Sustainability of maize-based cropping systems is a major challenge for southern Africa, yet the demand for maize as staple food and animal feed in the region continues to increase. A study was conducted on a sandy clay loam (220 g clay kg-1 soil) at Domboshawa in Zimbabwe to investigate the long-term effects of organic resource quality and application rate, and nitrogen (N) fertilization on so...

Cropping sequence diversification provides a systems approach to reduce yield variations and improve resilience to multiple environmental stresses. Yield advantages of more diverse crop rotations and their synergistic effects with reduced tillage are well documented, but few studies have quantified the impact of these management practices on yields and their stability when soil moisture is limi...

It has long been concerned how crop water use efficiency (WUE) responds to climate change. Most of existing researches have emphasized the impact of single climate factor but have paid less attention to the effect of developed agronomic measures on crop WUE. Based on the long-term field observations/experiments data, we investigated the changing responses of crop WUE to climate variables (tempe...

Rice is one of the key food grains linked to the food security of the growing population of the world. India has largest rice area in the world and stands second in production. The rice crop is important both from the food security and climate change point of view. The present paper highlights rice-growing pattern in India derived using satellite remote sensing and Geographic Information System...

Options to tackle the sustainability challenges faced in the production of rice, including global and local environmental perspectives, need to be discussed. Here, the global warming potential, water consumption and cumulative energy demand were analyzed using a life-cycle assessment to highlight the sustainability aspects of rice production in Taiwan, where a mixed organic and conventional ric...

Emerald, north-east Queensland, is at the northern margin of the wheat cropping region of Australia. The Emerald region was previously used predominantly for grazing beef cattle; however, cropping has developed in importance over the past 30 years. We use historical climate records (1890-1998) to simulate and compare wheat yields, grass production and live-weight gain (LWG) over time. The cropp...

the study carried out an assessment of agricultural land management practices in food crops production among small scale farmers in kwara sate, nigeria. specifically, the study determined the socio economic characteristics of crop farmers in kwara state; ascertained the cropping patterns common among them; highlighted the soil conservation methods adopted by the farmers; examined the relationsh...

Cropping intensity is an important indicator of the intensity of cropland use and plays a very important role in food security. In this study, we reconstructed a normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) time-series from 1982 to 2012 using the Savitzky-Golay (S-G) technique and used it to derive a multiple cropping index (MCI) combined with land use data. Spatial–temporal patterns of variat...

The introduction of leguminous crops for crop rotation can mitigate the negative effects continuous cropping on soil health. In this experiment, we designed ten patterns to optimise effect with different combinations types, planting years, and order in a mainly potato-growing region. A 5-year cycle three crops, undertaken Inner Mongolia since 2009, was used test properties microbial structure. ...