Nitrogen is an essential element of wheat growth and grain quality. Leaf nitrogen content (LNC), a critical monitoring indicator of crop nitrogen status, plays a reference role for later estimations of grain protein content (GPC). Developments in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platforms and multispectral sensors have provided new approaches for LNC monitoring and GPC estimation, with great convenience

In temperate systems, it is well known that forage legumes can improve both nitrogen (N) supply and yields of subsequent cereal crops. While this is assumed to be true in tropical systems, it is less well tested, particularly in smallholder settings where forage is often cut and removed from the field. This paper confirms the potential of short phases of tropical forage legumes to provide N to subsequent

Understanding the influence of thermal trends, crop management practices, and genetics on the crop developmental stages and phases is critical to develop adaptation strategies in the face of warming trends. The specific study objectives were to determine the correlation between observed potato phenology with the trends of rising temperature, and to investigate the impacts of thermal trend, crop management

The differences in root and stem structure between lodging resistant (LR) and susceptible (LS) genotypes have yet to be fully understood in maize (Zea mays L.). To clarify these differences, lodging rates and yield of LS genotype XunDan20 (XD20) and LR genotype FuMin985 (FM985) across five locations in China from 2014 to 2018 were investigated. Simultaneously, field experiments including genotypes

The recent introduction of soybean cultivation in Belgium and several other north-western European countries holds great potential for sustainable agriculture. Agricultural practices must be fine-tuned to optimise yield and quality before soybean will become a profitable crop for Belgian farmers. The effect of inoculation and N fertilisation on crop yield, protein content and relative profitability

Farmers constantly adapt cropping systems to meet their needs. Cocoa farming is frequently associated with low incomes and little access to technical innovations for the small farmers and their families who are responsible for most cocoa production around the world. A collaborative approach, including different professionals working in the Dominican cocoa sector, led to the emergence of many technical

Climate change-induced heat waves represent a severe threat to future global crop production. The extent of heat stress for agricultural crops depends on the co-occurrence of heat periods and heat sensitive phenological stages. Using the Wang and Engel phenology model and the most recent climate change projections for four sites across the Swiss Central Plateau, we estimated future heat stress exposure

Root rot diseases of sugar beet resulted by Rhizoctonia solani, Pythium aphanidermatum can arouse significant losses in sugar beet crops. Simple and accurate statistical techniques are essential to predict sugar beet yield loss as an industrial crop for agricultural management specialists. The objectives of the present study were to compare: (1) the prediction capabilities of different statistical

In 2018, Spain was the third largest producer and the leading exporter of wine in the world. Viticulture is an important economic activity in the Castilla y León region, and is an element capable of halting the flight from the countryside and favouring demographic settlement in rural areas. A new integrated methodology for characterizing and delimitating areas suitable for vineyard cultivation is proposed

Accurate monitoring of crop transpiration (T) is essential for saving and managing irrigation water resources. Ground and UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) thermal infrared (TIR) images have high enough resolution to meet the needs of precision agriculture. At present, they are mostly used to assess crop water stress instead of to monitor T, especially through UAV TIR images. And the pixel scale effect

Decisions regarding the harvest time of rice are of critical significance to labor management and agricultural machinery dispatching to avoid unnecessary losses. However, the comprehensive composition of harvest loss and its variation rules remain poorly understood. Our objectives were to optimize the harvesting date to improve the paddy rice yield (PRY) of long and short-grain rice (LG and SUI) by

Assessing the plant nitrogen (N) status is one of the major challenges for improving N fertilization management and reducing its environmental footprint on forage-based agricultural systems. We re-analyzed a dataset of biomass (W) and plant N concentration (%N) of tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) using a Bayesian statistical model for estimating the coefficients of the critical N (%Nc) dilution

Conservation tillage has been proposed as an effective way to conserve soil water in dryland agriculture. However, long-term continuous mono-tillage including conservational and conventional tillage has been proved to have limited improvements or some defects on soil structure and nutrients enhancement. Combining different tillage practices in a rational rotation that adapts to the cropping system

Localized micro-dose fertilization near the seed or root zone can maximize returns from minimal fertilizer inputs. In transplanted rice production systems, two opportunities exist for implementing localized micro-dose fertilization: Micro-dosing the nursery bed at sowing and dipping seedling roots at transplanting. Previous studies have focused on the individual effects of these management options

In crop production, calculating nitrogen (N) inputs and outputs are essential for tracing losses to enhance fertilizer N use efficiency, crop productivity, and environmental sustainability. The present study reports the N balance sheet of a 19-year old nutrient management experiment on a rice-wheat system in an Inceptisol of the subtropical region of North India. Long-term application of fertilizer

Selecting and breeding crop varieties with high economic benefits is of great significance for social stability and development. The economic benefit of crops is usually reflected by the purchase price. Traditional estimation of economic benefits using purchase price formula based on manual measured traits is time-consuming. Structure-from-Motion in conjunction with multi-view stereo (SFM-MVS) method

Prediction of lucerne phenological and morphological development is important for optimising the defoliation schedule and time of other management events. A challenge for any lucerne phenology module is to capture the seasonality of development processes in response to environment, management and genotype. To date, lucerne phenological modules have not been evaluated under different defoliation regimes

Globally, important nitrogen fertilizer decisions are often made at the early stages of plant development, when plants are not yet sufficiently indicative of their needs. Optimizing nitrogen fertilization of crops requires assessing the available soil mineral nitrogen content (Nmin) at the beginning of the season and was assessed exemplarily for wheat and maize. Since 2020 a mandatory soil Nmin analysis

The impacts of long-term fertilization on soil bacterial communities remain unclear due to non-consistent results from different studies, which may be attributed to different soil types and field managements. Therefore, we studied the responses of bacterial communities and soil properties to different inorganic and inorganic-organic fertilizer treatments after 40-year (1980–2019) operation of a maize

New data platforms have made satellite data freely available and farmers can now produce variable rate application (VRA) maps for nitrogen fertilisers and other inputs based on satellite images. The data platforms are currently attracting attention for site-specific weed management because they are free and user-friendly. Satellite imagery is mainly relevant for detecting large, dense weed patches

The deterministic approach in crop modeling simplifies uncertainty present in the environment using a unique parameter set. In practice, this uncertainty is seen in the variability of data collected in a field experiment. One way to exploit this uncertainty is to use the stochastic approach, by inserting the range of plausible variability into the simulation’s parameters and inputs. This study aims

Cover crops provide a wide range of benefits to farms and the environment, but this is not reflected in current adoption rates of cover cropping. If cover crops are grown for forage they may raise more interest among farmers whether as feed or as income. The objective of this study was to evaluate if introducing annual winter cover crops will contribute to the yield and quality of annual forage production

Global gridded crop models (GGCMs) are increasingly used for climate risk assessments and adaptation planning in agriculture. GGCM historical simulation performance is therefore crucial for such applications. However, GGCM performance is lower for rice than for other crops at an aggregated administrative unit level despite the lack of a clear difference in model performance at the site level. Here

Branched broomrape (Phelipanche ramosa (L.) Pomel) is a parasitic plant, which causes severe yield losses in major crops worldwide. Due to its broad host range, including numerous non-parasitic weed species, the persistence of its seeds in the soil, and the poor efficiency of available management techniques, broomrape management is complex. In a previous paper, we developed a broomrape-dynamics model

Grapevine yield is defined as the quantity of harvest, expressed as either grape mass or wine volumeunits, which has been collected per surface unit are and per crop cycle. The information about current and future yield, termed a yield assessment in this paper, is an essential decision-making element for the grape and wine industry. Crop management, wine-making, commercial, accounting and strategic

The concept of the critical nitrogen (Ncrit) dilution curve and the derived NNI is generally accepted and used for many crops to describe the crop N status during vegetative growth. Based on field trials with different N treatments carried out in northern Germany, we identified Ncrit curves based on shoot DM, leaf DM and stem DM for winter wheat (2003/04 - 2007/08), winter oilseed rape (OSR, 2003/04

This work addresses the dynamic of phenological development on mean stage weight (MSW), chemical composition, (ash, nitrogen (N), neutral detergent fibre (NDF) and acid detergent fibre (ADF) contents, and pepsin-cellulase dry matter digestibility (PCDMD) for cultivars of six perennial grass species (timothy, ryegrass, cocksfoot, sheep’s fescue, red fescue and meadow foxtail), during their first growth

A three-year field experiment investigated the potential yield benefits and soil effects from over winter cover crops in Scotland, U.K. Brassica composition of cover crops significantly increased the grain yield and grain nitrogen (N) concentration of the following spring barley crop. The increased yield with cover crops was outweighed by increased costs and thus without subsidy (Ecological Focus Area)

Aerobic or partially-aerobic rice cultivation techniques like direct-seeding of rice (DSR) and system of rice intensification (SRI) are gaining recognition, particularly for water-saving. However, their productivity is often constrained by several deficiencies in the soil-plant system (crop nutrition in particular). The study aimed to assess crop eco-physiology and soil-plant nutrient dynamics in rice-lentil

Intercropping is often proposed as a valid agroecological tool for low-input arable farming, but few studies assess it at the farm level. We set up a farm experiment to test a wheat-Persian clover temporary intercropping system (Pcw, unfertilized wheat sown at 330 seeds m−2, and clover sown in paired rows; Pcwbc, unfertilized wheat sown at 330 seeds m−2, and clover broadcast sown) against a farm system

Clover-based crop stands are gaining importance in temporary grasslands for intensive livestock production. However, knowledge of their optimal composition to achieve high temporal stability of forage provision is insufficient, particularly so for long cultivation periods. A five-year field trial was conducted to study the effect of adding a non-leguminous forb to clover-based crop stands and to evaluate

Most studies found the benefit of biochar in increasing plant photosynthetic rate (PR), but how experimental conditions affect PR response to biochar application remains unclear. Therefore, we performed a meta-analysis by including 965 pairwise comparisons from 135 studies. Generally, biochar application enhanced PR by 23 % on average, a statistically significant increase relative to the control. However

Spectral vegetation indices have proved versatile for rapid, non-destructive estimation of different canopy parameters. A combination of the canopy chlorophyll content index (CCCI) and the canopy nitrogen index (CNI) was used in previous studies to predict the canopy nitrogen (N) status of wheat until the end of stem elongation (Zadoks stage 13–37). The objective of this study was to evaluate and extend

Maize (Zea mays L.) height morphological traits (i.e., plant height, ear height, and ear ratio) are important parts of maize plant type structure and have played an important role in the improvement of maize lodging resistance and historical increases in grain yield. In this study, field experiments were conducted from 2013 to 2016 at 23 sites in China between 26°30′–46°45′ N latitude and 81°19′–130°16′

Potential shortages in the reserves of phosphorus (P) rock and low soil P availability are among the main limiting factors for agricultural development. Recent studies show that biochar plays a crucial role in regulating soil physicochemical properties and crop development. To further verify the contribution of biochar to availability of soil P and nutrient efficiency of crop P, a maize continuous

Reducing uncertainty and productive risk increase the resilience of agricultural systems and food security of a region. While crop productivity strongly depends on weather conditions during the growing season, El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon is the main driver of global interannual climate variability and affects crop production in many regions. The ENSO, Pacific Decadal Oscillation

Winter oilseed rape (WOSR) is Europe’s prime oilseed crop and is grown for biofuel and edible oil production. To investigate the effects of climate change on the yield of winter oilseed rape, two crop models (HERMES and HUME-OSR) were used. This study investigated the sensitivity of crop model parameters (as a proxy of plant traits) under climate change. For both models, a global sensitivity analysis

Pasture fertilization may influence the subsequent corn crop in integrated crop-livestock systems, but few tools exist to assess the likelihood and magnitude of this carryover effect. Our goals were to determine whether a previous pasture with N fertilization could supply adequate N nutrition to a succeeding corn crop and affect its P and K nutrition using the concept of N dilution curve and relationships

Mechanistic models are useful tools for understanding and taking account of the complex, dynamic processes such as carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) turnover in soil and crop growth. In this study, the EU-Rotate_N model was first calibrated with measured C and N mineralization from nine potential fertilizer resources decomposing at controlled soil temperature and moisture. The materials included seaweeds

The frequency and timing of nitrogen (N) application on corn strongly influences environmental N losses and yield, particularly in different weather. Split N application is a 4R (Right Source, Right Rate, Right Time, Right Place) nutrient management practice that ensures sufficient N supply when the crop needs it most, minimizing N losses to the environment, while allowing N rate adaptations as the

Identifying approaches to producing greater amounts of rice with higher water productivity (WP) and nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) is a major challenge for economical, environmentally friendly rice production. Despite the advantages of controlled-release N fertilizers, few studies have investigated their effects on rice agronomic performance, grain yield, NUE and WP under different irrigation regimes

Sweet potato is a tuberous root with versatility in food products, but also with applications in the energy industry, such as in ethanol production. Developing mechanisms to assess the performance of this crop is important, difficult, and costly, as its commercial product grows below ground. The use of remote sensing to evaluate the development of sweet potato has not yet been reported in the literature

Olive orchards represent a key agricultural system with high economic and environmental prominence. Expected future climate tendencies over the Mediterranean could threaten the sustainability of such strategic tree crop. This study evaluates the productive and environmental performance of olive orchards under different climate change scenarios and management strategies across the main olive-farming

The crop growth model (CGM) widely contributes to studying the impacts of regional climate change on crop growth status and yield. However, it requires high-quality daily weather data for the model establishment and verification, and the low data availability limits the application of CGM at the regional scale. With the rapid development of machine learning techniques, adapting data-driven machine

In the next decades, the population is expected to rise by more than two billion people, and the projections of climate change have been considered as one of the greatest future challenges for world food security. Soybean represents more than 60 % of all plant protein produced in the world, and Brazil is the largest world exporter and the second-largest producer. In this paper, we simulated soybean

Branched broomrape (Phelipanche ramosa (L.) Pomel) is a parasitic plant, which causes severe yield losses in major crops worldwide. Because of its broad host range, including numerous non-parasitic weed species, the persistence of its seeds in the soil, and the poor efficiency of available management techniques, broomrape management is complex. The objective of the present paper was to develop a broomrape-dynamics

Cover crops have a high potential to manage weeds through competition for shared resources in tropical agrosystems. Assessing the abilities of a large number of different plant species to compete with weeds requires experiments in different pedo-climatic environments. Our study was based on a set of 10 trials including 46 species of cover crops performed from 2016 to 2018 in three sites in Reunion

The productivity of permanent temperate cut grasslands is mainly driven by weather, soil characteristics, botanical composition and management. To adapt management to climate change, adjusting the cutting dates to reflect earlier onset of growth and expansion of the vegetation period is particularly important. Simulations of cut grassland productivity under climate change scenarios demands management