• Authors:
    • Huang, W.
    • Xiao, L.
    • Wang, H.
    • Pan, G.
    • Zheng, Y.
  • Source: Guizhou Agricultural Sciences
  • Issue: 1
  • Year: 2009
  • Summary: The intercropping and interplanting between maize and potato were studied in Guizhou, China, to investigate the application rates and cultivation measures for balance high yield in the dry land with middle and lower yield. The maximum profit of the dry land with middle and lower yield in Nayong county with middle and high elevation was 1336.55 yuan/667 m 2 under the application ratio of 1:0.53:0.83 of N:P 2O:K 2O, and the comprehensive utilization rate of N, P 2O and K 2O was 33.52, 17.51 and 44.71%. The maximum profit of the dry land with middle and lower yield in Weining county with high elevation was 1349.09 yuan/667 m 2 under the application ratio of 1:0.69:1.10 of N:P 2O:K 2O, and the comprehensive utilization rate of N, P 2O and K 2O was 29.68, 10.58 and 26.80%, respectively.
  • Authors:
    • [Anonymous]
  • Source: XIIIeme Colloque International sur la Biologie des Mauvaises Herbes
  • Year: 2009
  • Summary: These proceedings contain 61 papers classified under sections on agroecology, ecology of weed communities, integrated weed management, herbicide resistance, and invasive plants. Specific topics covered include the following: reduction of weed growth by cutting and competition; evaluation of weed diversity; biodiversity of medicinal plant species in the segetal communities in the Opole region (Poland); simulation of insect resistance in gene flow study between Brassica napus and wild B. juncea; effects of the harvesting season of sugarcane on weed growth dynamic in La Reunion Island; impact of volunteer rape on the productivity of barley; relationship between biomass and seed production by Alopecurus myosuroides after herbicide treatment; weed emergence patterns in winter cereals under zero tillage in dry land areas; size and composition of the weed seed bank after 12 years of continuous application of different fertilizer systems; multi-criteria evaluation of cropping systems prototypes based on integrated weed management; a rapid test of glyphosate resistance in ryegrass; cross resistance in Sinapis alba to ALS-inhibiting herbicides; resistance to glyphosate in Europe; and herbicide-resistant weeds in Iran.
  • Authors:
    • Mazurana, M.
    • Debiasi, H.
    • Trein, C.
    • Levien, R.
    • Conte, O.
  • Source: Ciencia Rural
  • Volume: 39
  • Issue: 4
  • Year: 2009
  • Summary: This study evaluates the effect of machine traffic, soil mobilization, soil cover by crop residues and water supply on corn under no tillage on a Paleudult. Machine traffic intensity, working depth of driller shank furrow opener for fertilizer deposition and amount of residues covering the soil surface, with and without irrigation, were evaluated. The experimental design used was split plot, with 36 plots being 18 with irrigation and 18 without irrigation. The treatments were quantities (0, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 8 Mg ha -1) of black oats ( Avena strigosa) and vetch ( Vicia sativa) residues, two driller shank depths for fertilizer deposition (6 and 12 cm) and traffic machine conditions (tractor and combine) in a triple factorial design with three replicates. Corn was sowed in 12/10/2005, using 62.000 seeds per hectare. A basal dressing of NPK 5-20-20 was applied at a rate of 400 kg ha -1. Two top dressing nitrogen applications were performed, totalizing 180 kg ha -1 of N. Corn grain yield, plant population and root dry matter were evaluated. Corn yield and plant population were influenced by presence or absence of irrigation. None of the above parameters were modified by working depth of driller shank furrow opener for fertilizer deposition. Wheel traffic conditions affected corn yield and plant population.
  • Authors:
    • Cameron, C.
    • Kearney, G.
    • Dowling, P.
    • Quigley, P.
    • Cousens, R.
    • Chapman, D.
    • Tozer, K.
  • Source: Crop & Pasture Science
  • Volume: 60
  • Issue: 11
  • Year: 2009
  • Summary: A field experiment was established in a southern Australian temperate pasture to investigate the effects of identity and proximity of perennial grasses on the demography of the annual grasses Vulpia spp. ( V. myuros, V. bromoides) and Hordeum leporinum (barley grass). Annual grasses were grown either alone or in mixtures, at different distances from rows of Dactylis glomerata (cocksfoot) and Phalaris aquatica (phalaris). Dactylis had a greater suppressive effect than Phalaris on Vulpia and Hordeum. Biomass, tiller production, and panicle production of annual grasses increased linearly with increasing distance from the perennial row. Tiller and panicle production were greater for Vulpia than Hordeum. The estimated rate of population growth (lambda) for annual grasses was greater in Phalaris than in Dactylis and in Vulpia than in Hordeum, and increased with sowing distance from perennial grass rows. It was estimated that lambda, when seeds were sown directly adjacent to a row of perennial grasses, was 1 and 0.4 for Vulpia and Hordeum, respectively, within Dactylis stands, and 7 and 3, respectively, within Phalaris stands. However, 15cm from the row, lambda reached 50 and 39 for Vulpia and Hordeum, respectively, within Phalaris stands, and 39 and 16, respectively, within Dactylis stands. In grazed, dryland pastures, perennial competition alone is therefore unlikely to prevent population growth of annual grasses, especially in systems heavily disturbed by grazing or drought. However, Dactylis showed more promise than Phalaris in limiting the abundance of these weeds.
  • Authors:
    • Baldock, J.
    • Unkovich, M.
    • Marvanek, S.
  • Source: Crop & Pasture Science
  • Volume: 60
  • Issue: 7
  • Year: 2009
  • Summary: Dryland agriculture is both a potential source and potential sink for CO 2 and other greenhouse gases. Many carbon accounting systems apply simple emissions factors to production units to estimate greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes. However, in Australia, substantial variation in climate, soils, and management across >20 Mha of field crop sowings and >30 Mha of sown pastures in the intensive land use zone, provides substantial challenges for a national carbon accounting system, and simple emission factors are unlikely to apply across the region. In Australia a model framework has been developed that requires estimates of crop dry matter production and harvested yield as the first step to obtain carbon (residue) inputs. We use Australian Bureau of Statistics data to identify which crops would need to be included in such a carbon accounting system. Wheat, barley, lupin, and canola accounted for >80% of field crop sowings in Australia in 2006, and a total of 22 crops account for >99% of the sowing area in all States. In some States, only four or six crops can account for 99% of the cropping area. We provide a ranking of these crops for Australia and for each Australian State as a focus for the establishment of a comprehensive carbon accounting framework. Horticultural crops, although diverse, are less important in terms of total area and thus C balances for generic viticulture, vegetables, and orchard fruit crops should suffice. The dataset of crop areas presented here is the most comprehensive account of crop sowings presented in the literature and provides a useful resource for those interested in Australian agriculture. The field crop rankings presented represent only the area of crop sowings and should not be taken as rankings of importance in terms of the magnitude of all GHG fluxes. This awaits a more detailed analysis of climate, soils, and management practices across each of the regions where the crops are grown and their relationships to CO 2, nitrous oxide and methane fluxes. For pastures, there is a need for more detailed, up to date, spatially explicit information on the predominant sown pasture types across the Australian cropping belt before C balances for these can be more reliably modelled at the desired spatial scale.
  • Authors:
    • Smith, M.
    • Barnard, A.
  • Source: Field Crops Research
  • Volume: 112
  • Issue: 2/3
  • Year: 2009
  • Summary: Preharvest sprouting (PHS) is a risk factor in winter cereal farming in certain environments as even mild sprouting affects the suitability of wheat for end-use products. This is because even mild sprouting affects the suitability of wheat for end-use products. The extent of PHS is hard to predict. To establish a quantitative relationship between PHS and different climatic characteristics, eighteen winter wheat cultivars were planted in three regions representative of the wheat growing conditions of the Free State Province of South Africa over four years. Climatic characteristics during six environmental periods were investigated, namely planting to harvest (PH), anthesis to harvest (AH), grain filling (GF), 14 days prior to physiological maturity (14M) and 10 and 20 days prior to harvest (10H and 20H) respectively. These data sets were correlated with PHS resistance determined in a rain simulator to determine if climate during various stages of grain development had an effect on the expression of dormancy and subsequent PHS. Principal component analysis (PCA) on mean PHS values identified three distinct groupings of cultivars, ranging from PHS susceptible to PHS resistant. A fairly strong positive correlation ( r=0.715, P=0.008) was found between PHS and minimum temperature during grain filling. Large variations in PHS values were also observed between the various cultivars, indicating that certain cultivars, such as Caledon, Gariep, Limpopo, Matlabas, PAN 3118, PAN 3120, PAN 3377 and SST 334, are more sensitive to environmental effects than others and that the variation in cultivar PHS is not consistent across sites and years.
  • Authors:
    • Kovacs, I.
    • Lantos, C.
    • Pauk, J.
    • Cseuz, L.
  • Source: Cereal Research Communications
  • Volume: 37
  • Issue: Suppl. 1
  • Year: 2009
  • Summary: Drought tolerance of wheat was tested by a mobile automatic rain shelter (MARS) in a conventional pedigree breeding program of Cereal Research Non-Profit Ltd. Co. (CRC) in Szeged. The MARS, parallel with ideal water supply gives a good chance for field testing of relatively high number of genotypes for drought tolerance. Using the automatic rain shelter which was installed in 2006, advanced lines of winter wheat could be tested for tolerance to water shortages under irrigated (control treatment) and under dry conditions. Withdrawal of water caused significant effects on yield and yield components and raised the canopy temperature of the genotypes tested. We have developed a novel breeding system by which we can routinely select for drought resistance. The methods applied can easily be incorporated into our working pedigree breeding system.
  • Authors:
    • Basnyat, P.
    • Liu, P.
    • Lemke, R.
    • Janzen, H.
    • Campbell, A.
    • Gan, T.
    • McDonald, C. L.
  • Source: Canadian Journal of Plant Science
  • Volume: 89
  • Issue: 5
  • Year: 2009
  • Summary: Crop roots transport water and nutrients to the plants, produce nutrients when they decompose in soil, and provide organic C to facilitate the process of C sequestration in the soil. Many studies on these subjects have been published for cereal crops, but little is known for oilseed and pulse crops. This study was conducted at Swift Current, Saskatchewan, in 2006 and 2007 to characterize the root growth and distribution profile in soil for selected oilseed and pulse crops. Three oilseed [canola ( Brassica napus L.), mustard ( Brassica juncea L.), flax ( Linum usitatissimum L.)], three pulse crops [chickpea ( Cicer arietinum L), dry pea ( Pisum sativum L.) lentil ( Lens culinaris Medik.)], and spring wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.) were grown in 100 cm deep * 15 cm diameter lysimeters pushed into a silt loam soil. Crops were studied under rainfed and irrigated conditions. Lysimeters were removed from the field and sampled for above-ground (AG) and root mass at different depths at five growth stages. Root mass was highest for canola (1470 kg ha -1) and wheat (1311 kg ha -1), followed by mustard (893 kg ha -1) and chickpea (848 kg ha -1), and was lowest for dry pea (524 kg ha -1) and flax (440 kg ha -1). The root mass of oilseeds and pulses reached a maximum between late-flowering and late-pod stages and then decreased to maturity, while wheat root mass decreased to maturity after reaching a maximum at boot stage. On average, about 77 to 85% of the root mass was located in the 0-40 cm depth. Canola, mustard, and wheat rooted to 100 cm, while the pulses and flax had only 4 to 7% of the root mass beyond the 60 cm depth. Irrigation only increased root mass in the 0-20 cm depth. Roots developed more rapidly than AG biomass initially, but the ratio of root biomass to AG biomass decreased with plant maturity. At maturity, the ratio of root biomass to AG biomass was 0.11 for dry pea, and between 0.20 and 0.22 for the other crops tested. Our findings on rooting depths and root mass distribution in the soil profile should be useful for modelling water and nutrient uptake by crops, estimating C inputs into soil from roots, and developing diverse cropping systems with cereals, oilseeds and pulses for semiarid environments.
  • Authors:
    • Hill, J.
    • Jacobs, J. L.
    • Jenkin, T.
  • Source: Animal Production Science
  • Volume: 49
  • Issue: 7
  • Year: 2009
  • Summary: The efficient production and subsequent utilisation of home-grown forage is seen as the cornerstone of profitability of the dairy industry as it leads to lower unit costs of milk production compared with purchased forage or grain supplements. Cereals such as wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.), oats ( Avena sativa L.) and triticale ( Triticum * Triticosecale) all have the potential to produce high forage dry matter (DM) yields. These forages are not widely grown within dryland Australian dairy systems and there is a paucity of information on both the agronomic requirements and subsequent ensiling and feed-out management under these conditions. The experiment reported in this paper examines the DM yield, nutritive and ensiling characteristics of three small-grain cereals (triticale, wheat and oats) cut at various stages of development and ensiled with or without silage additives. We hypothesised that: (1) delaying harvesting until later stages of growth would result in higher DM yields, but negatively impact on both nutritive and fermentation characteristics of subsequent silages; (2) ensiling wilted material at earlier harvests would improve fermentation characteristics compared with direct ensiled material; and (3) the use of silage additives at all harvests would improve fermentation characteristics of resultant silages compared with untreated silages. Apart from winter oats, the estimated metabolisable energy of forages was highest at the boot stage of growth, declined during anthesis and then rose again during milk and soft-dough stage of growth. The crude protein content of forages declined with maturity, with final values at soft dough below 90 g/kg DM. Neutral detergent fibre content was highest at anthesis and then declined, with lowest values observed at soft dough (497-555 g/kg DM). In the majority of cases silages were well preserved, with direct ensiled material having pH values generally below 4.5 and wilted material below 5.0, with limited proteolysis as assessed by ammonia-N contents in the range of 5-15% of total-N. The production of volatile fatty acids and lactic acid was influenced by wilting and the use of additives. Generally, wilted silages fermented less than the corresponding direct ensiled forages, whereas the use of Sil-All 4*4 additive resulted in a lactic acid-dominant fermentation compared with LaSil additive, which resulted in a greater proportion of acetic acid as an end product of fermentation. The findings of the present study highlight the potential of forage cereals to produce high DM yields for whole crop cereal silage. The timing of harvest directly influences nutritive characteristics of forages for ensiling. The use of silage additives can assist in controlling fermentation pathways during ensilage, ensuring the production of silages with fermentation attributes more likely to lead to higher intakes when fed to animals.
  • Authors:
    • Penfold, C. M.
    • McNeill, A. M.
  • Source: Crop and Pasture Science
  • Volume: 60
  • Issue: 2
  • Year: 2009
  • Summary: Maintenance of available phosphorus (P) is a problem faced by both conventional and organic systems but it is exacerbated in the latter given that manufactured inorganic sources of P fertiliser are not permitted under the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements certification guidelines. The focus of this paper is a discussion of potential agronomic strategies to assist in sustainable management of the soil P resource in organic and low-input broadacre farming systems within the Australian rain-fed cereal-livestock belt. The paper considers three broad strategies for agronomic management of P in this context and draws on reported research from overseas and within Australia. An analysis of the current knowledge suggests that the option most likely to ensure that soluble P is not a limitation in the system is the importation of allowable inputs that contain P from off-farm, although for much of the Australian cereal-livestock belt the immediate issue may be access to economically viable sources. Research targeted at quantifying the economic and biological benefits to the whole-farm system associated with the adoption of these practices is required. Improving the P-use efficiency of the system by incorporating species into rotation or intercropping systems that are able to use P from less soluble sources has been a successful strategy in parts of the world with climate similar to much of the Australian cereal-sheep belt, and deserves further research effort in Australia. Agronomic management to maximise quantity and quality of pasture and crop plant residues undoubtedly builds labile soil organic matter and facilitates P cycling, but the strategy may be of limited benefit in low-rainfall areas that do not have the capacity to produce large biomass inputs. Evidence that organic or low-input systems naturally increase the numbers and diversity of soil organisms is sparse and published studies from Australian systems suggest that P nutrition is not enhanced. However, seed and soil microbial inoculants to facilitate improved P uptake have been developed and are currently being field tested in Australia. Progress in selection and breeding for cereal genotypes that are more P efficient and other plant genotypes that can use less labile P sources, is gaining momentum but still remains a long-term prospect, and may involve genetic modification which will not be acceptable for organic systems.