Assessment of promising agricultural management practices

Abstract

iSQAPER project - Interactive Soil Quality Assessment in Europe and China for Agricultural Productivity and Environmental Resilience - aims to develop an app to advise farmers on selecting the best Agriculture Management Practice (AMPs) to improve soil quality. For this purpose, a soil quality index has to be developed to account for the changes in soil quality as impacted by the implementation of the AMPs. Some promising AMPs have been suggested over the time to prevent soil degradation. These practices have been randomly adopted by farmers but which practices are most used by farmers and where they are mostly adopted remains unclear. This study is part of the iSQAPER project with the specific aims: 1) map the current distribution of previously selected 18 promising AMPs in several pedo-climatic regions and farming systems located in ten and four study site areas (SSA) along Europe and China, respectively; and 2) identify the soil threats occurring in those areas. In each SSA, farmers using promising AMP's were identified and questionnaires were used to assess farmer's perception on soil threats significance in the area. 138 plots/farms using 18 promising AMPs, were identified in Europe (112) and China (26).Results show that promising AMPs used in Europe are Crop rotation (15%), Manuring & Composting (15%) and Min-till (14%), whereas in China are Manuring & Composting (18%), Residue maintenance (18%) and Integrated pest and disease management (12%). In Europe, soil erosion is the main threat in agricultural Mediterranean areas while soil-borne pests and diseases is more frequent in the SSAs from France and The Netherlands. In China, soil erosion, SOM decline, compaction and poor soil structure are among the most significant. This work provides important information for policy makers and the development of strategies to support and promote agricultural management practices with benefits for soil quality.

Development of an Agricultural Primary Productivity Decision Support Model: A Case Study in France

“…The remaining 20% of our primary productivity model was affected by crop attributes (Figure 3). Zavattaro et al (2015) observed that crop rotation and cover crops, in particular, had positive effects on crop yields, which is supported by our decision support model as well as by a recent study that recommended crop rotation as a promising management practice (Barão et al, 2019). Zavattaro et al (2015) also observed that in more than 80% of the examined cases, the yield of a crop grown in a rotation practice was larger than that of a monoculture.…”

Preserving the nutritional quality of crop plants under a changing climate: importance and strategies

“…Amongst the most common promising sustainable agricultural practices, reduced or no-till farming decreases decomposition rates of organic matter and enhances recycling of nutrients, soil structure and water infiltration (Barão et al 2019). Although this technique was used in ancient agriculture, during Europe's agricultural revolution, tilling was largely adopted, which in the long run, resulted in soils which are eroded, nutritionally poor and deprived of microbial activity (Gomiero 2016;Lal et al 2007).…”

Visual assessment of the impact of agricultural management practices on soil quality

“…These plots were used as case studies under the European iSQAPER project -Interactive Soil Quality Assessment in Europe and China for Agricultural Productivity and Environmental Resilience. The criteria used to select the pairs of plots and full descriptions of the SSAs, including the pedo-climatic regions, farming systems, and AMPs tested, is provided in Barão, Basch, Alaoui, and Schwilch (2019). In 2018, a second assessment of soil quality was carried out to check the first outcomes.…”

“…The previously selected 138 pair of plots include a myriad of AMPs and their combinations (Barão et al, 2019) in use by European and Chinese farmers and, thus, represent the promising management choices undertaken locally. This study includes the soil quality assessment of (a) 98 pairs of plots where 17 different AMPs were used in isolation (e.g., notill, residue maintenance, irrigation management), (b) 23 pairs of plots where 19 different combinations of two AMPs were used (e.g., min-till and irrigation management), and (c) 17 pairs of plots where 16 different combinations of 3-7 AMPs were used (Table 1).…”

“…Crop rotation affects the nutrient balance (Bullock, 1992, Martin-Rueda et al, 2017 by covering soil with organic matter which increases soil fertility (Altieri & Nicholls, 2003, Wiesmeier et al 2017, whereas nondisturbance avoids soil breakdown and CO 2 emissions (Wander & Bidart, 2000). By acting on different management aspects, such as soil and nutrient management strategies, the combination of these AMPs can provide synergetic effects on soil quality (Barão et al, 2019). Therefore, we hypothesize that a good combination should include AMPs from different management classes such as soil, water, nutrient, and pest and crop management, each one acting on a different level and without overlapping, as suggested by Barão et al (2019), who investigated the same SSA.…”