Conservation Agriculture as a Potential Strategy to Increase Soil Quality in Colombian Agroecosystems

Tillage and soil quality Tillage practices for sustainable agriculture and environmental quality in different agroecosystems

For centuries tillage has been used to prepare suitable seedbed to grow crops, and to control weeds and incorporate fertilizers, pesticides, manures and other amendments. In early years conversion of native ecosystems by tillage helped to unlock nutrients stored in soil organic matter, and thus `mine' naturally fertile soils to grow crops with minimum inputs for the growing population. However,...

Biodiversity conservation in tropical agroecosystems: a new conservation paradigm.

It is almost certainly the case that many populations have always existed as metapopulations, leading to the conclusion that local extinctions are common and normally balanced by migrations. This conclusion has major consequences for biodiversity conservation in fragmented tropical forests and the agricultural matrices in which they are embedded. Here we make the argument that the conservation ...

Remote Sensing of Soil and Water Quality in Agroecosystems

Mismanagement of soil and water resources may not only contribute to an escalation of global poverty but also jeopardize ecosystem services, with significant costs to the environment. Although not concentrated within one geographic location (3,500 million hectares), an equivalent of approximately 24 % of the earth’s land surface is degraded land, and about 2 billion people (one third of the glo...

Assessing Soil Quality in Organic Agriculture

Soil Organic Carbon Sequestration with Conservation Agriculture in the Southeastern Usa: Potential and Limitations

The carbon (C) cycle is the basis for greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. Globally, agriculture is responsible for about 20% of the greenhouse gas emissions. However, this percentage does not take into account the large role that agriculture plays in the opposing processes of photosynthesis and respiration (Figure 1), as well as contributions to soil organic C sequestration via animal ...