corn–soybean cropping systems predominate. The effect of these cropping systems on indicators of soil quality Understanding long-term management effects on soil properties is only partially understood. Soil organic C has been is necessary to determine the relative sustainability of cropping systems. Soil physical, chemical, and biological properties were measured shown to increase in monocultur...

Reducing pesticide use is one of the high-priority targets in the quest for a sustainable agriculture. Until now, most studies dealing with pesticide use reduction have compared a limited number of experimental prototypes. Here we assessed the sustainability of 48 arable cropping systems from two major agricultural regions of France, including conventional, integrated and organic systems, with ...

The choice of crops and their management can strongly influence soil microbial communities and their processes. We used lipid biomarker profiling to characterize how soil microbial composition of five potential bioenergy cropping systems diverged from a common baseline five years after they were established. The cropping systems we studied included an annual system (continuous no-till corn) and...

Citation: Chi J, Maureira F, Waldo S, Pressley SN, Stöckle CO, O’Keeffe PT, Pan WL, Brooks ES, Huggins DR and Lamb BK (2017) Carbon and Water Budgets in Multiple Wheat-Based Cropping Systems in the Inland Pacific Northwest US: Comparison of CropSyst Simulations with Eddy Covariance Measurements. Front. Ecol. Evol. 5:50. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2017.00050 Carbon and Water Budgets in Multiple Wheat-Bas...

Most soil studies aim a better characterization of the system through indicators. In the present study nematofauna and soil structure were chosen as indicators to be assess soil health as related to agricultural practices. The field research was carried out on the two fodder cropping systems continuous maize (CM, Zea mays L.) and a 3-year rotation of silage-maize – silage-barley (Hordeum vulgar...

Soil microbial community structure and crop yield was investigated in field tomato production systems that compared black polyethylene mulch to hairy vetch mulch and inorganic N to organic N. The following hypotheses were tested: (1) hairy vetch cover cropping increases crop yield and significantly affects soil microbial community structure when compared to the standard plastic mulch and synthe...

Arable cropping systems have developed and continue to change in response to economic and social pressures. Concern for the state of wildlife and the quality of soil and water has led to further pressures on the way that crops are farmed. There is therefore an ongoing debate about the future of arable farming. This review summarizes current information about the impacts of arable cropping syste...

Human population growth in the developing world drives land-use changes, impacting food security. In India, the dramatic change in demographic dynamics over the past century has reduced traditional agricultural land-use through increasing commercialization. Here, we analyze the magnitude and implications for the farming system by the introduction of cash-cropping, replacing the traditional slas...

Many sustainable agronomical practices can be adopted to contain environmental risks of crop production and, at the same time, sustain yield and quality. In this framework, the aim of this research was to study the effects of continuous cropping (CC) and crop rotation, tillage and fertilization strategies on durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) production. The responses of soil properties we...