to use the new methods and technology for better and rapid assessment, for utilization of germplasm from gene banks to their applied breeding programs. With the advent of new biotechnological techniques, this process of genetic manipulation is now being accelerated and carried out with more precision (neglecting environmental effects) and fast-track manner than the classical breeding techniques. It is also to note that gene banks look into several issues in order to improve levels of germplasm distribution and its utilization, duplication of plant identity, and access to database, for prebreeding activities. Since plant breeding research and cultivar development are integral components of improving food production, therefore, availability of and access to diverse genetic sources will ensure that the global food production network becomes more sustainable

Importance of Genetic Diversity Assessment in Crop Plants and Its Recent Advances: An Overview of Its Analytical Perspectives

PubMed Central

Govindaraj, M.; Vetriventhan, M.; Srinivasan, M.

2015-01-01

The importance of plant genetic diversity (PGD) is now being recognized as a specific area since exploding population with urbanization and decreasing cultivable lands are the critical factors contributing to food insecurity in developing world. Agricultural scientists realized that PGD can be captured and stored in the form of plant genetic resources (PGR) such as gene bank, DNA library, and so forth, in the biorepository which preserve genetic material for long period. However, conserved PGR must be utilized for crop improvement in order to meet future global challenges in relation to food and nutritional security. This paper comprehensively reviews four important areas; (i) the significance of plant genetic diversity (PGD) and PGR especially on agriculturally important crops (mostly field crops); (ii) risk associated with narrowing the genetic base of current commercial cultivars and climate change; (iii) analysis of existing PGD analytical methods in pregenomic and genomic era; and (iv) modern tools available for PGD analysis in postgenomic era. This discussion benefits the plant scientist community in order to use the new methods and technology for better and rapid assessment, for utilization of germplasm from gene banks to their applied breeding programs. With the advent of new biotechnological techniques, this process of genetic manipulation is now being accelerated and carried out with more precision (neglecting environmental effects) and fast-track manner than the classical breeding techniques. It is also to note that gene banks look into several issues in order to improve levels of germplasm distribution and its utilization, duplication of plant identity, and access to database, for prebreeding activities. Since plant breeding research and cultivar development are integral components of improving food production, therefore, availability of and access to diverse genetic sources will ensure that the global food production network becomes more sustainable

Can Multiple Cropping Help to Avoid the Impacts of Heat Extremes? The Case of Winter Wheat/Soybean Double Cropping in the United States

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Seifert, C.; Lobell, D. B.

2014-12-01

In adapting U.S. agriculture to the climate of the 21st century, multiple cropping presents a unique opportunity to help offset projected negative trends in agricultural production while moving critical crop yield formation periods outside of the hottest months of the year. Critical constraints on this practice include moisture availability, and, more importantly, growing season length. We review evidence that this last constraint has decreased in the previous quarter century, allowing for more winter wheat/soybean double cropping in previously phenologically constrained areas. We also carry this pattern forward to 2100, showing a 126% to 211% increase in the area phenologically suitable for double cropping under the RCP45 and RCP85 scenarios respectively. These results suggest that climate change will relieve phenological constraints on wheat-soy double cropping systems over much of the United States, changing production patterns and crop rotations as areas become suitable for the practice.

Towards a Quantitative Use of Satellite Remote Sensing in Crop Growth Models for Large Scale Agricultural Production Estimate (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Defourny, P.

2013-12-01

The development of better agricultural monitoring capabilities is clearly considered as a critical step for strengthening food production information and market transparency thanks to timely information about crop status, crop area and yield forecasts. The documentation of global production will contribute to tackle price volatility by allowing local, national and international operators to make decisions and anticipate market trends with reduced uncertainty. Several operational agricultural monitoring systems are currently operating at national and international scales. Most are based on the methods derived from the pioneering experiences completed some decades ago, and use remote sensing to qualitatively compare one year to the others to estimate the risks of deviation from a normal year. The GEO Agricultural Monitoring Community of Practice described the current monitoring capabilities at the national and global levels. An overall diagram summarized the diverse relationships between satellite EO and agriculture information. There is now a large gap between the current operational large scale systems and the scientific state of the art in crop remote sensing, probably because the latter mainly focused on local studies. The poor availability of suitable in-situ and satellite data over extended areas hampers large scale demonstrations preventing the much needed up scaling research effort. For the cropland extent, this paper reports a recent research achievement using the full ENVISAT MERIS 300 m archive in the context of the ESA Climate Change Initiative. A flexible combination of classification methods depending to the region of the world allows mapping the land cover as well as the global croplands at 300 m for the period 2008 2012. This wall to wall product is then compared with regards to the FP 7-Geoland 2 results obtained using as Landsat-based sampling strategy over the IGADD countries. On the other hand, the vegetation indices and the biophysical variables

Agricultural Policy Environmental eXtender simulation of three adjacent row-crop watersheds in the claypan region

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The Agricultural Policy Environmental Extender (APEX) model can simulate crop yields, and pollutant loadings in whole farms or small watersheds with variety of management practices. The study objectives were to identify sensitive parameters and parameterize, calibrate and validate the APEX model fo...

SACRA - global data sets of satellite-derived crop calendars for agricultural simulations: an estimation of a high-resolution crop calendar using satellite-sensed NDVI

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kotsuki, S.; Tanaka, K.

2015-01-01

To date, many studies have performed numerical estimations of food production and agricultural water demand to understand the present and future supply-demand relationship. A crop calendar (CC) is an essential input datum to estimate food production and agricultural water demand accurately with the numerical estimations. CC defines the date or month when farmers plant and harvest in cropland. This study aims to develop a new global data set of a satellite-derived crop calendar for agricultural simulations (SACRA) and reveal advantages and disadvantages of the satellite-derived CC compared to other global products. We estimate global CC at a spatial resolution of 5 min (≈10 km) using the satellite-sensed NDVI data, which corresponds well to vegetation growth and death on the land surface. We first demonstrate that SACRA shows similar spatial pattern in planting date compared to a census-based product. Moreover, SACRA reflects a variety of CC in the same administrative unit, since it uses high-resolution satellite data. However, a disadvantage is that the mixture of several crops in a grid is not considered in SACRA. We also address that the cultivation period of SACRA clearly corresponds to the time series of NDVI. Therefore, accuracy of SACRA depends on the accuracy of NDVI used for the CC estimation. Although SACRA shows different CC from a census-based product in some regions, multiple usages of the two products are useful to take into consideration the uncertainty of the CC. An advantage of SACRA compared to the census-based products is that SACRA provides not only planting/harvesting dates but also a peak date from the time series of NDVI data.

Biodiversity of Aspergillus species in some important agricultural products.

PubMed

Perrone, G; Susca, A; Cozzi, G; Ehrlich, K; Varga, J; Frisvad, J C; Meijer, M; Noonim, P; Mahakarnchanakul, W; Samson, R A

2007-01-01

The genus Aspergillus is one of the most important filamentous fungal genera. Aspergillus species are used in the fermentation industry, but they are also responsible of various plant and food secondary rot, with the consequence of possible accumulation of mycotoxins. The aflatoxin producing A. flavus and A. parasiticus, and ochratoxinogenic A. niger, A. ochraceus and A. carbonarius species are frequently encountered in agricultural products. Studies on the biodiversity of toxigenic Aspergillus species is useful to clarify molecular, ecological and biochemical characteristics of the different species in relation to their different adaptation to environmental and geographical conditions, and to their potential toxigenicity. Here we analyzed the biodiversity of ochratoxin producing species occurring on two important crops: grapes and coffee, and the genetic diversity of A. flavus populations occurring in agricultural fields. Altogether nine different black Aspergillus species can be found on grapes which are often difficult to identify with classical methods. The polyphasic approach used in our studies led to the identification of three new species occurring on grapes: A. brasiliensis, A. ibericus, and A. uvarum. Similar studies on the Aspergillus species occurring on coffee beans have evidenced in the last five years that A. carbonarius is an important source of ochratoxin A in coffee. Four new species within the black aspergilli were also identified in coffee beans: A. sclerotioniger, A. lacticoffeatus, A. sclerotiicarbonarius, and A. aculeatinus. The genetic diversity within A. flavus populations has been widely studied in relation to their potential aflatoxigenicity and morphological variants L- and S-strains. Within A. flavus and other Aspergillus species capable of aflatoxin production, considerable diversity is found. We summarise the main recent achievements in the diversity of the aflatoxin gene cluster in A. flavus populations, A. parasiticus and the non

Estimating riparian and agricultural evapotranspiration by reference crop evapotranspiration and MODIS Enhanced Vegetation Index

USGS Publications Warehouse

Nagler, Pamela L.; Glenn, Edward P.; Nguyen, Uyen; Scott, Russell; Doody, Tania

2013-01-01

Dryland river basins frequently support both irrigated agriculture and riparian vegetation and remote sensing methods are needed to monitor water use by both crops and natural vegetation in irrigation districts. We developed an algorithm for estimating actual evapotranspiration (ETa) based on the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) sensor on the EOS-1 Terra satellite and locally-derived measurements of reference crop ET (ETo). The algorithm was calibrated with five years of ETa data from three eddy covariance flux towers set in riparian plant associations on the upper San Pedro River, Arizona, supplemented with ETa data for alfalfa and cotton from the literature. The algorithm was based on an equation of the form ETa = ETo [a(1 − e−bEVI) − c], where the term (1 − e−bEVI) is derived from the Beer-Lambert Law to express light absorption by a canopy, with EVI replacing leaf area index as an estimate of the density of light-absorbing units. The resulting algorithm capably predicted ETa across riparian plants and crops (r2 = 0.73). It was then tested against water balance data for five irrigation districts and flux tower data for two riparian zones for which season-long or multi-year ETa data were available. Predictions were within 10% of measured results in each case, with a non-significant (P = 0.89) difference between mean measured and modeled ETa of 5.4% over all validation sites. Validation and calibration data sets were combined to present a final predictive equation for application across crops and riparian plant associations for monitoring individual irrigation districts or for conducting global water use assessments of mixed agricultural and riparian biomes.

Reusable Software and Open Data Incorporate Ecological Understanding To Optimize Agriculture and Improveme Crops.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

LeBauer, D.

2015-12-01

Humans need a secure and sustainable food supply, and science can help. We have an opportunity to transform agriculture by combining knowledge of organisms and ecosystems to engineer ecosystems that sustainably produce food, fuel, and other services. The challenge is that the information we have. Measurements, theories, and laws found in publications, notebooks, measurements, software, and human brains are difficult to combine. We homogenize, encode, and automate the synthesis of data and mechanistic understanding in a way that links understanding at different scales and across domains. This allows extrapolation, prediction, and assessment. Reusable components allow automated construction of new knowledge that can be used to assess, predict, and optimize agro-ecosystems. Developing reusable software and open-access databases is hard, and examples will illustrate how we use the Predictive Ecosystem Analyzer (PEcAn, pecanproject.org), the Biofuel Ecophysiological Traits and Yields database (BETYdb, betydb.org), and ecophysiological crop models to predict crop yield, decide which crops to plant, and which traits can be selected for the next generation of data driven crop improvement. A next step is to automate the use of sensors mounted on robots, drones, and tractors to assess plants in the field. The TERRA Reference Phenotyping Platform (TERRA-Ref, terraref.github.io) will provide an open access database and computing platform on which researchers can use and develop tools that use sensor data to assess and manage agricultural and other terrestrial ecosystems. TERRA-Ref will adopt existing standards and develop modular software components and common interfaces, in collaboration with researchers from iPlant, NEON, AgMIP, USDA, rOpenSci, ARPA-E, many scientists and industry partners. Our goal is to advance science by enabling efficient use, reuse, exchange, and creation of knowledge.

Anatomy of a local-scale drought: Application of assimilated remote sensing products, crop model, and statistical methods to an agricultural drought study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mishra, Ashok K.; Ines, Amor V. M.; Das, Narendra N.; Prakash Khedun, C.; Singh, Vijay P.; Sivakumar, Bellie; Hansen, James W.

2015-07-01

Drought is of global concern for society but it originates as a local problem. It has a significant impact on water quantity and quality and influences food, water, and energy security. The consequences of drought vary in space and time, from the local scale (e.g. county level) to regional scale (e.g. state or country level) to global scale. Within the regional scale, there are multiple socio-economic impacts (i.e., agriculture, drinking water supply, and stream health) occurring individually or in combination at local scales, either in clusters or scattered. Even though the application of aggregated drought information at the regional level has been useful in drought management, the latter can be further improved by evaluating the structure and evolution of a drought at the local scale. This study addresses a local-scale agricultural drought anatomy in Story County in Iowa, USA. This complex problem was evaluated using assimilated AMSR-E soil moisture and MODIS-LAI data into a crop model to generate surface and sub-surface drought indices to explore the anatomy of an agricultural drought. Quantification of moisture supply in the root zone remains a gray area in research community, this challenge can be partly overcome by incorporating assimilation of soil moisture and leaf area index into crop modeling framework for agricultural drought quantification, as it performs better in simulating crop yield. It was noted that the persistence of subsurface droughts is in general higher than surface droughts, which can potentially improve forecast accuracy. It was found that both surface and subsurface droughts have an impact on crop yields, albeit with different magnitudes, however, the total water available in the soil profile seemed to have a greater impact on the yield. Further, agricultural drought should not be treated equal for all crops, and it should be calculated based on the root zone depth rather than a fixed soil layer depth. We envisaged that the results of

From Concept to Commerce: Developing a Successful Fungal Endophyte Inoculant for Agricultural Crops

PubMed Central

Doohan, Fiona M.; Hodkinson, Trevor R.

2018-01-01

The development of endophyte inoculants for agricultural crops has been bedevilled by the twin problems of a lack of reliability and consistency, with a consequent lack of belief among end users in the efficacy of such treatments. We have developed a successful research pipeline for the production of a reliable, consistent and environmentally targeted fungal endophyte seed-delivered inoculant for barley cultivars. Our approach was developed de novo from an initial concept to source candidate endophyte inoculants from a wild relative of barley, Hordeum murinum (wall barley). A careful screening and selection procedure and extensive controlled environment testing of fungal endophyte strains, followed by multi-year field trials has resulted in the validation of an endophyte consortium suitable for barley crops grown on relatively dry sites. Our approach can be adapted for any crop or environment, provided that the set of first principles we have developed is followed. Here, we report how we developed the successful pipeline for the production of an economically viable fungal endophyte inoculant for barley cultivars. PMID:29439471

From Concept to Commerce: Developing a Successful Fungal Endophyte Inoculant for Agricultural Crops.

PubMed

Murphy, Brian R; Doohan, Fiona M; Hodkinson, Trevor R

2018-02-11

The development of endophyte inoculants for agricultural crops has been bedevilled by the twin problems of a lack of reliability and consistency, with a consequent lack of belief among end users in the efficacy of such treatments. We have developed a successful research pipeline for the production of a reliable, consistent and environmentally targeted fungal endophyte seed-delivered inoculant for barley cultivars. Our approach was developed de novo from an initial concept to source candidate endophyte inoculants from a wild relative of barley, Hordeum murinum (wall barley). A careful screening and selection procedure and extensive controlled environment testing of fungal endophyte strains, followed by multi-year field trials has resulted in the validation of an endophyte consortium suitable for barley crops grown on relatively dry sites. Our approach can be adapted for any crop or environment, provided that the set of first principles we have developed is followed. Here, we report how we developed the successful pipeline for the production of an economically viable fungal endophyte inoculant for barley cultivars.

7 CFR 760.816 - Value loss crops.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 7 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Value loss crops. 760.816 Section 760.816 Agriculture... SPECIAL PROGRAMS INDEMNITY PAYMENT PROGRAMS 2005-2007 Crop Disaster Program § 760.816 Value loss crops. (a) Notwithstanding any other provisions of this part, this section applies to value loss crops and tropical crops...

Crop Biotechnology. Where Now?

PubMed Central

Miflin, B. J.

2000-01-01

Abstract Nature Biotechnology organized a conference in London on Agbiotech 99: Biotechnology and World Agriculture (November 14-16, 1999). The conference focused entirely on crop biotechnology and covered both societal and scientific aspects. Below is an account of the more important issues raised by the speakers and the audience. PMID:10806221

7 CFR 457.145 - Potato crop insurance-certified seed endorsement.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Potato crop insurance-certified seed endorsement. 457.145 Section 457.145 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.145 Potato crop...

Airborne and satellite remote sensors for precision agriculture

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Remote sensing provides an important source of information to characterize soil and crop variability for both within-season and after-season management despite the availability of numerous ground-based soil and crop sensors. Remote sensing applications in precision agriculture have been steadily inc...

Identifying obstacles and ranking common biological control research priorities for Europe to manage most economically important pests in arable, vegetable and perennial crops.

PubMed

Lamichhane, Jay Ram; Bischoff-Schaefer, Monika; Bluemel, Sylvia; Dachbrodt-Saaydeh, Silke; Dreux, Laure; Jansen, Jean-Pierre; Kiss, Jozsef; Köhl, Jürgen; Kudsk, Per; Malausa, Thibaut; Messéan, Antoine; Nicot, Philippe C; Ricci, Pierre; Thibierge, Jérôme; Villeneuve, François

2017-01-01

EU agriculture is currently in transition from conventional crop protection to integrated pest management (IPM). Because biocontrol is a key component of IPM, many European countries recently have intensified their national efforts on biocontrol research and innovation (R&I), although such initiatives are often fragmented. The operational outputs of national efforts would benefit from closer collaboration among stakeholders via transnationally coordinated approaches, as most economically important pests are similar across Europe. This paper proposes a common European framework on biocontrol R&I. It identifies generic R&I bottlenecks and needs as well as priorities for three crop types (arable, vegetable and perennial crops). The existing gap between the market offers of biocontrol solutions and the demand of growers, the lengthy and expensive registration process for biocontrol solutions and their varying effectiveness due to variable climatic conditions and site-specific factors across Europe are key obstacles hindering the development and adoption of biocontrol solutions in Europe. Considering arable, vegetable and perennial crops, a dozen common target pests are identified for each type of crop and ranked by order of importance at European level. Such a ranked list indicates numerous topics on which future joint transnational efforts would be justified. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry.

A preliminary study of the statistical analyses and sampling strategies associated with the integration of remote sensing capabilities into the current agricultural crop forecasting system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sand, F.; Christie, R.

1975-01-01

Extending the crop survey application of remote sensing from small experimental regions to state and national levels requires that a sample of agricultural fields be chosen for remote sensing of crop acreage, and that a statistical estimate be formulated with measurable characteristics. The critical requirements for the success of the application are reviewed in this report. The problem of sampling in the presence of cloud cover is discussed. Integration of remotely sensed information about crops into current agricultural crop forecasting systems is treated on the basis of the USDA multiple frame survey concepts, with an assumed addition of a new frame derived from remote sensing. Evolution of a crop forecasting system which utilizes LANDSAT and future remote sensing systems is projected for the 1975-1990 time frame.

An integrated landscape designed for commodity and bioenergy crops for a tile-drained agricultural watershed

DOE PAGES

Ssegane, Herbert; Negri, M. Cristina

2016-09-16

Here, locating bioenergy crops on strategically selected subfield areas of marginal interest for commodity agriculture can increase environmental sustainability. Location and choice of bioenergy crops should improve environmental benefits with minimal disruption of current food production systems. We identified subfield soils of a tile-drained agricultural watershed as marginal if they had areas of low crop productivity index (CPI), were susceptible to nitrate-nitrogen (NO 3–N) leaching, or were susceptible to at least two other forms of environmental degradation (marginal areas). In the test watershed (Indian Creek watershed, IL) with annual precipitation of 852 mm, 3% of soils were CPI areas andmore » 22% were marginal areas. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool was used to forecast the impact of growing switchgrass ( Panicum virgatum L.), willow ( Salix spp.), and big bluestem ( Andropogon gerardi Vitman) in these subfield areas on annual grain yields, NO 3–N and sediment exports, and water yield. Simulated conversion of CPI areas from current land use to bioenergy crops had no significant (p ≤ 0.05) impact on grain production and reduced NO 3–N and sediment exports by 5.0 to 6.0% and 3.0%, respectively. Conversion of marginal areas from current land use to switchgrass forecasted the production of 34,000 t of biomass and reductions in NO 3–N (26.0%) and sediment (33.0%) exports. Alternatively, conversion of marginal areas from current land use to willow forecasted similar reductions as switchgrass for sediment but significantly (p ≤ 0.01) lower reductions in annual NO 3–N export (18.0 vs. 26.0%).« less

An integrated landscape designed for commodity and bioenergy crops for a tile-drained agricultural watershed

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ssegane, Herbert; Negri, M. Cristina

Here, locating bioenergy crops on strategically selected subfield areas of marginal interest for commodity agriculture can increase environmental sustainability. Location and choice of bioenergy crops should improve environmental benefits with minimal disruption of current food production systems. We identified subfield soils of a tile-drained agricultural watershed as marginal if they had areas of low crop productivity index (CPI), were susceptible to nitrate-nitrogen (NO 3–N) leaching, or were susceptible to at least two other forms of environmental degradation (marginal areas). In the test watershed (Indian Creek watershed, IL) with annual precipitation of 852 mm, 3% of soils were CPI areas andmore » 22% were marginal areas. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool was used to forecast the impact of growing switchgrass ( Panicum virgatum L.), willow ( Salix spp.), and big bluestem ( Andropogon gerardi Vitman) in these subfield areas on annual grain yields, NO 3–N and sediment exports, and water yield. Simulated conversion of CPI areas from current land use to bioenergy crops had no significant (p ≤ 0.05) impact on grain production and reduced NO 3–N and sediment exports by 5.0 to 6.0% and 3.0%, respectively. Conversion of marginal areas from current land use to switchgrass forecasted the production of 34,000 t of biomass and reductions in NO 3–N (26.0%) and sediment (33.0%) exports. Alternatively, conversion of marginal areas from current land use to willow forecasted similar reductions as switchgrass for sediment but significantly (p ≤ 0.01) lower reductions in annual NO 3–N export (18.0 vs. 26.0%).« less

Spatial Optimization of Cropping Pattern in an Agricultural Watershed for Food and Biofuel Production with Minimum Downstream Pollution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pv, F.; Sudheer, K.; Chaubey, I.; RAJ, C.; Her, Y.

2013-05-01

Biofuel is considered to be a viable alternative to meet the increasing fuel demand, and therefore many countries are promoting agricultural activities that help increase production of raw material for biofuel production. Mostly, the biofuel is produced from grain based crops such as Corn, and it apparently create a shortage in food grains. Consequently, there have been regulations to limit the ethanol production from grains, and to use cellulosic crops as raw material for biofuel production. However, cultivation of such cellulosic crops may have different effects on water quality in the watershed. Corn stover, one of the potential cellulosic materials, when removed from the agricultural field for biofuel production, causes a decrease in the organic nutrients in the field. This results in increased use of pesticides and fertilizers which in turn affect the downstream water quality due to leaching of the chemicals. On the contrary, planting less fertilizer-intensive cellulosic crops, like Switch Grass and Miscanthus, is expected to reduce the pollutant loadings from the watershed. Therefore, an ecologically viable land use scenario would be a mixed cropping of grain crops and cellulosic crops, that meet the demand for food and biofuel without compromising on the downstream water quality. Such cropping pattern can be arrived through a simulation-optimization framework. Mathematical models can be employed to evaluate various management scenarios related to crop production and to assess its impact on water quality. Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model is one of the most widely used models in this context. SWAT can simulate the water and nutrient cycles, and also quantify the long-term impacts of land management practices, in a watershed. This model can therefore help take decisions regarding the type of cropping and management practices to be adopted in the watershed such that the water quality in the rivers is maintained at acceptable level. In this study, it

7 CFR 457.151 - Forage seeding crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Forage seeding crop insurance provisions. 457.151 Section 457.151 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.151 Forage seeding...

7 CFR 457.142 - Northern potato crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Northern potato crop insurance provisions. 457.142 Section 457.142 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.142 Northern potato...

7 CFR 457.131 - Macadamia nut crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Macadamia nut crop insurance provisions. 457.131 Section 457.131 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.131 Macadamia nut...

7 CFR 457.130 - Macadamia tree crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Macadamia tree crop insurance provisions. 457.130 Section 457.130 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.130 Macadamia tree...

7 CFR 457.155 - Processing bean crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Processing bean crop insurance provisions. 457.155 Section 457.155 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.155 Processing bean...

Application of water footprint combined with a unified virtual crop pattern to evaluate crop water productivity in grain production in China.

PubMed

Wang, Y B; Wu, P T; Engel, B A; Sun, S K

2014-11-01

Water shortages are detrimental to China's grain production while food production consumes a great deal of water causing water crises and ecological impacts. Increasing crop water productivity (CWP) is critical, so China is devoting significant resources to develop water-saving agricultural systems based on crop planning and agricultural water conservation planning. A comprehensive CWP index is necessary for such planning. Existing indices such as water use efficiency (WUE) and irrigation efficiency (IE) have limitations and are not suitable for the comprehensive evaluation of CWP. The water footprint (WF) index, calculated using effective precipitation and local water use, has advantages for CWP evaluation. Due to regional differences in crop patterns making the CWP difficult to compare directly across different regions, a unified virtual crop pattern is needed to calculate the WF. This project calculated and compared the WF of each grain crop and the integrated WFs of grain products with actual and virtual crop patterns in different regions of China for 2010. The results showed that there were significant differences for the WF among different crops in the same area or among different areas for the same crop. Rice had the highest WF at 1.39 m(3)/kg, while corn had the lowest at 0.91 m(3)/kg among the main grain crops. The WF of grain products was 1.25 m(3)/kg in China. Crop patterns had an important impact on WF of grain products because significant differences in WF were found between actual and virtual crop patterns in each region. The CWP level can be determined based on the WF of a virtual crop pattern, thereby helping optimize spatial distribution of crops and develop agricultural water savings to increase CWP. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

7 CFR 457.166 - Blueberry crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Blueberry crop insurance provisions. 457.166 Section... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.166 Blueberry crop insurance provisions. The Blueberry Crop Insurance Provisions for the 2005 and succeeding crop years are as follows...

7 CFR 457.166 - Blueberry crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Blueberry crop insurance provisions. 457.166 Section... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.166 Blueberry crop insurance provisions. The Blueberry Crop Insurance Provisions for the 2005 and succeeding crop years are as follows...

7 CFR 457.166 - Blueberry crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Blueberry crop insurance provisions. 457.166 Section... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.166 Blueberry crop insurance provisions. The Blueberry Crop Insurance Provisions for the 2005 and succeeding crop years are as follows...

An important tool with no instruction manual: A review of gypsum use in agriculture

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Land application of gypsum has been studied and utilized in agriculture and environmental remediation for many years. Most of the published literature has focused on gypsum application impacts on soil properties rather than crop yields. This literature review was conducted to (i) gather results from...

Crop diversification and livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe: adaptive management for environmental change.

PubMed

Makate, Clifton; Wang, Rongchang; Makate, Marshall; Mango, Nelson

2016-01-01

This paper demonstrates how crop diversification impacts on two outcomes of climate smart agriculture; increased productivity (legume and cereal crop productivity) and enhanced resilience (household income, food security, and nutrition) in rural Zimbabwe. Using data from over 500 smallholder farmers, we jointly estimate crop diversification and each of the outcome variables within a conditional (recursive) mixed process framework that corrects for selectivity bias arising due to the voluntary nature of crop diversification. We find that crop diversification depends on the land size, farming experience, asset wealth, location, access to agricultural extension services, information on output prices, low transportation costs and general information access. Our results also indicate that an increase in the rate of adoption improves crop productivity, income, food security and nutrition at household level. Overall, our results are indicative of the importance of crop diversification as a viable climate smart agriculture practice that significantly enhances crop productivity and consequently resilience in rural smallholder farming systems. We, therefore, recommend wider adoption of diversified cropping systems notably those currently less diversified for greater adaptation to the ever-changing climate.

7 CFR 993.20 - Crop year.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... Order Regulating Handling Definitions § 993.20 Crop year. Crop year means the 12-month period beginning August 1 of any year and ending July 31 of the following year. ... 7 Agriculture 8 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Crop year. 993.20 Section 993.20 Agriculture...

Assessing the probability of infection by Salmonella due to sewage sludge use in agriculture under several exposure scenarios for crops and soil ingestion.

PubMed

Krzyzanowski, Flávio; de Souza Lauretto, Marcelo; Nardocci, Adelaide Cássia; Sato, Maria Inês Zanoli; Razzolini, Maria Tereza Pepe

2016-10-15

A deeper understanding about the risks involved in sewage sludge practice in agriculture is required. The aims of the present study were to determine the annual risk of infection of consuming lettuce, carrots and tomatoes cultivated in soil amended with sewage sludge. The risk to agricultural workers of accidental ingestion of sludge or amended soil was also investigated. A Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment was conducted based on Salmonella concentrations from five WWTPs were used to estimate the probability of annual infection associated with crops and soil ingestion. The risk of infection was estimated for nine exposure scenarios considering concentration of the pathogen, sewage sludge dilution in soil, variation of Salmonella concentration in soil, soil attachment to crops, seasonal average temperatures, hours of post-harvesting exposure, Salmonella regrowth in lettuce and tomatoes, Salmonella inhibition factor in carrots, crop ingestion and frequency of exposure, sludge/soil ingestion by agricultural workers and frequency of exposure. Annual risks values varied across the scenarios evaluated. Highest values of annual risk were found for scenarios in which the variation in the concentration of Salmonella spp. in both soil and crops (scenario 1) and without variation in the concentration of Salmonella spp. in soil and variation in crops (scenario 3) ranging from 10(-3) to 10(-2) for all groups considered. For agricultural workers, the highest annual risks of infection were found when workers applied sewage sludge to agricultural soils (2.26×10(-2)). Sensitivity analysis suggests that the main drivers for the estimated risks are Salmonella concentration and ingestion rate. These risk values resulted from conservative scenarios since some assumptions were derived from local or general studies. Although these scenarios can be considered conservative, the sensitivity analysis yielded the drivers of the risks, which can be useful for managing risks from the

The Use of Cover Crops as Climate-Smart Management in Midwest Cropping Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Basche, A.; Miguez, F.; Archontoulis, S.; Kaspar, T.

2014-12-01

The observed trends in the Midwestern United States of increasing rainfall variability will likely continue into the future. Events such as individual days of heavy rain as well as seasons of floods and droughts have large impacts on agricultural productivity and the natural resource base that underpins it. Such events lead to increased soil erosion, decreased water quality and reduced corn and soybean yields. Winter cover crops offer the potential to buffer many of these impacts because they essentially double the time for a living plant to protect and improve the soil. However, at present, cover crops are infrequently utilized in the Midwest (representing 1-2% of row cropped land cover) in particular due to producer concerns over higher costs and management, limited time and winter growing conditions as well as the potential harm to corn yields. In order to expand their use, there is a need to quantify how cover crops impact Midwest cropping systems in the long term and namely to understand how to optimize the benefits of cover crops while minimizing their impacts on cash crops. We are working with APSIM, a cropping systems platform, to specifically quantify the long term future impacts of cover crop incorporation in corn-based cropping systems. In general, our regional analysis showed only minor changes to corn and soybean yields (<1% differences) when a cover crop was or was not included in the simulation. Further, a "bad spring" scenario (where every third year had an abnormally wet/cold spring and cover crop termination and planting cash crop were within one day) did not result in any major changes to cash crop yields. Through simulations we estimate an average increase of 4-9% organic matter improvement in the topsoil and an average decrease in soil erosion of 14-32% depending on cover crop planting date and growth. Our work is part of the Climate and Corn-based Cropping Systems Coordinated Agriculture Project (CSCAP), a collaboration of eleven Midwestern

7 CFR 457.126 - Popcorn crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Popcorn crop insurance provisions. 457.126 Section 457... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.126 Popcorn crop insurance provisions. The Popcorn Crop Insurance Provisions for the 1999 and succeeding crop years are as follows: FCIC...

7 CFR 457.126 - Popcorn crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Popcorn crop insurance provisions. 457.126 Section 457... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.126 Popcorn crop insurance provisions. The Popcorn Crop Insurance Provisions for the 1999 and succeeding crop years are as follows: FCIC...

7 CFR 457.126 - Popcorn crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Popcorn crop insurance provisions. 457.126 Section 457... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.126 Popcorn crop insurance provisions. The Popcorn Crop Insurance Provisions for the 1999 and succeeding crop years are as follows: FCIC...

7 CFR 457.158 - Apple crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Apple crop insurance provisions. 457.158 Section 457... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.158 Apple crop insurance provisions. The apple crop insurance provisions for the 2011 and succeeding crop years are as follows: FCIC...

7 CFR 457.158 - Apple crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Apple crop insurance provisions. 457.158 Section 457... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.158 Apple crop insurance provisions. The apple crop insurance provisions for the 2011 and succeeding crop years are as follows: FCIC...

7 CFR 457.158 - Apple crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Apple crop insurance provisions. 457.158 Section 457... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.158 Apple crop insurance provisions. The apple crop insurance provisions for the 2011 and succeeding crop years are as follows: FCIC...

7 CFR 457.158 - Apple crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Apple crop insurance provisions. 457.158 Section 457... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.158 Apple crop insurance provisions. The apple crop insurance provisions for the 2011 and succeeding crop years are as follows: FCIC...

7 CFR 457.138 - Grape crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Grape crop insurance provisions. 457.138 Section 457... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.138 Grape crop insurance provisions. The grape crop insurance provisions for the 2010 and succeeding crop years are as follows: United...

7 CFR 457.138 - Grape crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Grape crop insurance provisions. 457.138 Section 457... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.138 Grape crop insurance provisions. The grape crop insurance provisions for the 2010 and succeeding crop years are as follows: United...

7 CFR 457.138 - Grape crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Grape crop insurance provisions. 457.138 Section 457... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.138 Grape crop insurance provisions. The grape crop insurance provisions for the 2010 and succeeding crop years are as follows: United...

7 CFR 457.138 - Grape crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Grape crop insurance provisions. 457.138 Section 457... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.138 Grape crop insurance provisions. The grape crop insurance provisions for the 2010 and succeeding crop years are as follows: United...

7 CFR 457.104 - Cotton crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Cotton crop insurance provisions. 457.104 Section 457... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.104 Cotton crop insurance provisions. The cotton crop insurance provisions for the 2011 and succeeding crop years are as follows...

7 CFR 457.104 - Cotton crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Cotton crop insurance provisions. 457.104 Section 457... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.104 Cotton crop insurance provisions. The cotton crop insurance provisions for the 2011 and succeeding crop years are as follows...

7 CFR 457.104 - Cotton crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Cotton crop insurance provisions. 457.104 Section 457... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.104 Cotton crop insurance provisions. The cotton crop insurance provisions for the 2011 and succeeding crop years are as follows...

7 CFR 457.123 - Almond crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Almond crop insurance provisions. 457.123 Section 457... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.123 Almond crop insurance provisions. The Almond Crop Insurance Provisions for the 2008 and succeeding crop years are as follows: FCIC...

7 CFR 457.123 - Almond crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Almond crop insurance provisions. 457.123 Section 457... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.123 Almond crop insurance provisions. The Almond Crop Insurance Provisions for the 2008 and succeeding crop years are as follows: FCIC...

The Potential of Pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan) for Producing Important Components of Renewable Energy and Agricultural Products

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gwata, E.

2012-04-01

In agricultural systems, sustainable crop production is critical in meeting both environmental requirements and the limitations of drought imposed by the effects of global warming. The inputs for crop production and end use of the products should determine the choice of a crop particularly in environments prone to droughts. The objective of this paper is to highlight why a multi-purpose grain legume such as pigeonpea is an ideal crop that can be utilized for producing renewable energy. Firstly, it is highly tolerant to drought and does not require additional soil moisture after the seedling growth stage. The deep tape root extracts moisture and nutrients from deep layers of the soil concomitantly allowing for efficient nutrient recycling. The piscidic acid which is exuded from the roots enhances the solubilization of phosphorus in order to make it available for plant uptake. Secondly, the grain of pigeonpea is suitable for both human food and feedstocks. The grain is rich in oil, vitamins, minerals and protein. The grain can also be used for producing biofuel. In many countries particularly in the developing world, the stover is used as fuel wood or building (roofing) material, thus alleviating pressure on forest products. The crop is grown without the application of inorganic fertilizers as it can fix atmospheric nitrogen symbiotically in its root nodules. Pigeonpea is also ratoonable, producing two or more harvests per season. In addition, it is grown in mixed cropping systems thus optimizing land use. In these regards, pigeonpea is sustainable and environmentally friendly choice for agricultural production of food and energy balance.

Simulated crop yield in response to changes in climate and agricultural practices: results from a simple process based model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Caldararu, S.; Smith, M. J.; Purves, D.; Emmott, S.

2013-12-01

Global agriculture will, in the future, be faced with two main challenges: climate change and an increase in global food demand driven by an increase in population and changes in consumption habits. To be able to predict both the impacts of changes in climate on crop yields and the changes in agricultural practices necessary to respond to such impacts we currently need to improve our understanding of crop responses to climate and the predictive capability of our models. Ideally, what we would have at our disposal is a modelling tool which, given certain climatic conditions and agricultural practices, can predict the growth pattern and final yield of any of the major crops across the globe. We present a simple, process-based crop growth model based on the assumption that plants allocate above- and below-ground biomass to maintain overall carbon optimality and that, to maintain this optimality, the reproductive stage begins at peak nitrogen uptake. The model includes responses to available light, water, temperature and carbon dioxide concentration as well as nitrogen fertilisation and irrigation. The model is data constrained at two sites, the Yaqui Valley, Mexico for wheat and the Southern Great Plains flux site for maize and soybean, using a robust combination of space-based vegetation data (including data from the MODIS and Landsat TM and ETM+ instruments), as well as ground-based biomass and yield measurements. We show a number of climate response scenarios, including increases in temperature and carbon dioxide concentrations as well as responses to irrigation and fertiliser application.

Chemical usage in production agriculture: do crop insurance and off-farm work play a part?

PubMed

Chang, Hung-Hao; Mishra, Ashok K

2012-08-30

In recent years a growing body of literature in the agricultural policy arena has examined the association between crop insurance and off-farm employment. However, little is known about the extent to which these two activities may be related to environmental quality, in particular their impacts on fertilizer/chemical use of the farm. To fill this gap, this paper examines the effect of crop insurance and off-farm work on fertilizer/chemical expenses within the farm household framework. Quantile regression results from a national representative farm-level data show that off-farm work by the farm operator tends to decrease fertilizer/chemical expenses, and the effect is more pronounced at the higher percentiles of the distribution of fertilizer/chemical expense. In contrast, a positive effect of crop insurance on fertilizer/chemical expenses is evident, and the effect is robust across the entire distribution. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Environmental factors that influence the location of crop agriculture in the conterminous United States

USGS Publications Warehouse

Baker, Nancy T.; Capel, Paul D.

2011-01-01

Most crops are grown on land with shallow slope where the temperature, precipitation, and soils are favorable. In areas that are too steep, wet, or dry, landscapes have been modified to allow cultivation. Some of the limitations of the environmental factors that determine the location of agriculture can be overcome through modifications, but others cannot. On a larger-than-field scale, agricultural modifications commonly influence water availability through irrigation and (or) drainage and soil fertility and (or) organic-matter content through amendments such as manure, commercial fertilizer and lime. In general, it is not feasible to modify the other environmental factors, soil texture, soil depth, soil mineralogy, temperature, and terrain at large scales.

Nitrous Oxide Emission and Denitrifier Abundance in Two Agricultural Soils Amended with Crop Residues and Urea in the North China Plain.

PubMed

Gao, Jianmin; Xie, Yingxin; Jin, Haiyang; Liu, Yuan; Bai, Xueying; Ma, Dongyun; Zhu, Yunji; Wang, Chenyang; Guo, Tiancai

2016-01-01

from the treatments of 250 kg N ha-1 were 1.1-3.3 times higher than those of treatments with 200 kg N ha-1 in both soils with adding equal amounts of the same type of crop residue. Abundance of the 16S rRNA gene did not significantly change in all treatments in two soils, but the nosZ and nirS genes were more abundant in soils amended with crop residues compared with CK or N-only treatments. N2O emission, however, were not related to the abundance of denitrifier containing nirS or nosZ. The research provided some information regarding the effect of crop residues with N fertilizer on N2O emissions and denitrifier abundances in two soils. Our results imply the property of crop residue and rate of N fertilizer are important influencing factors of N2O emission when crop residues combined with N fertilizer are applied to different agricultural soils.

Organic and conventional farmers differ in their perspective on cover crop use and breeding

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Cover crops play an important role in agricultural sustainability. Unlike commodity cash crops, however, there has been relatively little cover crop germplasm research and development. We conducted an online survey to evaluate a) the perspectives of organic and conventional farmers in the United Sta...

Exploring Agricultural Drainage's Influence on Wetland and Watershed Connectivity

EPA Science Inventory

Artificial agricultural drainage (i.e. surface ditches or subsurface tile) is an important agricultural management tool. Artificial drainage allows for timely fieldwork and adequate root aeration, resulting in greater crop yields for farmers. This practice is widespread throughou...

Could Crop Roughness Impact the Wind Resource at Agriculturally Productive Wind Farm Sites?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vanderwende, B. J.; Lundquist, J. K.

2014-12-01

The high concentration of both large-scale agriculture and wind power production in the United States Midwest region raises new questions concerning the interaction of the two activities. For instance, it is known from internal boundary layer theory that changes in the roughness of the land-surface resulting from crop choices could modify the momentum field aloft. Upward propagation of such an effect might impact the properties of the winds encountered by modern turbines, which typically span a layer from about 40 to 120 meters above the surface. As direct observation of such interaction would require impractical interference in the planting schedules of farmers, we use numerical modeling to quantify the magnitude of crop-roughness effects. To simulate a collocated farm and turbine array, we use version 3.4.1 of the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF). The hypothetical farm is inserted near the real location of the 2013 Crop Wind Energy Experiment (CWEX). Reanalyses provide representative initial and boundary conditions. A month-long period spanning August 2013 is used to evaluate the differences in flows above corn (maize) and soybean crops at the mature, reproductive stage. Simulations are performed comparing the flow above each surface regime, both in the absence and presence of a wind farm, which consists of a parameterized 11x11 array of 1.8 MW Vestas V90 turbines. Appreciable differences in rotor-layer wind speeds emerge. The use of soybeans results in an increase in wind speeds and a corresponding reduction in rotor-layer shear when compared to corn. Despite the turbulent nature of flow within a wind farm, high stability reduces the impact of crop roughness on the flow aloft, particularly in the upper portion of the rotor disk. We use these results to estimate the economic impact of crop selection on wind power producers.

Quantifying the indirect impacts of climate on agriculture: an inter-method comparison

DOE PAGES

Calvin, Kate; Fisher-Vanden, Karen

2017-10-27

Climate change and increases in CO2 concentration affect the productivity of land, with implications for land use, land cover, and agricultural production. Much of the literature on the effect of climate on agriculture has focused on linking projections of changes in climate to process-based or statistical crop models. However, the changes in productivity have broader economic implications that cannot be quantified in crop models alone. How important are these socio-economic feedbacks to a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of climate change on agriculture? In this paper, we attempt to measure the importance of these interaction effects through an inter-method comparisonmore » between process models, statistical models, and integrated assessment model (IAMs). We find the impacts on crop yields vary widely between these three modeling approaches. Yield impacts generated by the IAMs are 20%-40% higher than the yield impacts generated by process-based or statistical crop models, with indirect climate effects adjusting yields by between - 12% and + 15% (e.g. input substitution and crop switching). The remaining effects are due to technological change.« less

Quantifying the indirect impacts of climate on agriculture: an inter-method comparison

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Calvin, Kate; Fisher-Vanden, Karen

2017-11-01

Climate change and increases in CO2 concentration affect the productivity of land, with implications for land use, land cover, and agricultural production. Much of the literature on the effect of climate on agriculture has focused on linking projections of changes in climate to process-based or statistical crop models. However, the changes in productivity have broader economic implications that cannot be quantified in crop models alone. How important are these socio-economic feedbacks to a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of climate change on agriculture? In this paper, we attempt to measure the importance of these interaction effects through an inter-method comparison between process models, statistical models, and integrated assessment model (IAMs). We find the impacts on crop yields vary widely between these three modeling approaches. Yield impacts generated by the IAMs are 20%-40% higher than the yield impacts generated by process-based or statistical crop models, with indirect climate effects adjusting yields by between -12% and +15% (e.g. input substitution and crop switching). The remaining effects are due to technological change.

Quantifying the indirect impacts of climate on agriculture: an inter-method comparison

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Calvin, Kate; Fisher-Vanden, Karen

Climate change and increases in CO2 concentration affect the productivity of land, with implications for land use, land cover, and agricultural production. Much of the literature on the effect of climate on agriculture has focused on linking projections of changes in climate to process-based or statistical crop models. However, the changes in productivity have broader economic implications that cannot be quantified in crop models alone. How important are these socio-economic feedbacks to a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of climate change on agriculture? In this paper, we attempt to measure the importance of these interaction effects through an inter-method comparisonmore » between process models, statistical models, and integrated assessment model (IAMs). We find the impacts on crop yields vary widely between these three modeling approaches. Yield impacts generated by the IAMs are 20%-40% higher than the yield impacts generated by process-based or statistical crop models, with indirect climate effects adjusting yields by between - 12% and + 15% (e.g. input substitution and crop switching). The remaining effects are due to technological change.« less

Public Acceptance of Plant Biotechnology and GM Crops.

PubMed

Lucht, Jan M

2015-07-30

A wide gap exists between the rapid acceptance of genetically modified (GM) crops for cultivation by farmers in many countries and in the global markets for food and feed, and the often-limited acceptance by consumers. This review contrasts the advances of practical applications of agricultural biotechnology with the divergent paths-also affecting the development of virus resistant transgenic crops-of political and regulatory frameworks for GM crops and food in different parts of the world. These have also shaped the different opinions of consumers. Important factors influencing consumer's attitudes are the perception of risks and benefits, knowledge and trust, and personal values. Recent political and societal developments show a hardening of the negative environment for agricultural biotechnology in Europe, a growing discussion-including calls for labeling of GM food-in the USA, and a careful development in China towards a possible authorization of GM rice that takes the societal discussions into account. New breeding techniques address some consumers' concerns with transgenic crops, but it is not clear yet how consumers' attitudes towards them will develop. Discussions about agriculture would be more productive, if they would focus less on technologies, but on common aims and underlying values.

7 CFR 457.143 - Northern potato crop insurance-quality endorsement.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Northern potato crop insurance-quality endorsement. 457.143 Section 457.143 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.143...

Agricultural diversification as an important strategy for achieving food security in Africa.

PubMed

Waha, Katharina; van Wijk, Mark T; Fritz, Steffen; See, Linda; Thornton, Philip K; Wichern, Jannike; Herrero, Mario

2018-03-31

Farmers in Africa have long adapted to climatic and other risks by diversifying their farming activities. Using a multi-scale approach, we explore the relationship between farming diversity and food security and the diversification potential of African agriculture and its limits on the household and continental scale. On the household scale, we use agricultural surveys from more than 28,000 households located in 18 African countries. In a next step, we use the relationship between rainfall, rainfall variability, and farming diversity to determine the available diversification options for farmers on the continental scale. On the household scale, we show that households with greater farming diversity are more successful in meeting their consumption needs, but only up to a certain level of diversity per ha cropland and more often if food can be purchased from off-farm income or income from farm sales. More diverse farming systems can contribute to household food security; however, the relationship is influenced by other factors, for example, the market orientation of a household, livestock ownership, nonagricultural employment opportunities, and available land resources. On the continental scale, the greatest opportunities for diversification of food crops, cash crops, and livestock are located in areas with 500-1,000 mm annual rainfall and 17%-22% rainfall variability. Forty-three percent of the African cropland lacks these opportunities at present which may hamper the ability of agricultural systems to respond to climate change. While sustainable intensification practices that increase yields have received most attention to date, our study suggests that a shift in the research and policy paradigm toward agricultural diversification options may be necessary. © 2018 The Authors Global Change Biology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Productivity limits and potentials of the principles of conservation agriculture.

PubMed

Pittelkow, Cameron M; Liang, Xinqiang; Linquist, Bruce A; van Groenigen, Kees Jan; Lee, Juhwan; Lundy, Mark E; van Gestel, Natasja; Six, Johan; Venterea, Rodney T; van Kessel, Chris

2015-01-15

One of the primary challenges of our time is to feed a growing and more demanding world population with reduced external inputs and minimal environmental impacts, all under more variable and extreme climate conditions in the future. Conservation agriculture represents a set of three crop management principles that has received strong international support to help address this challenge, with recent conservation agriculture efforts focusing on smallholder farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. However, conservation agriculture is highly debated, with respect to both its effects on crop yields and its applicability in different farming contexts. Here we conduct a global meta-analysis using 5,463 paired yield observations from 610 studies to compare no-till, the original and central concept of conservation agriculture, with conventional tillage practices across 48 crops and 63 countries. Overall, our results show that no-till reduces yields, yet this response is variable and under certain conditions no-till can produce equivalent or greater yields than conventional tillage. Importantly, when no-till is combined with the other two conservation agriculture principles of residue retention and crop rotation, its negative impacts are minimized. Moreover, no-till in combination with the other two principles significantly increases rainfed crop productivity in dry climates, suggesting that it may become an important climate-change adaptation strategy for ever-drier regions of the world. However, any expansion of conservation agriculture should be done with caution in these areas, as implementation of the other two principles is often challenging in resource-poor and vulnerable smallholder farming systems, thereby increasing the likelihood of yield losses rather than gains. Although farming systems are multifunctional, and environmental and socio-economic factors need to be considered, our analysis indicates that the potential contribution of no-till to the

Resource concentration dilutes a key pest in indigenous potato agriculture.

PubMed

Parsa, Soroush; Ccanto, Raul; Rosenheim, Jay A

2011-03-01

Modern restructuring of agricultural landscapes, due to the expansion of monocultures and the resulting elimination of non-crop habitat, is routinely blamed for rising populations of agricultural insect pests. However, landscape studies demonstrating a positive correlation between pest densities and the spatial extent of crop monocultures are rare. We test this hypothesis with a data set from 140 subsistence farms in the Andes and find the inverse correlation. Infestations by the Andean potato weevil (Premnotrypes spp.), the most important pest in Andean potato agriculture, decrease with increasing amounts of potato in the landscape. A statistical model predicts that aggregating potato fields may outperform the management of Andean potato weevils by IPM and chemical control. We speculate that the strong pest suppression generated by aggregating potato fields may partly explain why indigenous potato farmers cluster their potato fields under a traditional rotation system common in Andean agriculture (i.e., "sectoral fallow"). Our results suggest that some agricultural pests may also respond negatively to the expansion of monocultures, and that manipulating the spatial arrangement of host crops may offer an important tool for some IPM programs.

Temporally dependent pollinator competition and facilitation with mass flowering crops affects yield in co-blooming crops

PubMed Central

Grab, Heather; Blitzer, Eleanor J.; Danforth, Bryan; Loeb, Greg; Poveda, Katja

2017-01-01

One of the greatest challenges in sustainable agricultural production is managing ecosystem services, such as pollination, in ways that maximize crop yields. Most efforts to increase services by wild pollinators focus on management of natural habitats surrounding farms or non-crop habitats within farms. However, mass flowering crops create resource pulses that may be important determinants of pollinator dynamics. Mass bloom attracts pollinators and it is unclear how this affects the pollination and yields of other co-blooming crops. We investigated the effects of mass flowering apple on the pollinator community and yield of co-blooming strawberry on farms spanning a gradient in cover of apple orchards in the landscape. The effect of mass flowering apple on strawberry was dependent on the stage of apple bloom. During early and peak apple bloom, pollinator abundance and yield were reduced in landscapes with high cover of apple orchards. Following peak apple bloom, pollinator abundance was greater on farms with high apple cover and corresponded with increased yields on these farms. Spatial and temporal overlap between mass flowering and co-blooming crops alters the strength and direction of these dynamics and suggests that yields can be optimized by designing agricultural systems that avoid competition while maximizing facilitation. PMID:28345653

Biofertilizers: a potential approach for sustainable agriculture development.

PubMed

Mahanty, Trishna; Bhattacharjee, Surajit; Goswami, Madhurankhi; Bhattacharyya, Purnita; Das, Bannhi; Ghosh, Abhrajyoti; Tribedi, Prosun

2017-02-01

The worldwide increase in human population raises a big threat to the food security of each people as the land for agriculture is limited and even getting reduced with time. Therefore, it is essential that agricultural productivity should be enhanced significantly within the next few decades to meet the large demand of food by emerging population. Not to mention, too much dependence on chemical fertilizers for more crop productions inevitably damages both environmental ecology and human health with great severity. Exploitation of microbes as biofertilizers is considered to some extent an alternative to chemical fertilizers in agricultural sector due to their extensive potentiality in enhancing crop production and food safety. It has been observed that some microorganisms including plant growth promoting bacteria, fungi, Cyanobacteria, etc. have showed biofertilizer-like activities in the agricultural sector. Extensive works on biofertilizers have revealed their capability of providing required nutrients to the crop in sufficient amounts that resulted in the enhancement of crop yield. The present review elucidates various mechanisms that have been exerted by biofertilizers in order to promote plant growth and also provides protection against different plant pathogens. The aim of this review is to discuss the important roles and applications of biofertilizers in different sectors including agriculture, bioremediation, and ecology.

7 CFR 457.152 - Hybrid seed corn crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Hybrid seed corn crop insurance provisions. 457.152 Section 457.152 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.152 Hybrid seed...

7 CFR 457.148 - Fresh market pepper crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Fresh market pepper crop insurance provisions. 457.148 Section 457.148 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.148 Fresh market...

7 CFR 457.154 - Processing sweet corn crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Processing sweet corn crop insurance provisions. 457.154 Section 457.154 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.154 Processing...

Advances in the development of remote sensing technology for agricultural applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Powers, J. E.; Erb, R. B.; Hall, F. G.; Macdonald, R. B.

1979-01-01

The application of remote sensing technology to crop forecasting is discussed. The importance of crop forecasts to the world economy and agricultural management is explained, and the development of aerial and spaceborne remote sensing for global crop forecasting by the United States is outlined. The structure, goals and technical aspects of the Large Area Crop Inventory Experiment (LACIE) are presented, and main findings on the accuracy, efficiency, applicability and areas for further study of the LACIE procedure are reviewed. The current status of NASA crop forecasting activities in the United States and worldwide is discussed, and the objectives and organization of the newly created Agriculture and Resources Inventory Surveys through Aerospace Remote Sensing (AgRISTARS) program are presented.

The role of algae in agriculture: a mathematical study.

PubMed

Tiwari, P K; Misra, A K; Venturino, Ezio

2017-06-01

Synthetic fertilizers and livestock manure are nowadays widely used in agriculture to improve crop yield but nitrogen and phosphorous runoff resulting from their use compromises water quality and contributes to eutrophication phenomena in waterbeds within the countryside and ultimately in the ocean. Alternatively, algae could play an important role in agriculture where they can be used as biofertilizers and soil stabilizers. To examine the possible reuse of the detritus generated by dead algae as fertilizer for crops, we develop three mathematical models building upon each other. A system is proposed in which algae recover waste nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) for reuse in agricultural production. The results of our study show that in so doing, the crop yield may be increased and simultaneously the density of algae in the lake may be reduced. This could be a way to mitigate and possibly solve the environmental and economic issues nowadays facing agriculture.

Digital soil mapping as a basis for climatically oriented agriculture a thematic on the territory of the national crop testing fields of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sahabiev, I. A.; Giniyatullin, K. G.; Ryazanov, S. S.

2018-01-01

The concept of climate-optimized agriculture (COA) of the UN FAO implies the transformation of agriculture techniques in conditions of changing climate. It is important to implement a timely transition to the concept of COA and sustainable development of soil resources, accurate digital maps of spatial distribution of soils and soil properties are needed. Digital mapping of soil humus content was carried out on the territory of the national crop testing fields (NCTF) of the Republic of Tatarstan (Russian Federation) and the accuracy of the maps obtained was estimated.

Classification of crops across heterogeneous agricultural landscape in Kenya using AisaEAGLE imaging spectroscopy data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Piiroinen, Rami; Heiskanen, Janne; Mõttus, Matti; Pellikka, Petri

2015-07-01

Land use practices are changing at a fast pace in the tropics. In sub-Saharan Africa forests, woodlands and bushlands are being transformed for agricultural use to produce food for the rapidly growing population. The objective of this study was to assess the prospects of mapping the common agricultural crops in highly heterogeneous study area in south-eastern Kenya using high spatial and spectral resolution AisaEAGLE imaging spectroscopy data. Minimum noise fraction transformation was used to pack the coherent information in smaller set of bands and the data was classified with support vector machine (SVM) algorithm. A total of 35 plant species were mapped in the field and seven most dominant ones were used as classification targets. Five of the targets were agricultural crops. The overall accuracy (OA) for the classification was 90.8%. To assess the possibility of excluding the remaining 28 plant species from the classification results, 10 different probability thresholds (PT) were tried with SVM. The impact of PT was assessed with validation polygons of all 35 mapped plant species. The results showed that while PT was increased more pixels were excluded from non-target polygons than from the polygons of the seven classification targets. This increased the OA and reduced salt-and-pepper effects in the classification results. Very high spatial resolution imagery and pixel-based classification approach worked well with small targets such as maize while there was mixing of classes on the sides of the tree crowns.

7 CFR 457.131 - Macadamia nut crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Macadamia nut crop insurance provisions. 457.131... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.131 Macadamia nut crop insurance provisions. The macadamia nut crop insurance provisions for the 2012 and succeeding crop...

7 CFR 457.131 - Macadamia nut crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Macadamia nut crop insurance provisions. 457.131... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.131 Macadamia nut crop insurance provisions. The macadamia nut crop insurance provisions for the 2012 and succeeding crop...

7 CFR 457.131 - Macadamia nut crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Macadamia nut crop insurance provisions. 457.131... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.131 Macadamia nut crop insurance provisions. The macadamia nut crop insurance provisions for the 2012 and succeeding crop...

Exploring Agricultural Drainage's Influence on Wetland and ...

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Artificial agricultural drainage (i.e. surface ditches or subsurface tile) is an important agricultural management tool. Artificial drainage allows for timely fieldwork and adequate root aeration, resulting in greater crop yields for farmers. This practice is widespread throughout many regions of the United States and the network of artificial drainage is especially extensive in flat, poorly-drained regions like the glaciated Midwest. While beneficial for crop yields, agricultural drains often empty into streams within the natural drainage system. The increased network connectivity may lead to greater contributing area for watersheds, altered hydrology and increased conveyance of pollutants into natural water bodies. While studies and models at broader scales have implicated artificial drainage as an important driver of hydrological shifts and eutrophication, the actual spatial extent of artificial drainage is poorly known. Consequently, metrics of wetland and watershed connectivity within agricultural regions often fail to explicitly include artificial drainage. We use recent agricultural census data, soil drainage data, and land cover data to create estimates of potential agricultural drainage across the United States. We estimate that agricultural drainage in the US is greater than 31 million hectares and is concentrated in the upper Midwest Corn Belt, covering greater than 50% of available land for 114 counties. Estimated drainage values for numerous countie

New insights into phosphorus management in agriculture--A crop rotation approach.

PubMed

Łukowiak, Remigiusz; Grzebisz, Witold; Sassenrath, Gretchen F

2016-01-15

This manuscript presents research results examining phosphorus (P) management in a soil–plant system for three variables: i) internal resources of soil available phosphorus, ii) cropping sequence, and iii) external input of phosphorus (manure, fertilizers). The research was conducted in long-term cropping sequences with oilseed rape (10 rotations) and maize (six rotations) over three consecutive growing seasons (2004/2005, 2005/2006, and 2006/2007) in a production farm on soils originated from Albic Luvisols in Poland. The soil available phosphorus pool, measured as calcium chloride extractable P (CCE-P), constituted 28% to 67% of the total phosphorus input (PTI) to the soil–plant system in the spring. Oilseed rape and maize dominant cropping sequences showed a significant potential to utilize the CCE-P pool within the soil profile. Cropping sequences containing oilseed rape significantly affected the CCE-P pool, and in turn contributed to the P(TI). The P(TI) uptake use efficiency was 50% on average. Therefore, the CCE-P pool should be taken into account as an important component of a sound and reliable phosphorus balance. The instability of the yield prediction, based on the P(TI), was mainly due to an imbalanced management of both farmyard manure and phosphorus fertilizer. Oilseed rape plants provide a significant positive impact on the CCE-P pool after harvest, improving the productive stability of the entire cropping sequence. This phenomenon was documented by the P(TI) increase during wheat cultivation following oilseed rape. The Unit Phosphorus Uptake index also showed a higher stability in oilseed rape cropping systems compared to rotations based on maize. Cropping sequences are a primary factor impacting phosphorus management. Judicious implementation of crop rotations can improve soil P resources, efficiency of crop P use, and crop yield and yield stability. Use of cropping sequences can reduce the need for external P sources such as farmyard manure

Increased food production and reduced water use through optimized crop distribution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Davis, Kyle Frankel; Rulli, Maria Cristina; Seveso, Antonio; D'Odorico, Paolo

2017-12-01

Growing demand for agricultural commodities for food, fuel and other uses is expected to be met through an intensification of production on lands that are currently under cultivation. Intensification typically entails investments in modern technology — such as irrigation or fertilizers — and increases in cropping frequency in regions suitable for multiple growing seasons. Here we combine a process-based crop water model with maps of spatially interpolated yields for 14 major food crops to identify potential differences in food production and water use between current and optimized crop distributions. We find that the current distribution of crops around the world neither attains maximum production nor minimum water use. We identify possible alternative configurations of the agricultural landscape that, by reshaping the global distribution of crops within current rainfed and irrigated croplands based on total water consumption, would feed an additional 825 million people while reducing the consumptive use of rainwater and irrigation water by 14% and 12%, respectively. Such an optimization process does not entail a loss of crop diversity, cropland expansion or impacts on nutrient and feed availability. It also does not necessarily invoke massive investments in modern technology that in many regions would require a switch from smallholder farming to large-scale commercial agriculture with important impacts on rural livelihoods.

Agricultural Productivity Forecasts for Improved Drought Monitoring

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Limaye, Ashutosh; McNider, Richard; Moss, Donald; Alhamdan, Mohammad

2010-01-01

Water stresses on agricultural crops during critical phases of crop phenology (such as grain filling) has higher impact on the eventual yield than at other times of crop growth. Therefore farmers are more concerned about water stresses in the context of crop phenology than the meteorological droughts. However the drought estimates currently produced do not account for the crop phenology. US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have developed a drought monitoring decision support tool: The U.S. Drought Monitor, which currently uses meteorological droughts to delineate and categorize drought severity. Output from the Drought Monitor is used by the States to make disaster declarations. More importantly, USDA uses the Drought Monitor to make estimates of crop yield to help the commodities market. Accurate estimation of corn yield is especially critical given the recent trend towards diversion of corn to produce ethanol. Ethanol is fast becoming a standard 10% ethanol additive to petroleum products, the largest traded commodity. Thus the impact of large-scale drought will have dramatic impact on the petroleum prices as well as on food prices. USDA's World Agricultural Outlook Board (WAOB) serves as a focal point for economic intelligence and the commodity outlook for U.S. WAOB depends on Drought Monitor and has emphatically stated that accurate and timely data are needed in operational agrometeorological services to generate reliable projections for agricultural decision makers. Thus, improvements in the prediction of drought will reflect in early and accurate assessment of crop yields, which in turn will improve commodity projections. We have developed a drought assessment tool, which accounts for the water stress in the context of crop phenology. The crop modeling component is done using various crop modules within Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT). DSSAT is an agricultural crop

Investigating the Sustainability of Perennial Agriculture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sutherlin, C. E.; Brunsell, N. A.; De Oliveira, G.; Crews, T.; Vico, G.

2017-12-01

The changing climate leads to uncertainties concerning the sustainability of certain agricultural resources, and with the additional stresses of an increasing global population, uncertainty in food security will greatly increase. To adhere to future food demands in the face of this changing climate, perennial agriculture has been a proposed solution. However, it is equally important to assure that perennial agriculture is not negatively affecting the climate in exchange for this proposed more robust food source. We chose to examine the interactions between perennial and annual agricultural crops by focusing on the efficiency of exchanges with the atmosphere. This is done using the omega decoupling factor for 4 different sites as a way of quantifying the contributions of radiation and stomatal conductance over the resulting water and carbon cycles. This gives us an indication of how the plant canopy is interacting with, and influencing the local microclimate. Ultimately, this should give us an indication of the ability of perennial crops to aid in the climate mitigation process. We hypothesized that the perennial site chosen would have omega values more similar to the omega values of a natural grassland rather than an annual crop site. Using AmeriFlux towers to determine the canopy values needed to calculate the omega decoupling factor, we focused on the Kernza perennial crops being grown at the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas (KLS), in comparison to a natural grassland in Manhattan, Kansas (KON), a typical land cover model in Lawrence, Kansas (KFS), and an annual crop site in Lamont, Oklahoma (ARM). These results will allow us to move forward in the investigation of perennial crops as a sustainable food source.

Nitrous oxide emissions from intensive agricultural systems: Variations between crops and seasons, key driving variables, and mean emission factors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dobbie, K. E.; McTaggart, I. P.; Smith, K. A.

1999-11-01

Emissions of nitrous oxide from intensively managed agricultural fields were measured over 3 years. Exponential increases in flux occurred with increasing soil water- filled pore space (WFPS) and temperature; increases in soil mineral N content due to fertilizer application also stimulated emissions. Fluxes were low when any of these variables was below a critical value. The largest fluxes occurred when WFPS values were very high (70-90%), indicating that denitrification was the major process responsible. The relationships with the driving variables showed strong similarities to those reported for very different environments: irrigated sugar cane crops, pastures, and forest in the tropics. Annual emissions varied widely (0.3-18.4 kg N2O-N ha-1). These variations were principally due to the degree of coincidence of fertilizer application and major rainfall events. It is concluded therefore that several years' data are required from any agricultural ecosystem in a variable climate to obtain a robust estimate of mean N2O fluxes. The emissions from small-grain cereals (winter wheat and spring barley) were consistently lower (0.2-0.7 kg N2O-N per 100 kg N applied) than from cut grassland (0.3-5.8 kg N2O- N per 100 kg N). Crops such as broccoli and potatoes gave emissions of the same order as those from the grassland. Although these differences between crop types are not apparent in general data comparisons, there may well be distinct regional differences in the relative and absolute emissions from different crops, due to local factors relating to soil type, weather patterns, and agricultural management practices. This will only be determined by more detailed comparative studies.

Sugarcane and other crops as fuel feedstocks

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Irvine, J.E.

1980-07-01

The use of sugarcane as a feedstock for fuel alcohol production in Brazil, and in Zimbabwe Rhodesia and Panama stimulated tremendous interest in the potential of agricultural crops for renewable energy sources. The cost of the feedstock is important. Corn, the current major agricultural feedstock in US fuel alcohol production, costs 60 to 80% of the selling price of the alcohol produced from it. Production costs for sugarcane and sugarbeets are higher than for corn. Sugarcane and sugarbeets, yield more fermentable carbohydrates per acre than any other crop. Sugarcane has the distinct advantage of containing a large amount of fibermore » in the harvested portion. The feedstock cost of sugarcane can be reduced by producing more cane per acre. Sweet sorghum has been discussed as a fuel crop. Cassana, the tapioca source, is thought to be a fuel crop of major potential. Feedstock cost can also be reduced through management decisions that reduce costly practices. Cultivation and fertilizer costs can be reduced. The operating cost of the processing plant is affected by the choice of crops grown for feedstock, both by their cost and by availability. (DP)« less

Connecting Groundwater, Crop Price, and Crop Production Variability in India

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pollack, A.; Lobell, D. B.; Jain, M.

2015-12-01

Farmers in India rely on groundwater resources for irrigation and production of staple crops that provide over half of the calories consumed domestically each year. While this has been a productive strategy in increasing agricultural production and maintaining high yields, groundwater resources are depleting at a quicker rate than natural resources can replace. This issue gains relevance as climate variability concurrently adds to yearly fluctuations in farmer demand for irrigation each year, which can create high risk for farmers that depend on consistent yields, but do not have access to dwindling water resources. This study investigates variability in groundwater levels from 2005 to 2013 in relation to crop prices and production by analyzing district-level datasets made available through India's government. Through this analysis, we show the impact of groundwater variability on price variability, crop yield, and production during these years. By examining this nine-year timescale, we extend our analysis to forthcoming years to demonstrate the increasing importance of groundwater resources in irrigation, and suggest strategies to reduce the impact of groundwater shortages on crop production and prices.

7 CFR 930.4 - Crop year.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... Definitions § 930.4 Crop year. Crop year means the 12-month period beginning on July 1 of any year and ending on June 30 of the following year, or such other period as the Board, with the approval of the... 7 Agriculture 8 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Crop year. 930.4 Section 930.4 Agriculture Regulations...

7 CFR 457.150 - Dry bean crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Dry bean crop insurance provisions. 457.150 Section... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.150 Dry bean crop insurance provisions. The dry bean crop insurance provisions for the 2003 and succeeding crop years are as follows...

7 CFR 457.150 - Dry bean crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Dry bean crop insurance provisions. 457.150 Section... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.150 Dry bean crop insurance provisions. The dry bean crop insurance provisions for the 2003 and succeeding crop years are as follows...

7 CFR 457.150 - Dry bean crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Dry bean crop insurance provisions. 457.150 Section... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.150 Dry bean crop insurance provisions. The dry bean crop insurance provisions for the 2003 and succeeding crop years are as follows...

7 CFR 457.149 - Table grape crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Table grape crop insurance provisions. 457.149 Section... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.149 Table grape crop insurance provisions. The Table Grape Crop Insurance Provisions for the 2010 and succeeding crop years are as follows...

7 CFR 457.149 - Table grape crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Table grape crop insurance provisions. 457.149 Section... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.149 Table grape crop insurance provisions. The Table Grape Crop Insurance Provisions for the 2010 and succeeding crop years are as follows...

7 CFR 457.149 - Table grape crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Table grape crop insurance provisions. 457.149 Section... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.149 Table grape crop insurance provisions. The Table Grape Crop Insurance Provisions for the 2010 and succeeding crop years are as follows...

7 CFR 457.149 - Table grape crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Table grape crop insurance provisions. 457.149 Section... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.149 Table grape crop insurance provisions. The Table Grape Crop Insurance Provisions for the 2010 and succeeding crop years are as follows...

7 CFR 457.109 - Sugar Beet Crop Insurance Provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Sugar Beet Crop Insurance Provisions. 457.109 Section... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.109 Sugar Beet Crop Insurance Provisions. The Sugar Beet Crop Insurance Provisions for the 1998 and succeeding crop years in countries with...

7 CFR 457.109 - Sugar Beet Crop Insurance Provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Sugar Beet Crop Insurance Provisions. 457.109 Section... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.109 Sugar Beet Crop Insurance Provisions. The Sugar Beet Crop Insurance Provisions for the 1998 and succeeding crop years in countries with...

7 CFR 457.109 - Sugar Beet Crop Insurance Provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Sugar Beet Crop Insurance Provisions. 457.109 Section... CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.109 Sugar Beet Crop Insurance Provisions. The Sugar Beet Crop Insurance Provisions for the 1998 and succeeding crop years in countries with...

Transgenic Crops in Argentina: The Ecological and Social Debt

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pengue, Walter A.

2005-01-01

There is no doubt that soybean is the most important crop for Argentina, with a planted surface that rose 11,000,000 hectares and a production of around 35,000,000 metric tons. During the 1990s, there was a significant agriculture transformation in the country, motorize by the adoption of transgenic crops (soy-bean, maize, and cotton) under the…

Agricultural residues and energy crops as potentially economical and novel substrates for microbial production of butanol (a biofuel)

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

This review describes production of acetone butanol ethanol (ABE) from a variety of agricultural residues and energy crops employing biochemical or fermentation processes. A number of organisms are available for this bioconversion including Clostridium beijerinckii P260, C. beijerinckii BA101, C. a...

Effects of cover crop termination and cotton planting methods on cotton production in conservation systems

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

In conservation agriculture, cover crops are utilized to improve soil properties and to enhance cash crop growth. One important part of cover crop management is termination. With smaller profit margins and constraints on time and labor, producers are looking for ways to reduce time and labor require...

Agriculture and Bioactives: Achieving Both Crop Yield and Phytochemicals

PubMed Central

García-Mier, Lina; Guevara-González, Ramón G.; Mondragón-Olguín, Víctor M.; Verduzco-Cuellar, Beatriz del Rocío; Torres-Pacheco, Irineo

2013-01-01

Plants are fundamental elements of the human diet, either as direct sources of nutrients or indirectly as feed for animals. During the past few years, the main goal of agriculture has been to increase yield in order to provide the food that is needed by a growing world population. As important as yield, but commonly forgotten in conventional agriculture, is to keep and, if it is possible, to increase the phytochemical content due to their health implications. Nowadays, it is necessary to go beyond this, reconciling yield and phytochemicals that, at first glance, might seem in conflict. This can be accomplished through reviewing food requirements, plant consumption with health implications, and farming methods. The aim of this work is to show how both yield and phytochemicals converge into a new vision of agricultural management in a framework of integrated agricultural practices. PMID:23429238

Impact of vegetable crop agriculture on anopheline agressivity and malaria transmission in urban and less urbanized settings of the South region of Cameroon.

PubMed

Akono, Patrick Ntonga; Mbida, Jean Arthur Mbida; Tonga, Calvin; Belong, Philippe; Ngo Hondt, Odette Etoile; Magne, Gaëlle Tamdem; Peka, Marie Florence; Lehman, Leopold Gustave

2015-05-28

The use of inland valley swamps for vegetable crop agriculture contributes to food security in urban and less urbanized settings in Africa. The impact of this agriculture on aggressive mosquitoes' diversity and malaria transmission in central Africa is poorly documented. This study is aimed at assessing the impact of vegetable crop agriculture on these entomological parameters in urban and less urbanized settings of the forest area, south of Cameroon. The human bait technique was used for the capture of aggressive mosquitoes from January to December 2012. For three consecutive days each month, captures were performed on volunteers in hydro-agricultural and river bank sites of Akonolinga and Yaoundé. Physico-chemical characteristics of mosquito breeding sites were recorded. Molecular alongside morpho-taxonomic techniques were used for the identification of mosquito species; ELISA test was used to reveal Plasmodium falciparum infected mosquitoes through the detection of CSP. Mosquito diversity, aggressivity and malaria transmission in sites and settings were determined and compared. Biting rates were higher in hydro-agricultural sites of less urbanized and urban settings (31.8 b/p/n and 28.6 b/p/n respectively) than in river banks sites (6.83 b/p/n and 3.64 b/p/n respectively; p < 0.0001). Physico-chemical parameters of breeding sites were not fundamentally different. Five anopheline species were identified; An. gambiae, An. funestus s.s., An. moucheti s.s., An. hancocki and An. nili s.s. In hydro-agricultural sites 2 species were captured in the urban setting versus 4 in the less urbanized setting, meanwhile in river bank sites, 3 species were captured in the urban setting versus 4 species in the less urbanized setting. An. nili s.s. was found in river banks only. An. hancocki was not found to insure Plasmodium falciparum Welch transmission. EIR in hydro-agricultural sites varied from 1.86 ib/p/n (urban area) to 2.13 ib/p/n (less urbanized area) with higher

Regional hybrid broccoli trials provide a means to further breeding efforts of this increasingly important vegetable crop

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

A Coordinated Agricultural Project (CAP) entitled “Establishing an Eastern Broccoli Industry” is funded under the Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI), and a primary component of the project is a system of regional hybrid broccoli trials conducted along the eastern seaboard. Hybrids currently ...

Between China and South Asia: A Middle Asian corridor of crop dispersal and agricultural innovation in the Bronze Age.

PubMed

Stevens, Chris J; Murphy, Charlene; Roberts, Rebecca; Lucas, Leilani; Silva, Fabio; Fuller, Dorian Q

2016-10-01

The period from the late third millennium BC to the start of the first millennium AD witnesses the first steps towards food globalization in which a significant number of important crops and animals, independently domesticated within China, India, Africa and West Asia, traversed Central Asia greatly increasing Eurasian agricultural diversity. This paper utilizes an archaeobotanical database (AsCAD), to explore evidence for these crop translocations along southern and northern routes of interaction between east and west. To begin, crop translocations from the Near East across India and Central Asia are examined for wheat ( Triticum aestivum ) and barley ( Hordeum vulgare ) from the eighth to the second millennia BC when they reach China. The case of pulses and flax ( Linum usitatissimum ) that only complete this journey in Han times (206 BC-AD 220), often never fully adopted, is also addressed. The discussion then turns to the Chinese millets, Panicum miliaceum and Setaria italica , peaches ( Amygdalus persica ) and apricots ( Armeniaca vulgaris ), tracing their movement from the fifth millennium to the second millennium BC when the Panicum miliaceum reaches Europe and Setaria italica Northern India, with peaches and apricots present in Kashmir and Swat. Finally, the translocation of japonica rice from China to India that gave rise to indica rice is considered, possibly dating to the second millennium BC. The routes these crops travelled include those to the north via the Inner Asia Mountain Corridor, across Middle Asia, where there is good evidence for wheat, barley and the Chinese millets. The case for japonica rice, apricots and peaches is less clear, and the northern route is contrasted with that through northeast India, Tibet and west China. Not all these journeys were synchronous, and this paper highlights the selective long-distance transport of crops as an alternative to demic-diffusion of farmers with a defined crop package.

Between China and South Asia: A Middle Asian corridor of crop dispersal and agricultural innovation in the Bronze Age

PubMed Central

Stevens, Chris J; Murphy, Charlene; Roberts, Rebecca; Lucas, Leilani; Silva, Fabio; Fuller, Dorian Q

2016-01-01

The period from the late third millennium BC to the start of the first millennium AD witnesses the first steps towards food globalization in which a significant number of important crops and animals, independently domesticated within China, India, Africa and West Asia, traversed Central Asia greatly increasing Eurasian agricultural diversity. This paper utilizes an archaeobotanical database (AsCAD), to explore evidence for these crop translocations along southern and northern routes of interaction between east and west. To begin, crop translocations from the Near East across India and Central Asia are examined for wheat (Triticum aestivum) and barley (Hordeum vulgare) from the eighth to the second millennia BC when they reach China. The case of pulses and flax (Linum usitatissimum) that only complete this journey in Han times (206 BC–AD 220), often never fully adopted, is also addressed. The discussion then turns to the Chinese millets, Panicum miliaceum and Setaria italica, peaches (Amygdalus persica) and apricots (Armeniaca vulgaris), tracing their movement from the fifth millennium to the second millennium BC when the Panicum miliaceum reaches Europe and Setaria italica Northern India, with peaches and apricots present in Kashmir and Swat. Finally, the translocation of japonica rice from China to India that gave rise to indica rice is considered, possibly dating to the second millennium BC. The routes these crops travelled include those to the north via the Inner Asia Mountain Corridor, across Middle Asia, where there is good evidence for wheat, barley and the Chinese millets. The case for japonica rice, apricots and peaches is less clear, and the northern route is contrasted with that through northeast India, Tibet and west China. Not all these journeys were synchronous, and this paper highlights the selective long-distance transport of crops as an alternative to demic-diffusion of farmers with a defined crop package. PMID:27942165

7 CFR 457.146 - Northern potato crop insurance-storage coverage endorsement.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Northern potato crop insurance-storage coverage endorsement. 457.146 Section 457.146 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.146...

7 CFR 457.147 - Central and Southern potato crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Central and Southern potato crop insurance provisions. 457.147 Section 457.147 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.147...

7 CFR 457.144 - Northern potato crop insurance-processing quality endorsement.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Northern potato crop insurance-processing quality endorsement. 457.144 Section 457.144 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.144...

7 CFR 457.155 - Processing bean crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Processing bean crop insurance provisions. 457.155... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.155 Processing bean crop insurance provisions. The Processing Bean Crop Insurance Provisions for the 1998 and succeeding...

7 CFR 457.155 - Processing bean crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Processing bean crop insurance provisions. 457.155... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.155 Processing bean crop insurance provisions. The Processing Bean Crop Insurance Provisions for the 1998 and succeeding...

7 CFR 457.155 - Processing bean crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Processing bean crop insurance provisions. 457.155... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.155 Processing bean crop insurance provisions. The Processing Bean Crop Insurance Provisions for the 1998 and succeeding...

7 CFR 457.155 - Processing bean crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Processing bean crop insurance provisions. 457.155... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.155 Processing bean crop insurance provisions. The Processing Bean Crop Insurance Provisions for the 1998 and succeeding...

7 CFR 457.173 - Florida Avocado crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Florida Avocado crop insurance provisions. 457.173... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.173 Florida Avocado crop insurance provisions. The Florida Avocado Crop Insurance Provisions for the 2011 and succeeding...

7 CFR 457.173 - Florida Avocado crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Florida Avocado crop insurance provisions. 457.173... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.173 Florida Avocado crop insurance provisions. The Florida Avocado Crop Insurance Provisions for the 2011 and succeeding...

7 CFR 457.108 - Sunflower seed crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Sunflower seed crop insurance provisions. 457.108... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.108 Sunflower seed crop insurance provisions. The sunflower seed crop insurance provisions for the 2011 and succeeding...

7 CFR 457.108 - Sunflower seed crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Sunflower seed crop insurance provisions. 457.108... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.108 Sunflower seed crop insurance provisions. The sunflower seed crop insurance provisions for the 2011 and succeeding...

7 CFR 457.108 - Sunflower seed crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Sunflower seed crop insurance provisions. 457.108... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.108 Sunflower seed crop insurance provisions. The sunflower seed crop insurance provisions for the 2011 and succeeding...

Applications of DNA Technologies in Agriculture.

PubMed

Fang, Jinggui; Zhu, Xudong; Wang, Chen; Shangguan, Lingfei

2016-08-01

With the development of molecular biology, some DNA-based technologies have showed great potentiality in promoting the efficiency of crop breeding program, protecting germplasm resources, improving the quality and outputs of agricultural products, and protecting the eco-environment etc., making their roles in modern agriculture more and more important. To better understand the application of DNA technologies in agriculture, and achieve the goals to promote their utilities in modern agriculture, this paper describes, in some different way, the applications of molecular markers, transgenic engineering and gene's information in agriculture. Some corresponding anticipations for their development prospects are also made.

Soil- and crop-dependent variation in correlation lag between precipitation and agricultural drought indices as predicted by the SWAP model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wright, Azin; Cloke, Hannah; Verhoef, Anne

2017-04-01

Droughts have a devastating impact on agriculture and economy. The risk of more frequent and more severe droughts is increasing due to global warming and certain anthropogenic activities. At the same time, the global population continues to rise and the need for sustainable food production is becoming more and more pressing. In light of this, drought prediction can be of great value; in the context of early warning, preparedness and mitigation of drought impacts. Prediction of meteorological drought is associated with uncertainties around precipitation variability. As meteorological drought propagates, it can transform into agricultural drought. Determination of the maximum correlation lag between precipitation and agricultural drought indices can be useful for prediction of agricultural drought. However, the influence of soil and crop type on the lag needs to be considered, which we explored using a 1-D Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere-Transfer model (SWAP (http://www.swap.alterra.nl/), with the following configurations, all forced with ERA-Interim weather data (1979 to 2014): i) different crop types in the UK; ii) three generic soil types (clay, loam and sand) were considered. A Sobol sensitivity analysis was carried out (perturbing the SWAP model van Genuchten soil hydraulic parameters) to study the effect of soil type uncertainty on the water balance variables. Based on the sensitivity analysis results, a few variations of each soil type were selected. Agricultural drought indices including Soil Moisture Deficit Index (SMDI) and Evapotranspiration Deficit Index (ETDI) were calculated. The maximum correlation lag between precipitation and these drought indices was calculated, and analysed in the context of crop and soil model parameters. The findings of this research can be useful to UK farming, by guiding government bodies such as the Environment Agency when issuing drought warnings and implementing drought measures.

Integrated crop-livestock systems and cover crop grazing in the Northern Great Plains

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Integrating crops and livestock has been identified as an approach to sustainably intensify agricultural systems, increasing production while reducing the need for external inputs, building soil health, and increasing economic returns. Cover crops and grazing these cover crops are a natural fit with...

Migrant Workers in Agriculture: A View from Thailand.

PubMed

Thetkathuek, Anamai; Daniell, William

2016-01-01

There has been a dramatic increase in the global movement of workers during the last few decades. As Thailand has developed rapidly over the past 20 years, it has attracted laborers (both authorized and unauthorized) from the neighboring countries of Myanmar, People's Democratic Republic of Lao (Lao PDR), and Cambodia. Given that agriculture has been Thailand's most important industry, its continued growth has been dependent on migrant workers. Both crop agriculture and animal-production agriculture have employed migrant labor. Migrants have been hired to plant, weed, fertilize, spray pesticides, and harvest crops such as rice, corn, sugar cane, and cassava. They have worked at rubber and coffee plantations, as well as in the production of ornamental crops. Also, migrants have labored on pig, beef, and duck farms. There have been numerous documented health problems among migrant workers, including acute diarrhea, malaria, and fever of unknown causes. Occupational illness and injury have been a significant concern, and there has been limited health and safety training. This article reviewed the demographic changes in Thailand, studied the agricultural crops and animal production that are dependent on migrant labor, discussed the health status and safety challenges pertaining to migrant workers in agriculture, and described several recommendations. Among the recommendations, the conclusions of this study have suggested that addressing the cost for health care and solutions to health care access for migrant labor are needed.

Vegetation index-based crop coefficients to estimate evapotranspiration by remote sensing in agricultural and natural ecosystems

USGS Publications Warehouse

Glenn, E.P.; Neale, C. M. U.; Hunsaker, D.J.; Nagler, P.L.

2011-01-01

Crop coefficients were developed to determine crop water needs based on the evapotranspiration (ET) of a reference crop under a given set of meteorological conditions. Starting in the 1980s, crop coefficients developed through lysimeter studies or set by expert opinion began to be supplemented by remotely sensed vegetation indices (VI) that measured the actual status of the crop on a field-by-field basis. VIs measure the density of green foliage based on the reflectance of visible and near infrared (NIR) light from the canopy, and are highly correlated with plant physiological processes that depend on light absorption by a canopy such as ET and photosynthesis. Reflectance-based crop coefficients have now been developed for numerous individual crops, including corn, wheat, alfalfa, cotton, potato, sugar beet, vegetables, grapes and orchard crops. Other research has shown that VIs can be used to predict ET over fields of mixed crops, allowing them to be used to monitor ET over entire irrigation districts. VI-based crop coefficients can help reduce agricultural water use by matching irrigation rates to the actual water needs of a crop as it grows instead of to a modeled crop growing under optimal conditions. Recently, the concept has been applied to natural ecosystems at the local, regional and continental scales of measurement, using time-series satellite data from the MODIS sensors on the Terra satellite. VIs or other visible-NIR band algorithms are combined with meteorological data to predict ET in numerous biome types, from deserts, to arctic tundra, to tropical rainforests. These methods often closely match ET measured on the ground at the global FluxNet array of eddy covariance moisture and carbon flux towers. The primary advantage of VI methods for estimating ET is that transpiration is closely related to radiation absorbed by the plant canopy, which is closely related to VIs. The primary disadvantage is that they cannot capture stress effects or soil

7 CFR 457.129 - Fresh market sweet corn crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Fresh market sweet corn crop insurance provisions. 457.129 Section 457.129 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.129 Fresh market...

Agricultural interventions for water saving and crop yield improvement, in a Mediterranean area - an experimental design

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Morianou, Giasemi; Kourgialas, Nektarios; Psarras, George; Koubouris, George; Arampatzis, George; Karatzas, George; Pavlidou, Elisavet

2017-04-01

This work is a part of LIFE+ AGROCLIMAWATER project and the aim is to improve the water efficiency, increase the adaptive capacity of tree corps and save water, in a Mediterranean area, under different climatic conditions and agricultural practices. The experimental design as well as preliminary results at farm and river basin scales are presented in this work. Specifically, ten (10) pilot farms, both organic and conventional ones have been selected in the sub-basin of Platanias in western Crete - Greece. These ten pilot farms were selected representing the most typical crops in Platanias area (olive trees and citrus trees), as well as the typical soil, landscape and agricultural practices differentiation for each crop (field slope, water availability, soil type, management regime). From the ten pilot farms, eight were olive farms and the rest two citrus. This proportion correspond adequacy to the presentence of olive and citrus crops in the extended area of Platanias prefecture. Each of the ten pilot farm has been divided in two parts, the first one will be used as a control part, while the other one as the demonstration part where the interventions will be applied. The action plans for each selected farm are based on the following groups of possible interventions: a) reduction of water evaporation losses from soil surface, b) reduction of transpiration water losses through winter pruning and summer pruning, c) reduction of deep percolation water and nutrient losses, d) reduction of surface runoff, e) measures in order to maximize the efficiency of irrigation and f) rationalization of fertilizers and agrochemicals utilized. Preliminary results indicate that water saving and crop yield can be significantly improved based on the above innervations both at farm and river basin scale.

7 CFR 1405.6 - Crop insurance requirement.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... contributed in the previous year, or is expected to contribute in the current crop year, 10 percent or more of... 7 Agriculture 10 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Crop insurance requirement. 1405.6 Section 1405.6 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) COMMODITY CREDIT CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT...

7 CFR 201.49 - Other crop seed.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 3 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Other crop seed. 201.49 Section 201.49 Agriculture..., Inspections, Marketing Practices), DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE (CONTINUED) FEDERAL SEED ACT FEDERAL SEED ACT REGULATIONS Purity Analysis in the Administration of the Act § 201.49 Other crop seed. (a) Seeds of plants...

7 CFR 201.49 - Other crop seed.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 3 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Other crop seed. 201.49 Section 201.49 Agriculture..., Inspections, Marketing Practices), DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE (CONTINUED) FEDERAL SEED ACT FEDERAL SEED ACT REGULATIONS Purity Analysis in the Administration of the Act § 201.49 Other crop seed. (a) Seeds of plants...

Impacts of domestication on the arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis of 27 crop species.

PubMed

Martín-Robles, Nieves; Lehmann, Anika; Seco, Erica; Aroca, Ricardo; Rillig, Matthias C; Milla, Rubén

2018-04-01

The arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbiosis is key to plant nutrition, and hence is potentially key in sustainable agriculture. Fertilization and other agricultural practices reduce soil AM fungi and root colonization. Such conditions might promote the evolution of low mycorrhizal responsive crops. Therefore, we ask if and how evolution under domestication has altered AM symbioses of crops. We measured the effect of domestication on mycorrhizal responsiveness across 27 crop species and their wild progenitors. Additionally, in a subset of 14 crops, we tested if domestication effects differed under contrasting phosphorus (P) availabilities. The response of AM symbiosis to domestication varied with P availability. On average, wild progenitors benefited from the AM symbiosis irrespective of P availability, while domesticated crops only profited under P-limited conditions. Magnitudes and directions of response were diverse among the 27 crops, and were unrelated to phylogenetic affinities or to the coordinated evolution with fine root traits. Our results indicate disruptions in the efficiency of the AM symbiosis linked to domestication. Under high fertilization, domestication could have altered the regulation of resource trafficking between AM fungi and associated plant hosts. Provided that crops are commonly raised under high fertilization, this result has important implications for sustainable agriculture. © 2017 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2017 New Phytologist Trust.

Tracing organic and inorganic pollution sources of agricultural crops and water resources in Güzelhisar Basin of the Aegean Region - Turkey

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Czarnecki, Sezin; Colak Esetlili, Bihter; Esetlili, Tolga; Tepecik, Mahmut; Anac, Dilek; Düring, Rolf-Alexander

2014-05-01

The study area Güzelhisar Basin is 6 km far from the city Aliaga, Aegean Region in Turkey which represents a rather industrialized area having five large iron and steel factories, but also areas of agriculture. Steel industry in Aliaga is causing metal pollution. Around Güzelhisar Basin and nearby, the dominant crop fields are cotton, maize, vegetables, olive trees and vineyards. Güzelhisar stream and dam water is used for irrigation of the agricultural land. Due to contamination from metal industry in Aliaga, organic farming is not allowed in this region. Industrial activities in the region present a threat on sustainable agriculture. The region is a multi-impacted area in terms of several pollutant sources affecting soil and water quality. The overall objective of the project is to trace back plant nutrients (N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Na, Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, and B), hazardous substances (i. e. persistent organic pollutants), radionuclides (40K, 232Th, 226Ra/238U), and metal contents (As, Cd, Cr, Co, Cu, Hg, Mn, Ni, Pb, and Zn) by examining the soils, agricultural crops and natural plants from Güzelhisar Basin and water and sediments from Güzelhisar stream and dam. Spatial distribution of pollution will be evaluated by regionalization methods. For this, an advanced analytical methodology will be applied which provides an understanding of sources and occurrence of the respective substances of concern. An innovative multi-tracer approach comprising organic and inorganic marker substances, will identify and quantitatively assess sources and their impact on water pollution and the pollutant pathways in this agricultural crop production system.

Operational seasonal forecasting of crop performance.

PubMed

Stone, Roger C; Meinke, Holger

2005-11-29

Integrated, interdisciplinary crop performance forecasting systems, linked with appropriate decision and discussion support tools, could substantially improve operational decision making in agricultural management. Recent developments in connecting numerical weather prediction models and general circulation models with quantitative crop growth models offer the potential for development of integrated systems that incorporate components of long-term climate change. However, operational seasonal forecasting systems have little or no value unless they are able to change key management decisions. Changed decision making through incorporation of seasonal forecasting ultimately has to demonstrate improved long-term performance of the cropping enterprise. Simulation analyses conducted on specific production scenarios are especially useful in improving decisions, particularly if this is done in conjunction with development of decision-support systems and associated facilitated discussion groups. Improved management of the overall crop production system requires an interdisciplinary approach, where climate scientists, agricultural scientists and extension specialists are intimately linked with crop production managers in the development of targeted seasonal forecast systems. The same principle applies in developing improved operational management systems for commodity trading organizations, milling companies and agricultural marketing organizations. Application of seasonal forecast systems across the whole value chain in agricultural production offers considerable benefits in improving overall operational management of agricultural production.

Operational seasonal forecasting of crop performance

PubMed Central

Stone, Roger C; Meinke, Holger

2005-01-01

Integrated, interdisciplinary crop performance forecasting systems, linked with appropriate decision and discussion support tools, could substantially improve operational decision making in agricultural management. Recent developments in connecting numerical weather prediction models and general circulation models with quantitative crop growth models offer the potential for development of integrated systems that incorporate components of long-term climate change. However, operational seasonal forecasting systems have little or no value unless they are able to change key management decisions. Changed decision making through incorporation of seasonal forecasting ultimately has to demonstrate improved long-term performance of the cropping enterprise. Simulation analyses conducted on specific production scenarios are especially useful in improving decisions, particularly if this is done in conjunction with development of decision-support systems and associated facilitated discussion groups. Improved management of the overall crop production system requires an interdisciplinary approach, where climate scientists, agricultural scientists and extension specialists are intimately linked with crop production managers in the development of targeted seasonal forecast systems. The same principle applies in developing improved operational management systems for commodity trading organizations, milling companies and agricultural marketing organizations. Application of seasonal forecast systems across the whole value chain in agricultural production offers considerable benefits in improving overall operational management of agricultural production. PMID:16433097

Lignin: Characterization of a Multifaceted Crop Component

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Lignin is a plant component with important implications for various agricultural disciplines. It confers rigidity to cell walls, and is therefore associated with tolerance to abiotic and biotic stresses and the mechanical stability of plants. In animal nutrition, lignin is considered an antinutritive component of forages as it cannot be readily fermented by rumen microbes. In terms of energy yield from biomass, the role of lignin depends on the conversion process. It contains more gross energy than other cell wall components and therefore confers enhanced heat value in thermochemical processes such as direct combustion. Conversely, it negatively affects biological energy conversion processes such as bioethanol or biogas production, as it inhibits microbial fermentation of the cell wall. Lignin from crop residues plays an important role in the soil organic carbon cycling, as it constitutes a recalcitrant carbon pool affecting nutrient mineralization and carbon sequestration. Due to the significance of lignin in several agricultural disciplines, the modification of lignin content and composition by breeding is becoming increasingly important. Both mapping of quantitative trait loci and transgenic approaches have been adopted to modify lignin in crops. However, breeding goals must be defined considering the conflicting role of lignin in different agricultural disciplines. PMID:24348159

Effects of meteorological droughts on agricultural water resources in southern China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lu, Houquan; Wu, Yihua; Li, Yijun; Liu, Yongqiang

2017-05-01

With the global warming, frequencies of drought are rising in the humid area of southern China. In this study, the effects of meteorological drought on the agricultural water resource based on the agricultural water resource carrying capacity (AWRCC) in southern China were investigated. The entire study area was divided into three regions based on the distributions of climate and agriculture. The concept of the maximum available water resources for crops was used to calculate AWRCC. Meanwhile, an agricultural drought intensity index (ADI), which was suitable for rice planting areas, was proposed based on the difference between crop water requirements and precipitation. The actual drought area and crop yield in drought years from 1961 to 2010 were analyzed. The results showed that ADI and AWRCC were significantly correlated with the actual drought occurrence area and food yield in the study area, which indicated ADI and AWRCC could be used in drought-related studies. The effects of seasonal droughts on AWRCC strongly depended on both the crop growth season and planting structure. The influence of meteorological drought on agricultural water resources was pronounced in regions with abundant water resources, especially in Southwest China, which was the most vulnerable to droughts. In Southwest China, which has dry and wet seasons, reducing the planting area of dry season crops and rice could improve AWRCC during drought years. Likewise, reducing the planting area of double-season rice could improve AWRCC during drought years in regions with a double-season rice cropping system. Our findings highlight the importance of adjusting the proportions of crop planting to improve the utilization efficiency of agricultural water resources and alleviate drought hazards in some humid areas.

The Urban Food-Water Nexus: Modeling Water Footprints of Urban Agriculture using CityCrop

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tooke, T. R.; Lathuilliere, M. J.; Coops, N. C.; Johnson, M. S.

2014-12-01

Urban agriculture provides a potential contribution towards more sustainable food production and mitigating some of the human impacts that accompany volatility in regional and global food supply. When considering the capacity of urban landscapes to produce food products, the impact of urban water demand required for food production in cities is often neglected. Urban agricultural studies also tend to be undertaken at broad spatial scales, overlooking the heterogeneity of urban form that exerts an extreme influence on the urban energy balance. As a result, urban planning and management practitioners require, but often do not have, spatially explicit and detailed information to support informed urban agricultural policy, especially as it relates to potential conflicts with sustainability goals targeting water-use. In this research we introduce a new model, CityCrop, a hybrid evapotranspiration-plant growth model that incorporates detailed digital representations of the urban surface and biophysical impacts of the built environment and urban trees to account for the daily variations in net surface radiation. The model enables very fine-scale (sub-meter) estimates of water footprints of potential urban agricultural production. Results of the model are demonstrated for an area in the City of Vancouver, Canada and compared to aspatial model estimates, demonstrating the unique considerations and sensitivities for current and future water footprints of urban agriculture and the implications for urban water planning and policy.

Impacts on Water Management and Crop Production of Regional Cropping System Adaptation to Climate Change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhong, H.; Sun, L.; Tian, Z.; Liang, Z.; Fischer, G.

2014-12-01

China is one of the most populous and fast developing countries, also faces a great pressure on grain production and food security. Multi-cropping system is widely applied in China to fully utilize agro-climatic resources and increase land productivity. As the heat resource keep improving under climate warming, multi-cropping system will also shifting northward, and benefit crop production. But water shortage in North China Plain will constrain the adoption of new multi-cropping system. Effectiveness of multi-cropping system adaptation to climate change will greatly depend on future hydrological change and agriculture water management. So it is necessary to quantitatively express the water demand of different multi-cropping systems under climate change. In this paper, we proposed an integrated climate-cropping system-crops adaptation framework, and specifically focused on: 1) precipitation and hydrological change under future climate change in China; 2) the best multi-cropping system and correspondent crop rotation sequence, and water demand under future agro-climatic resources; 3) attainable crop production with water constraint; and 4) future water management. In order to obtain climate projection and precipitation distribution, global climate change scenario from HADCAM3 is downscaled with regional climate model (PRECIS), historical climate data (1960-1990) was interpolated from more than 700 meteorological observation stations. The regional Agro-ecological Zone (AEZ) model is applied to simulate the best multi-cropping system and crop rotation sequence under projected climate change scenario. Finally, we use the site process-based DSSAT model to estimate attainable crop production and the water deficiency. Our findings indicate that annual land productivity may increase and China can gain benefit from climate change if multi-cropping system would be adopted. This study provides a macro-scale view of agriculture adaptation, and gives suggestions to national

An Interoperable, Agricultural Information System Based on Satellite Remote Sensing Data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Teng, William; Chiu, Long; Doraiswamy, Paul; Kempler, Steven; Liu, Zhong; Pham, Long; Rui, Hualan

2005-01-01

Monitoring global agricultural crop conditions during the growing season and estimating potential seasonal production are critically important for market development of US. agricultural products and for global food security. The Goddard Space Flight Center Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center Distributed Active Archive Center (GES DISC DAAC) is developing an Agricultural Information System (AIS), evolved from an existing TRMM Online Visualization and Analysis System (TOVAS), which will operationally provide satellite remote sensing data products (e.g., rainfall) and services. The data products will include crop condition and yield prediction maps, generated from a crop growth model with satellite data inputs, in collaboration with the USDA Agricultural Research Service. The AIS will enable the remote, interoperable access to distributed data, by using the GrADS-DODS Server (GDS) and by being compliant with Open GIS Consortium standards. Users will be able to download individual files, perform interactive online analysis, as well as receive operational data flows. AIS outputs will be integrated into existing operational decision support systems for global crop monitoring, such as those of the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service and the U.N. World Food Program.

Ants and termites increase crop yield in a dry climate.

PubMed

Evans, Theodore A; Dawes, Tracy Z; Ward, Philip R; Lo, Nathan

2011-03-29

Agricultural intensification has increased crop yields, but at high economic and environmental cost. Harnessing ecosystem services of naturally occurring organisms is a cheaper but under-appreciated approach, because the functional roles of organisms are not linked to crop yields, especially outside the northern temperate zone. Ecosystem services in soil come from earthworms in these cooler and wetter latitudes; what may fulfill their functional role in agriculture in warmer and drier habitats, where they are absent, is unproven. Here we show in a field experiment that ants and termites increase wheat yield by 36% from increased soil water infiltration due to their tunnels and improved soil nitrogen. Our results suggest that ants and termites have similar functional roles to earthworms, and that they may provide valuable ecosystem services in dryland agriculture, which may become increasingly important for agricultural sustainability in arid climates.

Ants and termites increase crop yield in a dry climate

PubMed Central

Evans, Theodore A.; Dawes, Tracy Z.; Ward, Philip R.; Lo, Nathan

2011-01-01

Agricultural intensification has increased crop yields, but at high economic and environmental cost. Harnessing ecosystem services of naturally occurring organisms is a cheaper but under-appreciated approach, because the functional roles of organisms are not linked to crop yields, especially outside the northern temperate zone. Ecosystem services in soil come from earthworms in these cooler and wetter latitudes; what may fulfill their functional role in agriculture in warmer and drier habitats, where they are absent, is unproven. Here we show in a field experiment that ants and termites increase wheat yield by 36% from increased soil water infiltration due to their tunnels and improved soil nitrogen. Our results suggest that ants and termites have similar functional roles to earthworms, and that they may provide valuable ecosystem services in dryland agriculture, which may become increasingly important for agricultural sustainability in arid climates. PMID:21448161

Long-term use of cover crops and no-till shift soil microbial community life strategies in agricultural soil

PubMed Central

Mitchell, Jeffrey; Scow, Kate

2018-01-01

Reducing tillage and growing cover crops, widely recommended practices for boosting soil health, have major impacts on soil communities. Surprisingly little is known about their impacts on soil microbial functional diversity, and especially so in irrigated Mediterranean ecosystems. In long-term experimental plots at the West Side Research and Extension Center in California’s Central Valley, we characterized soil microbial communities in the presence or absence of physical disturbance due to tillage, in the presence or absence of cover crops, and at three depths: 0–5, 5–15 and 15–30 cm. This characterization included qPCR for bacterial and archaeal abundances, DNA sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene, and phylogenetic estimation of two ecologically important microbial traits (rRNA gene copy number and genome size). Total (bacterial + archaeal) diversity was higher in no-till than standard till; diversity increased with depth in no-till but decreased with depth in standard till. Total bacterial numbers were higher in cover cropped plots at all depths, while no-till treatments showed higher numbers in 0–5 cm but lower numbers at lower depths compared to standard tillage. Trait estimates suggested that different farming practices and depths favored distinctly different microbial life strategies. Tillage in the absence of cover crops shifted microbial communities towards fast growing competitors, while no-till shifted them toward slow growing stress tolerators. Across all treatment combinations, increasing depth resulted in a shift towards stress tolerators. Cover crops shifted the communities towards ruderals–organisms with wider metabolic capacities and moderate rates of growth. Overall, our results are consistent with decreasing nutrient availability with soil depth and under no-till treatments, bursts of nutrient availability and niche homogenization under standard tillage, and increases in C supply and variety provided by cover crops. Understanding how

Farmers' perception on the importance of variegated grasshopper (Zonocerus variegatus (L.)) in the agricultural production systems of the humid forest zone of Southern Cameroon

PubMed Central

Kekeunou, Sévilor; Weise, Stephan; Messi, Jean; Tamò, Manuel

2006-01-01

Background Zonocerus variegatus (Linnaeus, 1758) (Orthoptera: Pyrgomorphidae) is known as an agricultural pest in West and Central Africa. However, its importance in the agricultural production system in Cameroon has not been investigated. The study assesses farmers' perception on the importance of Z. variegatus in the agricultural production systems of the humid forest zone of Southern Cameroon. Methods Research was carried out in 5 villages of each of three Agro-Ecological, Cultural and Demographic Blocks (AECD-Blocks) of the Forest Margin Benchmark Area (FMBA). In each village, a semi-structured survey was used; male and female groups of farmers were interviewed separately. Results Z. variegatus is present throughout the humid forest zone of Southern Cameroon, where it is ranked as the third most economically important insect pest of agriculture. In the farmers' opinion, Z. variegatus is a polyphagous insect with little impact on young perennial crops. The length of the pre-farming fallow does not affect Z. variegatus pest pressure in the following crops. The increased impact of the grasshopper observed today in the fields, compared to what existed 10 years ago is as a result of deforestation and increase in surface of herbaceous fallow. The damage caused by Z. variegatus is higher in fields adjacent to C. odorata and herbaceous fallows than in those adjacent to forests and shrubby fallows. The fight against this grasshopper is often done through physical methods carried out by hand, for human consumption. The farmers highlight low usage of the chemical methods and a total absence of biological and ecological methods. Conclusion Farmers' perception have contributed to understanding the status of Z. variegatus in the humid forest zone of Southern Cameroon. The results are in general similar to those obtained in other countries. PMID:16573815

The Importance of Rotational Crops for Biodiversity Conservation in Mediterranean Areas.

PubMed

Chiatante, Gianpasquale; Meriggi, Alberto

2016-01-01

Nowadays we are seeing the largest biodiversity loss since the extinction of the dinosaurs. To conserve biodiversity it is essential to plan protected areas using a prioritization approach, which takes into account the current biodiversity value of the sites. Considering that in the Mediterranean Basin the agro-ecosystems are one of the most important parts of the landscape, the conservation of crops is essential to biodiversity conservation. In the framework of agro-ecosystem conservation, farmland birds play an important role because of their representativeness, and because of their steady decline in the last Century in Western Europe. The main aim of this research was to define if crop dominated landscapes could be useful for biodiversity conservation in a Mediterranean area in which the landscape was modified by humans in the last thousand years and was affected by the important biogeographical phenomenon of peninsula effect. To assess this, we identify the hotspots and the coldspots of bird diversity in southern Italy both during the winter and in the breeding season. In particular we used a scoring method, defining a biodiversity value for each cell of a 1-km grid superimposed on the study area, using data collected by fieldwork following a stratified random sampling design. This value was analysed by a multiple linear regression analysis and was predicted in the whole study area. Then we defined the hotspots and the coldspots of the study area as 15% of the cells with higher and lower value of biodiversity, respectively. Finally, we used GAP analysis to compare hotspot distribution with the current network of protected areas. This study showed that the winter hotspots of bird diversity were associated with marshes and water bodies, shrublands, and irrigated crops, whilst the breeding hotspots were associated with more natural areas (e.g. transitional wood/shrubs), such as open areas (natural grasslands, pastures and not irrigated crops). Moreover, the

The Importance of Rotational Crops for Biodiversity Conservation in Mediterranean Areas

PubMed Central

Chiatante, Gianpasquale; Meriggi, Alberto

2016-01-01

Nowadays we are seeing the largest biodiversity loss since the extinction of the dinosaurs. To conserve biodiversity it is essential to plan protected areas using a prioritization approach, which takes into account the current biodiversity value of the sites. Considering that in the Mediterranean Basin the agro-ecosystems are one of the most important parts of the landscape, the conservation of crops is essential to biodiversity conservation. In the framework of agro-ecosystem conservation, farmland birds play an important role because of their representativeness, and because of their steady decline in the last Century in Western Europe. The main aim of this research was to define if crop dominated landscapes could be useful for biodiversity conservation in a Mediterranean area in which the landscape was modified by humans in the last thousand years and was affected by the important biogeographical phenomenon of peninsula effect. To assess this, we identify the hotspots and the coldspots of bird diversity in southern Italy both during the winter and in the breeding season. In particular we used a scoring method, defining a biodiversity value for each cell of a 1-km grid superimposed on the study area, using data collected by fieldwork following a stratified random sampling design. This value was analysed by a multiple linear regression analysis and was predicted in the whole study area. Then we defined the hotspots and the coldspots of the study area as 15% of the cells with higher and lower value of biodiversity, respectively. Finally, we used GAP analysis to compare hotspot distribution with the current network of protected areas. This study showed that the winter hotspots of bird diversity were associated with marshes and water bodies, shrublands, and irrigated crops, whilst the breeding hotspots were associated with more natural areas (e.g. transitional wood/shrubs), such as open areas (natural grasslands, pastures and not irrigated crops). Moreover, the

Improving crop nutrient efficiency through root architecture modifications.

PubMed

Li, Xinxin; Zeng, Rensen; Liao, Hong

2016-03-01

Improving crop nutrient efficiency becomes an essential consideration for environmentally friendly and sustainable agriculture. Plant growth and development is dependent on 17 essential nutrient elements, among them, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) are the two most important mineral nutrients. Hence it is not surprising that low N and/or low P availability in soils severely constrains crop growth and productivity, and thereby have become high priority targets for improving nutrient efficiency in crops. Root exploration largely determines the ability of plants to acquire mineral nutrients from soils. Therefore, root architecture, the 3-dimensional configuration of the plant's root system in the soil, is of great importance for improving crop nutrient efficiency. Furthermore, the symbiotic associations between host plants and arbuscular mycorrhiza fungi/rhizobial bacteria, are additional important strategies to enhance nutrient acquisition. In this review, we summarize the recent advances in the current understanding of crop species control of root architecture alterations in response to nutrient availability and root/microbe symbioses, through gene or QTL regulation, which results in enhanced nutrient acquisition. © 2015 Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

7 CFR 319.8-20 - Importations by the Department of Agriculture.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 5 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Importations by the Department of Agriculture. 319.8-20 Section 319.8-20 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) ANIMAL AND PLANT HEALTH INSPECTION SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOREIGN QUARANTINE NOTICES Foreign Cotton and...

7 CFR 319.8-20 - Importations by the Department of Agriculture.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 5 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Importations by the Department of Agriculture. 319.8-20 Section 319.8-20 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) ANIMAL AND PLANT HEALTH INSPECTION SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOREIGN QUARANTINE NOTICES Foreign Cotton and...

7 CFR 319.8-20 - Importations by the Department of Agriculture.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 5 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Importations by the Department of Agriculture. 319.8-20 Section 319.8-20 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) ANIMAL AND PLANT HEALTH INSPECTION SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOREIGN QUARANTINE NOTICES Foreign Cotton and...

7 CFR 319.8-20 - Importations by the Department of Agriculture.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Importations by the Department of Agriculture. 319.8-20 Section 319.8-20 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) ANIMAL AND PLANT HEALTH INSPECTION SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOREIGN QUARANTINE NOTICES Foreign Cotton and...

Origins of food crops connect countries worldwide

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Research into the origins of food plants has led to the recognition that specific geographic regions around the world have been of particular importance to the development of agricultural crops. Yet the relative contributions of these different regions in the context of current food systems have not...

7 CFR 457.139 - Fresh market tomato (dollar plan) crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Fresh market tomato (dollar plan) crop insurance provisions. 457.139 Section 457.139 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.139...

A process-based agricultural model for the irrigated agriculture sector in Alberta, Canada

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ammar, M. E.; Davies, E. G.

2015-12-01

Connections between land and water, irrigation, agricultural productivity and profitability, policy alternatives, and climate change and variability are complex, poorly understood, and unpredictable. Policy assessment for agriculture presents a large potential for development of broad-based simulation models that can aid assessment and quantification of policy alternatives over longer temporal scales. The Canadian irrigated agriculture sector is concentrated in Alberta, where it represents two thirds of the irrigated land-base in Canada and is the largest consumer of surface water. Despite interest in irrigation expansion, its potential in Alberta is uncertain given a constrained water supply, significant social and economic development and increasing demands for both land and water, and climate change. This paper therefore introduces a system dynamics model as a decision support tool to provide insights into irrigation expansion in Alberta, and into trade-offs and risks associated with that expansion. It is intended to be used by a wide variety of users including researchers, policy analysts and planners, and irrigation managers. A process-based cropping system approach is at the core of the model and uses a water-driven crop growth mechanism described by AquaCrop. The tool goes beyond a representation of crop phenology and cropping systems by permitting assessment and quantification of the broader, long-term consequences of agricultural policies for Alberta's irrigation sector. It also encourages collaboration and provides a degree of transparency that gives confidence in simulation results. The paper focuses on the agricultural component of the systems model, describing the process involved; soil water and nutrients balance, crop growth, and water, temperature, salinity, and nutrients stresses, and how other disciplines can be integrated to account for the effects of interactions and feedbacks in the whole system. In later stages, other components such as

Regional Climate Change Impact on Agricultural Land Use in West Africa

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ahmed, K. F.; Wang, G.; You, L.

2014-12-01

Agriculture is a key element of the human-induced land use land cover change (LULCC) that is influenced by climate and can potentially influence regional climate. Temperature and precipitation directly impact the crop yield (by controlling photosynthesis, respiration and other physiological processes) that then affects agricultural land use pattern. In feedback, the resulting changes in land use and land cover play an important role to determine the direction and magnitude of global, regional and local climate change by altering Earth's radiative equilibrium. The assessment of future agricultural land use is, therefore, of great importance in climate change study. In this study, we develop a prototype land use projection model and, using this model, project the changes to land use pattern and future land cover map accounting for climate-induced yield changes for major crops in West Africa. Among the inputs to the land use projection model are crop yield changes simulated by the crop model DSSAT, driven with the climate forcing data from the regional climate model RegCM4.3.4-CLM4.5, which features a projected decrease of future mean crop yield and increase of inter-annual variability. Another input to the land use projection model is the projected changes of food demand in the future. In a so-called "dumb-farmer scenario" without any adaptation, the combined effect of decrease in crop yield and increase in food demand will lead to a significant increase in agricultural land use in future years accompanied by a decrease in forest and grass area. Human adaptation through land use optimization in an effort to minimize agricultural expansion is found to have little impact on the overall areas of agricultural land use. While the choice of the General Circulation Model (GCM) to derive initial and boundary conditions for the regional climate model can be a source of uncertainty in projecting the future LULCC, results from sensitivity experiments indicate that the changes

7 CFR 457.145 - Potato crop insurance-certified seed endorsement.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Potato crop insurance-certified seed endorsement. 457... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.145 Potato crop insurance—certified seed endorsement. The Potato Crop Insurance Certified Seed Endorsement Provisions for...

7 CFR 457.145 - Potato crop insurance-certified seed endorsement.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Potato crop insurance-certified seed endorsement. 457... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.145 Potato crop insurance—certified seed endorsement. The Potato Crop Insurance Certified Seed Endorsement Provisions for...

7 CFR 457.145 - Potato crop insurance-certified seed endorsement.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Potato crop insurance-certified seed endorsement. 457... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.145 Potato crop insurance—certified seed endorsement. The Potato Crop Insurance Certified Seed Endorsement Provisions for...

7 CFR 457.145 - Potato crop insurance-certified seed endorsement.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Potato crop insurance-certified seed endorsement. 457... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.145 Potato crop insurance—certified seed endorsement. The Potato Crop Insurance Certified Seed Endorsement Provisions for...

Changes in rainfed and irrigated crop yield response to climate in the western US

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, X.; Troy, T. J.

2018-06-01

As the global population increases and the climate changes, ensuring a secure food supply is increasingly important. One strategy is irrigation, which allows for crops to be grown outside their optimal climate growing regions and which buffers against climate variability. Although irrigation is a positive climate adaptation mechanism for agriculture, it has a potentially negative effect on water resources as it can lead to groundwater depletion and diminished surface water supplies. This study quantifies how crop yields are affected by climate variability and extremes and the impact of irrigation on crop yield increases under various growing-season climate conditions. To do this, we use historical climate data and county-level rainfed and irrigated crop yields for maize, soybean, winter and spring wheat over the US to analyze the relationship between climate, crop yields, and irrigation. We find that there are optimal climates, specific to each crop, where irrigation provides a benefit and other conditions where irrigation proves to have marginal, if any, benefits. Furthermore, the relationship between crop yields and climate has changed over the last decades, with a changing sensitivity in the relationship of soybean and winter wheat yields to certain climate variables, like crop reference evapotranspiration. These two conclusions have important implications for agricultural and water resource system planning, as it implies there are more optimal climate conditions where irrigation is particularly productive and regions where irrigation should be reconsidered as there is not a significant agricultural benefit and the water could be used more productively.

[Spatio-temporal distribution of carabids and spiders between semi-natural field margin and the adjacent crop fields in agricultural landscape].

PubMed

Zhang, Xu Zhu; Han, Yin; Yu, Zhen Rong; Liu, Yun Hui

2017-06-18

This study was conducted before and after harvesting of wheat and maize in a typical agricultural landscape of the North China Plain. We investigated the diversity of two important natural enemy groups, carabids and spiders, using pitfall traps at crop field margin with different vegetation structures and their neighboring crop field. Throughout the comparison of the spatial and temporal distribution of the diversity of carabids and spiders in field margin and neighboring field, and the investigation of the relationship between arthropod communities and vegetation structure, this study aimed to understand the role of semi-natural field margin in biodiversity conservation of different natural enemy taxa. Results showed that the abundance of spiders was significantly higher in field margin than in neighboring fields over the entire period. No significant difference of the diversity of carabids in field margin and crop field was observed, but the community composition was different. Number of spider families increased in field margin but deceased in crop field after harvesting, indicating a migration activity between field and field margin. Vegetation structure in the field margin had different association with carabids than with spiders, with diversity of dominant carabid species positively associated with herb coverage and negatively with wood coverage, while the diversity of spider family Linyphiidae was positively associated with herb coverage only. Semi-natural habitat benefited the conservation of the diversity of arthropod natural enemies in crop field via promoting their dispersal to crop field, while such impacts differed from different vegetation structures and varied from target beneficial natural enemy communities. Future studies should focus on in-depth understanding of the food and habitat source requirement of different natural enemy taxa, and hence to design suitable semi-natural habitats to maintain a high diversity of natural enemy communities.

Agricultural crop harvest progress monitoring by fully polarimetric synthetic aperture radar imagery

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, Hao; Zhao, Chunjiang; Yang, Guijun; Li, Zengyuan; Chen, Erxue; Yuan, Lin; Yang, Xiaodong; Xu, Xingang

2015-01-01

Dynamic mapping and monitoring of crop harvest on a large spatial scale will provide critical information for the formulation of optimal harvesting strategies. This study evaluates the feasibility of C-band polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) for monitoring the harvesting progress of oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) fields. Five multitemporal, quad-pol Radarsat-2 images and one optical ZY-1 02C image were acquired over a farmland area in China during the 2013 growing season. Typical polarimetric signatures were obtained relying on polarimetric decomposition methods. Temporal evolutions of these signatures of harvested fields were compared with the ones of unharvested fields in the context of the entire growing cycle. Significant sensitivity was observed between the specific polarimetric parameters and the harvest status of oilseed rape fields. Based on this sensitivity, a new method that integrates two polarimetric features was devised to detect the harvest status of oilseed rape fields using a single image. The validation results are encouraging even for the harvested fields covered with high residues. This research demonstrates the capability of PolSAR remote sensing in crop harvest monitoring, which is a step toward more complex applications of PolSAR data in precision agriculture.

Simulated vs. empirical weather responsiveness of crop yields: US evidence and implications for the agricultural impacts of climate change

DOE PAGES

Mistry, Malcolm N.; Wing, Ian Sue; De Cian, Enrica

2017-07-10

Global gridded crop models (GGCMs) are the workhorse of assessments of the agricultural impacts of climate change. Yet the changes in crop yields projected by different models in response to the same meteorological forcing can differ substantially. Through an inter-method comparison, we provide a first glimpse into the origins and implications of this divergence—both among GGCMs and between GGCMs and historical observations. We examine yields of rainfed maize, wheat, and soybeans simulated by six GGCMs as part of the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project-Fast Track (ISIMIP-FT) exercise, comparing 1981–2004 hindcast yields over the coterminous United States (US) against US Departmentmore » of Agriculture (USDA) time series for about 1000 counties. Leveraging the empirical climate change impacts literature, we estimate reduced-form econometric models of crop yield responses to temperature and precipitation exposures for both GGCMs and observations. We find that up to 60% of the variance in both simulated and observed yields is attributable to weather variation. A majority of the GGCMs have difficulty reproducing the observed distribution of percentage yield anomalies, and exhibit aggregate responses that show yields to be more weather-sensitive than in the observational record over the predominant range of temperature and precipitation conditions. In conclusion, this disparity is largely attributable to heterogeneity in GGCMs' responses, as opposed to uncertainty in historical weather forcings, and is responsible for widely divergent impacts of climate on future crop yields.« less

Simulated vs. empirical weather responsiveness of crop yields: US evidence and implications for the agricultural impacts of climate change

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Mistry, Malcolm N.; Wing, Ian Sue; De Cian, Enrica

Global gridded crop models (GGCMs) are the workhorse of assessments of the agricultural impacts of climate change. Yet the changes in crop yields projected by different models in response to the same meteorological forcing can differ substantially. Through an inter-method comparison, we provide a first glimpse into the origins and implications of this divergence—both among GGCMs and between GGCMs and historical observations. We examine yields of rainfed maize, wheat, and soybeans simulated by six GGCMs as part of the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project-Fast Track (ISIMIP-FT) exercise, comparing 1981–2004 hindcast yields over the coterminous United States (US) against US Departmentmore » of Agriculture (USDA) time series for about 1000 counties. Leveraging the empirical climate change impacts literature, we estimate reduced-form econometric models of crop yield responses to temperature and precipitation exposures for both GGCMs and observations. We find that up to 60% of the variance in both simulated and observed yields is attributable to weather variation. A majority of the GGCMs have difficulty reproducing the observed distribution of percentage yield anomalies, and exhibit aggregate responses that show yields to be more weather-sensitive than in the observational record over the predominant range of temperature and precipitation conditions. In conclusion, this disparity is largely attributable to heterogeneity in GGCMs' responses, as opposed to uncertainty in historical weather forcings, and is responsible for widely divergent impacts of climate on future crop yields.« less

Simulated vs. empirical weather responsiveness of crop yields: US evidence and implications for the agricultural impacts of climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mistry, Malcolm N.; Wing, Ian Sue; De Cian, Enrica

2017-07-01

Global gridded crop models (GGCMs) are the workhorse of assessments of the agricultural impacts of climate change. Yet the changes in crop yields projected by different models in response to the same meteorological forcing can differ substantially. Through an inter-method comparison, we provide a first glimpse into the origins and implications of this divergence—both among GGCMs and between GGCMs and historical observations. We examine yields of rainfed maize, wheat, and soybeans simulated by six GGCMs as part of the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project-Fast Track (ISIMIP-FT) exercise, comparing 1981-2004 hindcast yields over the coterminous United States (US) against US Department of Agriculture (USDA) time series for about 1000 counties. Leveraging the empirical climate change impacts literature, we estimate reduced-form econometric models of crop yield responses to temperature and precipitation exposures for both GGCMs and observations. We find that up to 60% of the variance in both simulated and observed yields is attributable to weather variation. A majority of the GGCMs have difficulty reproducing the observed distribution of percentage yield anomalies, and exhibit aggregate responses that show yields to be more weather-sensitive than in the observational record over the predominant range of temperature and precipitation conditions. This disparity is largely attributable to heterogeneity in GGCMs’ responses, as opposed to uncertainty in historical weather forcings, and is responsible for widely divergent impacts of climate on future crop yields.

Introduction to Agronomy, Grain Crops, Weeds and Controls. A Learning Activity Pac in Agricultural Education Courses in Wisconsin.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wisconsin State Dept. of Public Instruction, Madison. Div. of Instructional Services.

This learning activity pac contains information to help the teachers of high school vocational agriculture in the instructional area of agronomy. Each of the two main sections, grain crops and weeds and controls, includes teacher and student units for the section lessons. Teacher units include special instructions--equipment needed (film…

7 CFR 457.106 - Texas citrus tree crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Texas citrus tree crop insurance provisions. 457.106... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.106 Texas citrus tree crop insurance provisions. The Texas Citrus Tree Crop Insurance Provisions for the 2011 and...

7 CFR 457.106 - Texas citrus tree crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Texas citrus tree crop insurance provisions. 457.106... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.106 Texas citrus tree crop insurance provisions. The Texas Citrus Tree Crop Insurance Provisions for the 2011 and...

7 CFR 457.119 - Texas citrus fruit crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Texas citrus fruit crop insurance provisions. 457.119... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.119 Texas citrus fruit crop insurance provisions. The Texas citrus fruit crop insurance provisions for the 2000 and...

7 CFR 457.106 - Texas citrus tree crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Texas citrus tree crop insurance provisions. 457.106... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.106 Texas citrus tree crop insurance provisions. The Texas Citrus Tree Crop Insurance Provisions for the 2011 and...

7 CFR 457.119 - Texas citrus fruit crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Texas citrus fruit crop insurance provisions. 457.119... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.119 Texas citrus fruit crop insurance provisions. The Texas citrus fruit crop insurance provisions for the 2000 and...

7 CFR 457.106 - Texas citrus tree crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Texas citrus tree crop insurance provisions. 457.106... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.106 Texas citrus tree crop insurance provisions. The Texas Citrus Tree Crop Insurance Provisions for the 2011 and...

7 CFR 457.119 - Texas citrus fruit crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Texas citrus fruit crop insurance provisions. 457.119... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.119 Texas citrus fruit crop insurance provisions. The Texas citrus fruit crop insurance provisions for the 2000 and...

7 CFR 457.119 - Texas citrus fruit crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Texas citrus fruit crop insurance provisions. 457.119... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.119 Texas citrus fruit crop insurance provisions. The Texas citrus fruit crop insurance provisions for the 2000 and...

7 CFR 457.119 - Texas citrus fruit crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Texas citrus fruit crop insurance provisions. 457.119... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.119 Texas citrus fruit crop insurance provisions. The Texas citrus fruit crop insurance provisions for the 2000 and...

7 CFR 457.170 - Cultivated wild rice crop insurance provisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR