in order to study the effects of drought stress on yield and yield components of safflower genotypes, a split plot based on randomized complete block design with four replications was performed at the research field, islamic azad university, arak, iran during summer of 2009. irrigation treatments included three levels of 100, 75 and 50% crop water requirement and four levels of safflower genoty...

Perimeter trap cropping (PTC) is a method of integrated pest management (IPM) in which the main crop is surrounded with a perimeter trap crop that is more attractive to pests. Blue Hubbard (Cucurbita maxima Duch.) is a highly effective trap crop for butternut squash (C. moschata Duch. ex Poir) attacked by striped cucumber beetles (Acalymma vittatum Fabricius), but its limited marketability may ...

Assessment of management-induced changes in soil quality is important to sustaining high crop yield. A large diversity of cultivated soils necessitate identification development of an appropriate soil quality index (SQI) based on relative soil properties and crop yield. Whereas numerous attempts have been made to estimate SQI for major soils across the World, there is no standard method establi...

Improved crop yield forecasts could enable more effective adaptation to climate variability and change. Here, we explore how to combine historical observations of crop yields and weather with climate model simulations to produce crop yield projections for decision relevant timescales. Firstly, the effects on historical crop yields of improved technology, precipitation and daily maximum temperat...

Strip tillage with various crop covers in peanut (Arachis hypogaea, L.) production has not shown a clear yield advantage over conventional tillage, but has been found to reduce yield losses from some diseases. This study was conducted to determine pod yield and disease incidence between two tillage practices, five winter cover crops, three peanut cultivars, and three fungicide programs. Convent...

Temperature and CO2 are two important parameters related to climate change, which affect crop yield. In this study, an attempt has been made to assess the impact of these two factors on the productivity of the four major cereal food crops (wheat, rice, maize and pearl millet) taking New Delhi as study area. This study also aims at identifying the most sensitive growth phase of these crops to th...

Many of the undernourished people on the planet obtain their entitlements to food via agricultural-based livelihood strategies, often on underperforming croplands and smallholdings. In this context, expanding cropland extent is not a viable strategy for smallholders to meet their food needs. Therefore, attention must shift to increasing productivity on existing plots and ensuring yield gaps do ...

Agriculture of the inland arid region in Xinjiang depends on irrigation, which forms oasis of Northwest China. The production and water use of wheat, a dominant crop there, is significantly affected by undergoing climate variability and change. The objective of this study is to quantify inter-annual variability of wheat yield and water use from 1955 to 2006. The farming systems model APSIM (Agr...

H Harvest index (HI), ratio of seed yield to aboveground dry matter, is a very important parameter for estimating seed yield in several crop models. In this study, the importance, definition, variability and estimation methods of HI in crop models were discussed. HI estimation methods are categorized into two groups including: (i) complex methods that estimate HI from the beginning of seed gro...

Effective adaptation determines agricultural vulnerability to climate change, especially in the pre-industrial era. Crop management as an agricultural adaptation to climate change in recent human history, however, has rarely been systematically evaluated. Using Europe as our study area, we statistically compared yield ratio of wheat, rye, barley, and oats (an important performance indicator of ...