Crop Rotation as a System Approach for Soil Fertility Management in Vegetables

Benincasa, Paolo; Tosti, G.; Guiducci, Marcello; Farneselli, Michela; Tei, Francesco

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-53626-2_5

Cited by 18 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 202 publications

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“…The management of soil N fertility based only on extrafarm fertilizers (both mineral and organic) seems not to be sustainable over the long term (Thorup-Kristensen et al 2012). For this reason, strategies are needed to increase (i) N self-sufficiency and (ii) N use efficiency at the plant, crop, and whole-rotation scales (Benincasa et al 2017b;Dresbøll and Thorup-Kristensen 2014). Among these strategies, cereallegume intercropping appears to be a useful agronomic solution for wheat production (Bedoussac and Justes 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable management of nitrogen nutrition in winter wheat through temporary intercropping with legumes

Guiducci

Tosti

Falcinelli

et al. 2018

Agron. Sustain. Dev.

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Wheat-legume temporary intercropping with legume devitalization in late winter can increase the N self-sufficiency of cropping systems and improve the N nutrition of wheat as a cash crop. However, this practice has been scarcely investigated. In this study, carried out in a Mediterranean environment with cold winters, we compared 14 treatments over 3 years with different weather patterns: (A) pure stands of common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) grown at 0, 40, 80, 120, 160 kg N ha −1 ; (B) pure stands of faba bean (Vicia faba L. minor), pea (Pisum sativum L.), and squarrose clover (Trifolium squarrosum L.); (C) temporary intercrops of wheat and faba bean, pea, or clover; and (D) permanent intercrops of wheat and the same legumes. In the temporary intercrops, all legumes improved the wheat N availability compared with the unfertilized control. The "N effect" of legumes for wheat was consistent across years and proportional to the competitive ability of the legumes, i.e., faba bean > pea > clover. The higher the legume competitive ability, the higher was its N accumulation before devitalization, and the higher/earlier was the N supplied to wheat. Our findings demonstrate that the date of legume devitalization represents a key factor to be managed each year in order to maximize legume N supply while preventing excessive legume competition, which could undermine wheat growth and yield. Such a modulation was not possible in permanent intercrops, where legume competition depressed wheat grain yield. The N supplied with legume devitalization increased wheat grain N accumulation during grain filling. This is the first work comparing temporary and permanent intercrops of wheat with different legumes and over different seasons. Overall, temporary intercropping appears to be a feasible and efficient tool for the sustainable management of N nutrition in winter wheat.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable management of nitrogen nutrition in winter wheat through temporary intercropping with legumes

Guiducci

Tosti

Falcinelli

et al. 2018

Agron. Sustain. Dev.

Self Cite

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“…Crop rotation is one of the important strategies for effectively maintaining and increasing soil fertility, crop yield, and environmental sustainability (Benincasa et al 2017). Nevertheless, to achieve the benefits (to enhance soil health, soil biology, and nutrient availability) from a well-designed crop rotation (Agneessens et al 2014), the potential mechanisms through which crop rotations sustain horticultural crop production must be considered.…”

Section: Crop Rotation For Annual Cropping Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opportunities to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from horticultural production systems in Canada

et al. 2021

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Horticultural systems, specifically vegetable production systems, are considered intensive agricultural systems as they are characterized by high nitrogen (N) fertilizer application rate, frequent tillage and irrigation operations. Accordingly, horticultural production in temperate climates is prone to N losses—mainly during post-harvest (during fall and winter) or pre-plant (spring) periods—such as N2O emissions and nitrate leaching. The risk for N losses is linked to low crop N use efficiency (NUE) combined with a narrow C:N and high N content of crop residues. Here we reviewed the studies conducted in Canada and similar climates to better understand the risk of N2O emission and potential agronomic management strategies to reduce N2O emissions from horticultural systems. Current knowledge on N2O emissions from horticultural systems indicate that increasing crop NUE, modifying the amount, type, time, and rate of N fertilizer inputs, and adopting cover crops in crop rotations are some of the effective approaches to decrease N2O emissions. However, there is uncertainty related to the efficiency of the existing N2O mitigation strategies due to the complex interactions between the factors (soil characteristics, type of plant species, climatic conditions, and soil microbial activity) responsible for N2O production from soil. Little research on N2O emissions from Canadian horticultural systems limits our ability to understand and manage the soil N2O production processes to mitigate the risk of N2O emissions. Thus, continuing to expand this line of research will help to advance the sustainability of Canadian horticultural cropping systems.

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“…High biomass production is essential to ensure the maximum provision of such benefits from cover crops [6]. There are many cases in the literature where the cover crop is terminated prior to planting the cash crop [7]. The cover crop residues remain on the soil surface and act as a mulch that suppresses the weeds, also protecting the soil from rapid desiccation and keeping the soil moisture at good levels for cash crop seed germination or plant establishment [8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combining roller crimpers and flaming for the termination of cover crops in herbicide-free no-till cropping systems

et al. 2019

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The termination of cover crops in conventional no-till systems is mostly conducted mechanically in combination with herbicides. Combining flaming and roller crimpers could be a viable solution to avoid using herbicides for cover crop termination in farming systems where herbicides are banned, or at least to reduce their use in an integrated management approach. This research tested the effects of flaming used in combination with three different types of roller crimpers to terminate a fall-sown cover crop mixture of winter pea and barley. The cover crop termination rate was visually assessed in terms of percentage of green cover provided by cover crop plants at different intervals from the termination date, and estimated using a log-logistic non-linear regression model with four parameters. Machine performance data are also reported. The results show that, irrespective of the roller type, flaming significantly boosted the effect of the roller crimpers. In fact, an economic threshold for cover crop suppression of 85% was reached only when the rollers were used in combination with flaming. Nevertheless, none of the methods were able to reach the 100% of cover crop suppression. In some case, the combined use of flaming and roller crimpers allowed reaching the 90% of cover crop devitalisation, which happened six weeks after the termination date. More importantly, the use of flaming in combination with rollers shortened the time needed to achieve the estimated levels of devitalisation, compared with the rollers used alone. We conclude that flaming is an effective tool to increase the effectiveness of roller crimpers. Nevertheless, further research is needed to identify solutions to overcome the barrier of the high operational costs of flaming, which is constraining its wider adoption by farmers. Future studies could focus, for instance, on the development of a new prototype of combined machine for crimping and flaming the cover crops simultaneously, which could potentially reduce the operational costs.

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Crop Rotation as a System Approach for Soil Fertility Management in Vegetables

Cited by 18 publications

References 202 publications

Sustainable management of nitrogen nutrition in winter wheat through temporary intercropping with legumes

Sustainable management of nitrogen nutrition in winter wheat through temporary intercropping with legumes

Opportunities to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from horticultural production systems in Canada

Combining roller crimpers and flaming for the termination of cover crops in herbicide-free no-till cropping systems

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