Conservation agriculture based crop management practices impact diversity and population dynamics of the insect-pests and their natural enemies in agroecosystems

Abstract

Human efforts to grow abundant food through the persistent use of resource-intensive farming practices have resulted in declining soil health, and deterioration of ecosystem functions and services. Conservation agriculture (CA) has emerged as a practice to minimize the impacts of conventional resource-exhaustive and energy-intensive agriculture. Minimum soil disturbance, permanent soil cover, and diversification are the key components of CA. Tillage through conventional practices on the other hand has detrimental effects on the soil and environment as it requires deep inversion of soil with instruments such as mouldboard plow, disc plow etc. leaving very less organic matter in soil after establishment of crop. Even though, CA advocates many benefits over conventional agriculture in terms of soil and water conservation, the consequent changes in moisture and temperature regimes due to reduced tillage and surface cover would likely going to influence the biological activity, including insect pests and their natural enemies which dwell within these agroecosystems. The changed crop conditions under CA may favor particular insect communities and their ecological niches. The adoption of such practices may lead to decrease in insect pests with major activity on the crop canopy. However, the activity of the insect pests that spend their maximum life span at the soil surface or beneath the soil surface may increase. Recent insect-pest outbreaks in North-Western India and imbalances reported in Indo-Gangetic Plains point to the need for a better understanding of the inter-relationships between tillage intensity, residue retention, and insect pest population dynamics. The current review analyzes the existing state of knowledge of these dynamics and presents the scenarios that may emerge as CA get more acceptance. This review will help to develop countermeasures to improve performance and ecosystem services of Conservation agriculture (CA) based cropping systems.

Agricultural Practices for Biodiversity Enhancement: Evidence and Recommendations for the Viticultural Sector

“…The selection of recommended practices for biodiversity enhancement and corresponding effects (e.g., productivity, pest control, and soil health, among others) focused on six agricultural variables with recognized influence on biodiversity performance. These included the diversity of plants [22], semi-natural habitats [23], conservation agriculture practices, namely soil cover [24] and reduced tillage [25], and the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides [26]. Several biodiversity assessment methodologies considered the diversity of plants [25,[27][28][29] and semi-natural habitats [25,[30][31][32] as relevant indicators of biodiversity performance.…”

“…The presence of different varieties or species of crops benefits the biodiversity performance of agricultural systems [25,34] and minimizes the proliferation of disease and insect pests that are stimulated by monoculture systems [22]. Furthermore, there is evidence that including leguminous plants in a cropping system can improve nitrogen fixation in the soil, positively influence overall yields, and maintain stability of income, as compared with monoculture systems [35,36].…”

Bioprospecting and Repurposing of Leaf Biomass to Support Sustainable Biopharmacy: Evaluation of seasonal chemical variations and biological activities of six Eucalyptus essential oils

“…As a result, alternative methods with biological activities were investigated leading to the application of EOs extracted from the wood industry residue (Raveau et al 2020). In addition, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a global call and the discovery of new applications for the EOs from different Eucalyptus species (Jasrotia et al 2023) cultivated in Brazil can impact this worldwide demand. In particular, the use of this green biomass can greatly foster innovation in pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, and insecticidal industries (Goldbeck et al 2014) as recommended by SDG 9.…”

“…In particular, the use of this green biomass can greatly foster innovation in pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, and insecticidal industries (Goldbeck et al 2014) as recommended by SDG 9. Moreover, the use of this biomass can contribute to avoiding allelopathy (Jasrotia et al 2023) in the soil and lead to life-on-land improvement as recommended by SDG 15. Furthermore, this paper meets the recommendations of SDG 12 since it is directly devoted to promoting resource and energy e ciency.…”

“…The timber industry's practice of cutting down trees has resulted in discarded leaves on the ground, leading to severe environmental issues related to allelopathy. Research has demonstrated that EOs can signi cantly hinder seed growth and development of various plants, which can be detrimental to the succession of agronomic crops and the emergence of other species in the biome (Jasrotia et al 2023). The use of EOs derived from the leaves of these plants represents a valuable opportunity for phytotherapeutic use (Rossi et al 2015).…”