Download or read book Soil Health Indicators for Sustainable Agriculture in the United States and Malawi written by Xinyi Tu and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maintaining SH (SH) is critical for sustainable field crop production. The first step to understanding drivers is evaluating the effects of climate, soil edaphic properties, and management practices from an on-farm study across a regional scale on SH. Thus, I integrated on-farm research, farmer participatory approach, and statistical analysis to understand the SH drivers in the United States and Malawi. In summary, I assessed the SH indicators through two perspectives with various statistical models: 1) understand various viewpoints on SH assessment; and 2) integrating Bayesian statistical analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis, and principal component analysis to determine the drivers of SH and yield in Michigan, U.S. and the Central and Southern region of Malawi.SH is assessed through soil physical, chemical, and biological properties. However, researchers used various minimum laboratory SH dataset, resulting in the inconsistency in research studies. On-site SH evaluations recommended by extension educators were not always adopted by farmers. In this chapter, we compared the common indicators in laboratory analysis and on-farm evaluation through literature review and used a Likert Scale to understand farmers' views in Michigan. Maintaining SH (SH) is critical for sustainable field crop production. The first step to understanding drivers is evaluating the effects of climate, soil edaphic properties, and management practices from an on-farm study across a regional scale on SH. Thus, the farmer participatory approach and statistical analysis were integrated to understand the SH drivers in the United States and Malawi. In summary, SH indicators were assessed in this study through two perspectives with various statistical models: 1) understand various viewpoints on SH assessment; and 2) integrating Bayesian statistical analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis, and principal component analysis to determine the drivers of SH and yield in Michigan, U.S. and the Central and Southern region of Malawi.SH is assessed through soil physical, chemical, and biological properties. However, researchers used various minimum laboratory SH datasets, resulting in inconsistency in research studies. On-site SH evaluations recommended by extension educators were not always adopted by farmers. In Chapter 1, a Likert study was employed to understand farmers' views of common soil health indicators in Michigan. The results showed that the concept of SH assessment should be consistent and clear in research studies and extension education materials.Soil degradation is the most challenging yield-limiting factor in Sub-Saharan Africa. Without the information of current soil carbon status, farmers do not have sufficient information for deciding the appropriate management practice. Malawi's rain-fed maize system is a representation of the rain-fed maize cropping system in East Africa. In Chapter 2, soil analyses were conducted on 1108 focal plots in Central and Southern Malawi to better understand the current total and labile soil carbon status. Bayesian statistical approaches were employed to evaluate environmental and management drivers for soil total and labile carbon on Malawi smallholder fields. Overall, clay content and the vegetative cover are positive drivers for soil total and labile carbon.To better understand the SH across the regional scale in the Midwest United States, an on-farm study of 242 focal plots was conducted in Michigan. In Chapter 3, participatory monitoring and Bayesian linear regression models were used to investigate the impact of various drivers on SH indicators under a range of conditions in the state of Michigan. Location effects were observed, with each of the three regions differing in their climate, soil edaphic properties, and management practices. Overall, climate and soil edaphic properties were the dominant drivers of SH, management practices, which also play a critical role, especially in enhancing soil biological indicators.When evaluating SH, multivariate statistical analysis is generally used due to the inherent correlation among the variables. In Chapter 4, hierarchical cluster analysis and principal component analysis were adopted to evaluate the 1) interrelationship of various SH indicators; and 2) drivers of the variation across focal plots and local clusters. Besides the high correlated SH indicators, independent variables provide valuable information. The key determinant of SH indicators is geographical clusters. Farmers' management practices should be site-specific and goal-oriented considering the tradeoff between residual nitrogen and soybean yield.

Download or read book Farmer and Scientist based Soil Quality Indicators written by M. Jason Garlynd and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Approaches to Soil Health Analysis Soil Health series Volume 1 written by Douglas L. Karlen and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-08-24 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Approaches to Soil Health Analysis A concise survey of soil health analysis and its various techniques and applications The maintenance of healthy soil resources provides the foundation for an array of global efforts and initiatives that affect humanity. Whether they are working to combat food shortages, conserve our ecosystems, or mitigate the impact of climate change, researchers and agriculturalists the world over must be able to correctly examine and understand the complex nature of this essential, fragile resource. These new volumes have been designed to meet this need, addressing the many dimensions of soil health analysis in chapters that are concise, accessible and applicable to the tasks at hand. Soil Health, Volume One: Approaches to Soil Health Analysis provides a well-rounded overview of the various methods and strategies available to analysists, and covers topics including: The history of soil health and its study Challenges and opportunities facing analysists Meta-data and its assessment Applications to forestry and urban land reclamation Future soil health monitoring and evaluation approaches Offering a far-reaching survey of this increasingly interdisciplinary field, this volume will be of great interest to all those working in agriculture, private sector businesses, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), academic-, state-, and federal-research projects, as well as state and federal soil conservation, water quality and other environmental programs.

Download or read book Soil Health Soil Biology Soilborne Diseases and Sustainable Agriculture written by Graham Stirling and published by CSIRO PUBLISHING. This book was released on 2016-03 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our capacity to maintain world food production depends heavily on the thin layer of soil covering the Earth's surface. The health of this soil determines whether crops can grow successfully, whether a farm business is profitable and whether an enterprise is sustainable in the long term. Farmers are generally aware of the physical and chemical factors that limit the productivity of their soils but often do not recognise that soil microbes and the soil fauna play a major role in achieving healthy soils and healthy crops. Soil Health, Soil Biology, Soilborne Diseases and Sustainable Agriculture provides readily understandable information about the bacteria, fungi, nematodes and other soil organisms that not only harm food crops but also help them take up water and nutrients and protect them from root diseases. Complete with illustrations and practical case studies, it provides growers and their consultants with holistic solutions for building an active and diverse soil biological community capable of improving soil structure, enhancing plant nutrient uptake and suppressing root pests and pathogens. The book is written by scientists with many years' experience developing sustainable crop production practices in the grains, vegetable, sugarcane, grazing and horticultural industries. This book will be useful for: growers, consultants, agronomists and soil chemists, extension personnel working in the grains, livestock, sugarcane and horticultural industries, professionals running courses in soil health/biological farming, and students taking university courses in soil science, ecology, microbiology, plant pathology and other biological sciences.

Download or read book Land Quality Indicators and Their Use in Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Land and Water Development Division and published by Food & Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO). This book was released on 1997 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Biological Indicators of Soil Health written by Clive Pankhurst and published by Cabi. This book was released on 1997 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1. Defining and assessing soil health and sustainable productivity 2. The relationship of soil health to ecosystem health 3. Rationale for developing bioindicators of soil health 4. Bioindicators: perspectives and potential for land users, researchers and policy makers 5. Soil microbial biomass, activity and nutrient cycling as indicators of soil health 6. Soil enzyme activities as integrative indicators of soil health 7. Soil microflora as bioindicators of soil health 8. Potential use of plant root pathogens as bioindicators of soil health 9. Soil microfauna as bioindicators of soil health 10. Community structure of soil arthropods as a bioindicator of soil health 11. Can the abundance or activity of soil macrofauna be used to indicate the biological health of soils? 12. Biodiversity of soil organisms as indicators of soil health 13. Biomonitoring of soil health by plants 14. Bioindicators to detect contamination of soils with special reference to heavy metals 15. Chemical and molecular approaches for rapid assessment of the biological status of soils 16. Use of genetically modified microbial biosensors for soil ecotoxicity testing 17. Biological indicators of soil health: synthesis.

Download or read book Laboratory Methods for Soil Health Analysis Soil Health series Volume 2 written by Douglas L. Karlen and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-08-24 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Laboratory Methods for Soil Health Analysis Analyzing, comparing, and understanding soil health data The maintenance of healthy soil resources is instrumental to the success of an array of global efforts and initiatives. Whether they are working to combat food shortages, conserve our ecosystems, or mitigate the impact of climate change, researchers and agriculturalists the world over must be able to correctly examine and understand the complex nature of this essential resource. These new volumes have been designed to meet this need, addressing the many dimensions of soil health analysis in chapters that are concise, accessible and applicable to the tasks at hand. Soil Health, Volume Two: Laboratory Methods for Soil Health Analysis provides explanations of the best practices by which one may arrive at valuable, comparable data and incisive conclusions, and covers topics including: Sampling considerations and field evaluations Assessment and interpretation of soil-test biological activity Macro- and micronutrients in soil quality and health PLFA and EL-FAME indicators Offering a practical guide to collecting and understanding soil health data, this volume will be of great interest to all those working in agriculture, private sector businesses, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), academic-, state-, and federal-research projects, as well as state and federal soil conservation, water quality and other environmental programs.

Download or read book Soil Health Indicators as Tools to Understand The Effects of Disturbance written by Devyn Mc Pheeters and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soil health refers to a soil's ability to sustain biological life into the future while maintaining water and air quality. No-till agriculture has become a primary strategy to improve soil health in row-crop production in the United States. Growers who have adopted no-till practices are typically highly reluctant to use any type of tillage out of concern for its effects on the health of their soil. The two primary objectives of this thesis research were 1) to examine the effects on soil health of one-time inversion tillage in a six-year rotation including canola, corn, soy, cover crops and perennials and 2) to compare soil health effects of contrasting fertilization methods, involving either surface applications or incorporation using reduced disturbance, in a corn-soy rotation. These objectives were approached using four soil health indicators: total organic carbon, bulk density, labile carbon, and aggregate stability, to determine the impacts of different management strategies implemented at the Dairy Cropping Systems Experiment (DCSE) at the Penn State Agronomy Research Farm at Rock Springs, PA. This experiment had been initiated in 2010 as a full crop entry experiment, with all phases of the crop rotations planted every year in a randomized complete block design, replicated four times. The channery silt loam soil at this site was sampled in spring 2010 prior to the start of the experiment and in 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021 at two depths: 0-5 and 5-15 cm for labile and total carbon and to 15 cm for aggregate stability. The research conducted under Objective One is described in Chapter Two of this thesis. The management system under study was a six-year crop rotation that included two approaches to terminating the perennial forage crop--termination by standard herbicides or by inversion tillage. The aim was to assess soil health effects of once-in-six-year tillage as a strategy for herbicide reduction (T1/6) when compared to no-tillage using standard herbicide treatment (NT). Although tillage initially reduced total soil organic and labile carbon, plots that were tilled showed similar soil health levels as the continuous no-till plots in all four indicators after two full years in perennial forage. Results from this analysis indicated that soil health can return to no-till levels despite a tillage event if rotated to perennial forage for sufficient years. The research for Objective Two is described in Chapter Three and involved a more traditional corn-soy rotation, which had been included in the Dairy Cropping Systems Experiment because it is common among grain crop growers. Soil health indicators were compared in soils subjected to four fertilizer application strategies: no-till with broadcast manure (NT-BM), chisel disk with broadcast manure (CD-BM), no-till with broadcast synthetic fertilizer (NT-SF), and no-till with injected manure (NT-IM). Despite the classification of chisel-disk as a type of conservation tillage, the CD-BM strategy had the highest expected potential to reduce soil health because of its increased level of disturbance. Investigating the impact of CD on soil health was the primary focus of this chapter. There was also some expectation that injected manure would reduce soil health due to disturbance associated with injection, which also motivated comparison of the three different no-till strategies. Soil total organic carbon, labile carbon, and aggregate stability were all reduced in the CD-BM strategy, though no effects due to tillage were observed at the 5-15 cm depth. Additionally, there were no differences between the effects of the three no-till strategies on soil health. Results from this analysis suggest that soil health is negatively impacted by chisel disking compared to no-till, but that manure injection does not appear to affect soil health. The concluding chapter of this thesis summarizes the results of both studies and provides recommendations for farmers and future research. Reducing tillage intensity is critical to improving soil health, though strategic timing of one-time tillage events may alleviate some of the herbicide requirement typically associated with no-till, particularly when these events are coupled with perennials in rotation. Chisel-disking may be a positive alternative to more intensive tillage practices, but it showed short-term negative impacts compared to no-till. Overall, this thesis supports the idea that reducing disturbance and increasing perenniality of systems is the key to long-term improvements to soil health.

Download or read book Soil Health Analysis Set written by Douglas L. Karlen and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-08-13 with total page 527 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume 1 briefly reviews selected “Approaches to Soil Health Analysis” including a brief history of the concept, challenges and opportunities, meta-data and assessment, applications to forestry and urban land reclamation, and future soil health monitoring and evaluation approaches. Volume 2 focuses on “Laboratory Methods for Soil Health Analysis” including an overview and suggested analytical approaches intended to provide meaningful, comparable data so that soil health can be used to guide restoration and protection of our global soil resources.

Download or read book Soil Health Indicators and Sustainable Practices on Indy Urban Farms written by Rebecca L. Lewis and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Urban agriculture is capable of restoring ecosystem services like food production, recreation, and clean soil and water to cities. Urban farms in particular can help relieve pressure for areas with limited food access, also known as food desserts. This is especially important to the community of Indianapolis because the city is tied for the most food desert areas within a U.S. metropolitan area. To help a community, an urban farm must have healthy, nutrient rich soils. Nitrogen is the most limiting nutrient for plants when it comes to growth and development. Plants cannot produce nitrogen; they acquire the mineral by external inputs (mulch, manure, fertilizer etc.) or internal N-fixing bacteria. If biological nitrogen fixation increases, the immediate and long-term nitrogen supply would increase, leading to an increase in ecological sustainability. In addition to nitrogen, carbon is another mineral that can tell researchers a lot about the health of a soil system. Organic carbon is a major factor for plants, it promotes the structure, of soil, and it also acts as a pH buffer. The goal of this project is to test if common urban farming management processes are increasing the health of the ecosystem at the level of the soil. To analyze this, we looked at multiple different health indicators including: organic matter composition, percentage of carbon and nitrogen, carbon nitrogen ratio, soil pH, and bulk density of the soil samples collected. It is hypothesized that soil samples retrieved from actively farmed land will have increased health indicators. If this is true, farmed samples will be more similar to naturally established ecosystems than controlled, unfarmed samples with regard to the indicators tested. The soils used were collected from multiple sites around the city. Because of this, the data collected can be analyzed in a larger context with the goal of helping farms across Indianapolis restore fundamental ecosystem functions and improve overall sustainability"--Pages 4-5.

Download or read book Routledge Handbook of Sustainability Indicators written by Simon Bell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-06-14 with total page 659 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook provides researchers and students with an overview of the field of sustainability indicators (SIs) as applied in the interdisciplinary field of sustainable development. The editors have sought to include views from the center ground of SI development but also divergent ideas which represent some of the diverse, challenging and even edgy observations which are prominent in the wider field of SI thinking. The contributions in this handbook: • clearly set out the theoretical background and history of SIs, their origins, roots and initial goals • expand on the disciplines and modalities employed to develop SIs of various kinds • assess the various ways in which SI data are gathered and the availability (over space and time) and quality issues that surround them • explore the multiplex world of SIs as expressed in agencies around the world, via examples of SI practice and the lessons that have emerged from them • critically review the progress that SIs have made over the last 30 years • express the divergence of views which are held about the value of SIs, including differing theories on their efficacy, efficiency and ethics • explore the frontier of contemporary SI thinking, reviewing ante/post and systemic alternatives This multidisciplinary and international handbook will be of great interest to researchers, students and practitioners working in sustainability research and practice.

Download or read book Sustainable Intensification written by Jules N. Pretty and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-06-25 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Continued population growth, rapidly changing consumption patterns and the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation are driving limited resources of food, energy, water and materials towards critical thresholds worldwide. These pressures are likely to be substantial across Africa, where countries will have to find innovative ways to boost crop and livestock production to avoid becoming more reliant on imports and food aid. Sustainable agricultural intensification - producing more output from the same area of land while reducing the negative environmental impacts - represents a solution for millions of African farmers. This volume presents the lessons learned from 40 sustainable agricultural intensification programmes in 20 countries across Africa, commissioned as part of the UK Government's Foresight project. Through detailed case studies, the authors of each chapter examine how to develop productive and sustainable agricultural systems and how to scale up these systems to reach many more millions of people in the future. Themes covered include crop improvements, agroforestry and soil conservation, conservation agriculture, integrated pest management, horticulture, livestock and fodder crops, aquaculture, and novel policies and partnerships.

Download or read book Soil Acidity and Plant Growth written by A Robson and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2012-12-02 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soil Acidity and Plant Growth emerged from concerns over increasing acidification of soils under improved pastures over wide areas of southern Australia. While the book has its origin in the problems of acidification of Australian soils under pastures, the authors examine soil acidity within a much broader framework, making their views relevant to all agricultural and natural ecosystems on acid soils. The book's first two chapters discuss the chemistry of soil acidity and the ecological processes leading to it. This is followed by separate chapters on biological responses to soil acidity, covering mineralization of soil nitrogen, incidence of plant diseases, plant mycorrhizal associations, symbiotic nitrogen fixation in legumes, and genetic variability in plant response to toxicities. The remaining chapters focus on the correction of soil acidity problems by liming. These include studies on the rates of application and effectiveness of liming materials; and the development and use of computer modelling procedures to help researchers identify the effects and interactions of soil pH on component processes and to provide assistance to farmers in the management of long-term subterranean clover pastures.

Download or read book Sustainable Agriculture Reviews 32 written by Eric Lichtfouse and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-11-08 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book summarise advanced knowledge and methods to recycle waste and fertilise soils in agriculture. In the near future, waste recycling will no longer be an option because natural resources become rare and costly, urbanisation is blooming and population is growing. In theory, most waste could be recycled. In practice, most waste is wasted. Remarkable aspects include the concepts of waste hierarchy eco-houses in smart cities, microbes and fungi for plant nutrition, and benefits of legume cultivation, biochar application and agropastoralism.

Download or read book Universal Food Security written by Glenn Denning and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-03 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What would it take to achieve a genuinely food-secure world—one without hunger or malnutrition, where everyone gets to consume the right quantity and quality of food to live a healthy, active, and productive life? Bringing about such a future requires transforming how our food is grown, managed, and distributed. From production to consumption, food systems must be sustainable, halting environmental degradation and even repairing the damage we have previously done. This book provides an accessible guide to making healthy diets from sustainable food systems available to all. Glenn Denning bridges the divisive worlds of science, policy, and practice. He synthesizes the most relevant literature and shares personal perspectives and insights gained over four decades working in more than fifty countries, coupled with the real-world experience of hundreds of leading experts. Universal Food Security lays out key priorities—sustainable intensification, market infrastructure, postharvest stewardship, healthy diets, and social protection—and presents how to achieve food systems transformation. Denning identifies the education and development of practitioner-leaders as the critical trigger of change. Universal Food Security informs and inspires those leaders—acting on their own and with others through institutions—to achieve a food-secure world. This book is an ideal handbook for students and practitioners looking to transform our food systems at all levels.

Download or read book Soil Health written by Bhoopander Giri and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book gathers the latest insights into soil health and its sustainability, providing an up-to-date overview of the various aspects of soil quality and fertility management, e.g., plant-microbe interactions to maintain soil health; and the use of algal, fungal and bacterial fertilizers and earthworms for sustainable soil health and agricultural production. It first dicusses the past, present, and future scenarios of soil health, and then explores factors influencing soil health, as well as the consequences of degradation of soil health for sustainable agriculture. Lastly it highlights solutions to improve and maintain soil health so as to achieve greater productivity and sustainability without damaging the soil system or the environment. Soil health is defined as the capacity of a soil to function within ecosystem frontiers, to sustain biological productivity, to maintain environmental quality and to promote plant, animal and human health. Soil health is established through the interactions of physical, chemical and biological properties, e.g., soil texture, soil structure, and soil organisms. Healthy soil provides adequate levels of macro- and micronutrients to plants and contains sufficient populations of soil microorganisms. As a result of the increasingly intensified agriculture over the past few decades, soils are now showing symptoms of exhaustion and stagnating or declining crop yields. Exploring these developments as well as possible solutions based on holistic and sustainable approaches, this book is a valuable resource for researchers in the area of soil and environmental science, agronomy, agriculture, as well as students in the field of botany, ecology and microbiology.

Download or read book Instant Insights written by E. A. Stockdale and published by Burleigh Dodds Science: Instant Insights. This book was released on 2021-12-21 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection features four peer-reviewed literature reviews on soil health indicators The first chapter describes indicators and frameworks for soil health currently in use. It evaluates the principles underpinning current approaches to monitoring soil quality/health and shows these principles have been applied in the development of a practical soil health toolkit for use by UK farmers. The second chapter reviews the range of physical, chemical and biological indicators of soil health and how they can be used in practice. It focusses on measuring soil health in organic vegetable cultivation and, in particular, ways of measuring the effects of adding organic amendments to improve soil health. The third chapter discusses key issues in soil organic carbon (SOM) modelling and the development of increasingly sophisticated, dynamic SOM models. It looks at the role of SOM models in improving soil health monitoring and developing decision support tools for farmers The final chapter reviews current challenges in collecting more systematic and reliable data on earthworm communities, including issues in identifying different earthworm groups. It includes a case study on developing a robust method for accurate measurement of earthworm communities in soil in assessing and improving soil health. What is an Instant Insight? An Instant Insight gives you immediate access to key research on a topic, allowing you to get right to the heart of a subject in an instant and empowering you to contribute to sustainable agriculture.