Climate change (CC) is undoubtedly induced and accelerated by human activity and can pose a serious threat to mankind by reducing food production. Significant weather aberrations in form of the uneven precipitation pattern, more frequent and intense occurrence of temperature fluctuations accompanied by changes in wind intensity and frequency, amount of clouds, intensity and quality of sunlight can be expected. Maybe the most vulnerable sector affected by CC is agriculture. So, it is important to mitigate and adapt to a new situation through different and most adaptable agricultural strategies. Accordingly, scientists, experts, politicians, decisionmakers, and others increasingly emphasize the need for further development of sustainable agricultural production, whose management will be compatible with different ecosystems (agroecosystem compliance with global ecosystems), while simultaneously restoring degraded agricultural land. One of the best solutions for sustainable agricultural production, under CC conditions, can be Conservation agriculture. Climate change is not only an abstraction, which is why one of the most important roles of conservation agriculture today is its ability to adapt and mitigate these changes. The basis of conservation agriculture production is in management set on three fundamental postulates, which contextually unify climate-soil-plant, while respecting agroecological and socioeconomic differences.
This research aims to assess the impacts of soil use management on runoff, soil losses, and their main soil controls in vegetable cropland (CROP), tilled olives (OT), and grass-covered olive orchards (OGC) on Leptosol in Croatia. Soil analysis and rainfall simulation experiments were conducted to quantify runoff (Run), soil, and nutrient losses. Bulk density (BD) was significantly higher at OT plots, in addition to the CROP plots. Water-stable aggregates (WSA), mean weight diameter (MWD), and soil organic matter (OM) were significantly higher in OGC plots compared to the other land uses. Run and soil loss (SL) were significantly higher in CROP and OT plots compared to the OGC plots. The CROP plots showed soil management that can be considered as unsustainable with 52, 68- and 146-times higher losses of phosphorus (P loss), nitrogen (N loss), and carbon (C loss) compared to the OGC plots. The principal component analysis showed that MWD was associated with vegetation cover (VC), water-holding capacity (WHC), WSA, OM, total nitrogen (TN), time to ponding (TP), and time to runoff (TR). These variables were negatively related to P2O5, Run, SL, and P, N, and C loss. Results indicate the need for the adoption of conservation strategies in croplands and olive orchards.
The negative trend of soil degradation process increases with intensive agricultural production. Therefore, there is a need for soil conditioning like liming, humification, fertilization, etc. to improve soil quality. One of the major problems that occur on agricultural soils of Croatia is acidification. A downward trend of soil pH is mainly present in soils of poor structure with intensive agricultural production. In agricultural practice liming often needs to rely only on the pH value, without determining the hydrolytic acidity, CEC or soil texture. Due to the above mentioned facts, calculation of liming for Osijek-Baranja County was conducted with the help of ALRxp calculator, which takes CEC, soil pH in KCl, hydrolytic acidity, bulk density of soil, soil textural class and depth of the plow layer to 30 cm into account. Low soil pH values have a great influence on soil suitability for crops as well as on the deficit of calcium and magnesium. All of these lead to the degradation of soil structure, and can even lead to disturbances of plant nutrition in some production areas. On such soils, liming would be imperatively required, but with caution because an excessive intake of lime materials, especially without the necessary analysis, causes a decline in organic matter and reduces accessibility for plant uptake of microelements
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.