Importance of growth characteristics for yield of barley in different growing systems: will growth characteristics describe yield differently in different growing systems?

Abstract

The interest in organic grown cereals has increased the need for variety tests under organic growing systems and/or the knowledge on whether growth characteristics describe yield differently under conventional and organic conditions. This paper is a contribution to that question by examining the relationships between some important growth characteristics in barley trials in both systems in Northern Sweden and in Denmark. Mixed model analyses were used for regressions of growth characteristics (or transformations of those) on yield (and logtransformed yield), allowing the slope to depend on the growing system. The analyses showed that diseases seemed to have a less negative effect on yield in the organic growing system than in the conventional growing system if pesticides were not applied. For other characteristics the effect depended on the country. This was the case for grain characteristics where the effect of volume weight in the Swedish trials was much larger in the conventional growing system than in the organic growing system, while a non-significant difference in the opposite direction was found for the trails from Denmark. For the trials from Denmark the effect of grain weight was much larger in the organic growing system than in the conventional growing system, but there was only a small and non-significant difference in the Swedish trials. In both countries there was a significant interaction between the two grain characteristics.

Effects of halving pesticide use on wheat production

“…These estimates are higher than the values reported for zero-pesticide systems in Sweden39 (from 0.6 to 2.1 t ha −1 ). Yield losses reported in Sweden and Denmark in other studies4041 for zero-pesticide systems were also lower, and ranged from 0.3 to 0.8 t ha −1 . The yield losses obtained in our study for zero-pesticide systems correspond to 24.3 to 33% of the yield estimated with the current pesticide use level.…”

Combining ability of tropical maize cultivars in organic and conventional production systems

“…Some characteristics of plant growth like disease are more important for organic production systems than conventional systems, with more negative effects on productivity and other traits when pesticides are not applied (KRISTENSEN & ERICSON, 2008). The differences between organic and conventional systems for cereal are large enough to justify the development of plant breeding programs that are specific for the organic production system (WOLFE et al, 2008).…”

Assessing Selection Parameters for Improving Yield in Organically Grown Onion

“…Since the cultivars traditionally grown in conventionally maintained systems have been developed under high input conditions, they do not necessarily satisfy all the requirements of organic agriculture (enhanced nutrient use efficiency, competitive ability against weeds, disease tolerance). Therefore, the increasing interest in organically produced vegetables leads to an increasing demand to select cultivars meeting the requirements of this farming system (Kristensen and Ericson, 2008;Vlachostergios and Roupakias, 2008;Wolfe et al, 2008;Reid et al, 2009;.…”