• Authors:
    • Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space
  • Year: 2009
  • Summary: The DNDC model is a process-base model of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) biogeochemistry in agricultural ecosystems. This document describes how to use the PC Windows versions of the DNDC model for predicting crop yield, C sequestration, nitrate leaching loss, and emissions of C and N gases in agroecosystems. Part I provides a brief description of the model structure with relevant scientific basis. Part II describes how to install the model. Part III and IV demonstrate how to conduct simulations with the site and regional versions of DNDC, respectively. Part V provides basic information for uncertainty analysis with DNDC. Part VI contains six case studies demonstrating the input procedures for simulating crop yield, soil C dynamics, nitrate leaching loss, and trace gas emissions. A list of relevant publications is included in Part VII. These publications provide more information about the scientific background and applications of DNDC far beyond this User's Guide. DNDC9.3 can run in two modes: site or regional. By selecting the mode, the users will open a corresponding interface to manage their input information for the modeled site or region.
  • Authors:
    • Holloway, S.
    • Smith, G.
    • Ravenscroft, N.
    • Henderson, I. G.
  • Source: Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment
  • Volume: 129
  • Issue: 1-3
  • Year: 2009
  • Summary: This 6-year experimental study measured the response of bird populations and abundance to combinations of mixed cropping and low pesticide regimes associated with a commercial crop rotation. The results show a rapid and sustained population increase among a wide range of bird species, in contrast to local regional trends for the same species. Seventy percent of the increase occurred within the first 3 years of the experiment, with species of high conservation concern, and those monitored as environmental indicators on lowland farmland in the UK, increasing on average, by 30% and 20% respectively (reaching respective peaks of 44% and 33% after 4 years). For some individual species, the increase was higher still, i.e., 300% (1-4 pairs) for grey partridge (Perdix perdix) and 46% (13-19 pairs) for skylarks (Alauda arvensis) in peak years. The results demonstrate that bird species typical of lowland arable farmland in the UK are responsive to suitable farm-scale changes in habitat and food provision (roughly, manipulation within less than 1-km2). They show that the carrying capacity of modern, commercially viable, arable farmland can be increased significantly for birds, in this case, mainly by using crops mosaics to create habitats alongside the appropriate use of herbicides on non-cropped habitats.
  • Authors:
    • Gladders, P.
    • Ellis, S.
    • Cook, S.
    • Berry, P.
    • Twining, S.
    • Wynn, S.
    • Clarke, J.
  • Source: HGCA Research Review
  • Issue: 70
  • Year: 2009
  • Summary: This report reviews the most important scenarios that could affect the availability of pesticides (fungicides, herbicides, insecticides and rodenticides) for use in wheat, winter barley, spring barley, oats and oilseed rape, and describes the effects of reduced pesticide availability as an outcome of the revision of Directive 91/414/EEC on weeds, pests and diseases they control, and on the resultant level of production and value that the crop could achieve. The analysis focused on changes in yield and quality, and the area affected, taking into account simple changes in management to mitigate the problems, such as changes in cultivation, cultivars, sowing rate and planting date.
  • Authors:
    • Wolfe, M.
    • Boyd, H.
    • Haigh, Z.
    • Jones, H.
    • Clarke, S.
  • Source: Cultivating the future based on science. Volume 1: Organic Crop Production. Proceedings of the Second Scientific Conference of the International Society of Organic Agriculture Research (ISOFAR), held at the 16th IFOAM Organic World Conference in Cooperatio
  • Year: 2008
  • Summary: Two seasons (2005/06 and 2006/07) of field experiments which aimed to study the suitability of new and established husked oat varieties, variety mixtures and a husked oat population for organic systems were established at two sites in the west and east of the UK. The ground cover and leaf area indices of the varieties had significant effects on final yields in the 2005/06. Mixtures generally yielded similarly to the means of component varieties but the mixtures in 2005/06 and 2006/07 had 25% and 18% less disease, respectively, than the average of the component varieties at one site.
  • Authors:
    • Scudamore, K.
  • Source: World Mycotoxin Journal
  • Volume: 1
  • Issue: 3
  • Year: 2008
  • Summary: The cereal food chain covers events from the sowing of the seed until the point of ingestion of a food by the consumer. Mycotoxins may develop prior to harvest or through inadequate storage. Most mycotoxins are inherently stable natural chemicals but cleaning, milling and different methods of processing can change their concentrations. Legislation is necessary to protect the consumer so it is important to consider, among other things, the relationship between concentrations of mycotoxins in the raw grains and those in the product purchased by the consumer, especially where different limits are specified at successive stages in manufacture. Recent studies of the fate of fusarium mycotoxins in the cereal food chain carried out alongside industry in the UK have examined changes in the concentrations of deoxynivalenol, nivalenol, T-2 toxin, HT-2 toxin and zearalenone in wheat, maize and oats and the fumonisin mycotoxins in maize at key stages in the cereal chain. For example, fumonisin concentrations in maize grits after milling were reduced by about 75% compared with the raw maize, but remained similar to the maize in the flour and were increased (*3 to *5) in the bran and meal. Maize flour and grits were then processed into a range of food products such as breakfast cereals, cornflakes, extruded snack products and tortillas and the changes in concentrations were established. Simple extrusion of flour or grits reduced fumonisins by a further 30-70% depending on the process. Deoxynivalenol and zearalenone were found to be more stable than fumonisins during most processes.
  • Authors:
    • Williams, A.
    • Moxey, A.
    • Rees, B.
    • Barnes, A.
    • McVittie, A.
    • Matthews, R.
    • Pajot, G.
    • Eory, V.
    • Wall, E.
    • MacLeod, M.
    • Moran, D.
  • Year: 2008
  • Authors:
    • DEFRA
  • Year: 2008
  • Authors:
    • Fuller, R. J.
    • Blain, A.
    • Smart, S.
    • Petit, S.
    • Firbank, L. G.
  • Source: Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society B: biological Sciences
  • Volume: 363
  • Issue: 1492
  • Year: 2008
  • Summary: Agricultural intensification is best considered as the level of human appropriation of terrestrial net primary production. The global value is set to increase from 30%, increasing pressures on biodiversity. The pressures can be classified in terms of spatial scale, i.e. land cover, landscape management and crop management. Different lowland agricultural landscapes in Great Britain show differences among these pressures when habitat diversity and nutrient surplus are used as indicators. Eutrophication of plants was correlated to N surplus, and species richness of plants correlated with broad habitat diversity. Bird species diversity only correlated with habitat diversity when the diversity of different agricultural habitats was taken into account. The pressures of agricultural change may be reduced by minimizing loss of large habitats, minimizing permanent loss of agricultural land, maintaining habitat diversity in agricultural landscapes in order to provide ecosystem services, and minimizing pollution from nutrients and pesticides from the crops themselves. While these pressures could potentially be quantified using an internationally consistent set of indicators, their impacts would need to be assessed using a much larger number of locally applicable biodiversity indicators.
  • Authors:
    • Lehmann, J.
    • Gaunt, J. L.
  • Source: Environmental Science & Technology
  • Volume: 42
  • Issue: 11
  • Year: 2008
  • Summary: Compared to its use as an energy source biochar produced by slow pyrolysis is more effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions when used as a soil conditioner.
  • Authors:
    • Bateman, G.
    • Jenkyn, J.
    • Gutteridge, R.
  • Source: Annals of Applied Biology
  • Volume: 150
  • Issue: 1
  • Year: 2007
  • Summary: Take-all disease ( Gaeumannomyces graminis var. tritici) in wheat crops is known to be suppressed by naturally occurring antagonistic fungi, closely related to the pathogen, that infect grasses and cereals. This form of suppression was re-investigated because of the changing importance and role of grass weeds and grass covers in arable farming. Natural populations of the competitive fungus Gaeumannomyces cylindrosporus, allowed to develop under rye-grass, were more effective than artificially introduced populations in suppressing the development of take-all in following wheat crops. To be effective, the antagonist needs to be present before the start of wheat cropping. Introducing G. cylindrosporus, but not G. graminis var. graminis (a potential antagonist that is faster growing), into a previous crop, or just after the previous crop, sometimes suppressed take-all, but the effect was small. It is concluded that, for any future attempts at biocontrol by these fungi, they should be introduced into a preceding crop not susceptible to take-all. Take-all inoculum in the soil should be at a minimum and effective hosts of the take-all pathogen must not be present as weeds or volunteers.