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Author Allan, C.; Nguyen, T.P.L.; Seddaiu, G.; Wilson, B.; Roggero, P.P.
Title Integrating local knowledge with experimental research: case studies on managing cropping systems in Italy and Australia Type Journal Article
Year 2013 Publication Italian Journal of Agronomy Abbreviated Journal (down) Ital. J. Agron.
Volume 8 Issue 2 Pages 15
Keywords participatory action research; agronomic research; local knowledge; knowledge integration
Abstract The sustainable development of agricultural systems is currently challenged by many complex agro-environmental issues. These are characterized by an incomplete understanding of the situation and the problems that arise, and the conflicting opinions that result, issues over boundaries that are often difficult to define, and controversy over the multiple goals and uncertain outcomes. Added to these characteristics, we also have the slow and often inadequate uptake and implementation of research outcomes in this complex, real world. In order to improve sustainability of agro-ecosystems, agronomic research must move away from the linear research approaches and extension practices adopted so far that have focused purely on biophysical agro-ecosystems. The theoretical operational space of agronomic research must be transformed by considering agronomic issues as part of a broader social-agro-ecosystem. One aspect of this transformation is the inclusion of knowledge collected on a local level with the participation of farmers on the ground. The integration of local experiential knowledge with traditional agronomic research is by necessity based on the participation of many different stakeholders and there can be no single blueprint for how best to develop and use the input received. However, agronomists and policy advisors require general guidelines drawn up from actual experience in order to accelerate positive agronomic change. We address this need through a comparative analysis of two case studies; one involves multi-stakeholder research in a cropping system in the dairy district of Arborea, Sardinia, Italy. The central question was: How can high crop production be maintained while also achieving the EU target water quality and minimizing the production costs? The second case is a multi-stakeholder soil health project from south-eastern Australia. Here the central question was: How can soil decline be prevented and reversed in this district, and soils made more resilient to future challenges? The Social Learning for the Integrated Management and sustainable use of water (SLIM) framework, a useful heuristic tool for exploring the dynamics of transformational change, guided the analysis of the case studies. Within this framework, a key indicator of success is the emergence of new knowledge from the creation of new spaces for learning between researchers and local stakeholders. The Italian case study appears to have been the most successful in this sense, as opportunities for joint exploration of research data allowed new potential farming responses to the central question to emerge. The multi-stakeholder processes in the Australian case focused more on providing public openings for individual learning, and missed the opportunity for new knowledge to emerge through joint exploration. We conclude that participatory approaches may enable transformative practice through knowledge integration, but that this process is not an automatic outcome of increased community participation.
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Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 2039-6805 1125-4718 ISBN Medium Article
Area Expedition Conference
Notes CropM Approved no
Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4482
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Author Lipiec, J.; Doussan, C.; Nosalewicz, A.; Kondracka, K.
Title Effect of drought and heat stresses on plant growth and yield: a review Type Journal Article
Year 2013 Publication International Agrophysics Abbreviated Journal (down) International Agrophysics
Volume 27 Issue 4 Pages 463-477
Keywords water stress; high temperature; root and shoot; growth; tolerance mechanisms; management practices; water-use efficiency; soil physical-properties; abscisic-acid; high-temperature; root systems; hydraulic architecture; conservation tillage; photosystem-ii; l. genotypes; drying soil
Abstract Drought and heat stresses are important threat limitations to plant growth and sustainable agriculture worldwide. Our objective is to provide a review of plant responses and adaptations to drought and elevated temperature including roots, shoots, and final yield and management approaches for alleviating adverse effects of the stresses based mostly on recent literature. The sections of the paper deal with plant responses including root growth, transpiration, photosynthesis, water use efficiency, phenotypic flexibility, accumulation of compounds of low molecular mass (eg proline and gibberellins), and expression of some genes and proteins for increasing the tolerance to the abiotic stresses. Soil and crop management practices to alleviate negative effects of drought and heat stresses are also discussed. Investigations involving determination of plant assimilate partitioning, phenotypic plasticity, and identification of most stress- tolerant plant genotypes are essential for understanding the complexity of the responses and for future plant breeding. The adverse effects of drought and heat stress can be mitigated by soil management practices, crop establishment, and foliar application of growth regulators by maintaining an appropriate level of water in the leaves due to osmotic adjustment and stomatal performance.
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Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0236-8722 ISBN Medium Review
Area Expedition Conference
Notes CropM, ft_macsur Approved no
Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4608
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Author Conradt, T.; Wechsung, F.; Bronstert, A.
Title Three perceptions of the evapotranspiration landscape: comparing spatial patterns from a distributed hydrological model, remotely sensed surface temperatures, and sub-basin water balances Type Journal Article
Year 2013 Publication Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Abbreviated Journal (down) Hydrol. Earth System Sci.
Volume 17 Issue 7 Pages 2947-2966
Keywords senegal river-basin; data assimilation; sensing data; regional evapotranspiration; intercomparison project; environmental-models; oklahoma experiments; solar-radiation; satellite data; scale
Abstract A problem encountered by many distributed hydrological modelling studies is high simulation errors at interior gauges when the model is only globally calibrated at the outlet. We simulated river runoff in the Elbe River basin in central Europe (148 268 km(2)) with the semi-distributed eco-hydrological model SWIM (Soil and Water Integrated Model). While global parameter optimisation led to Nash-Sutcliffe efficiencies of 0.9 at the main outlet gauge, comparisons with measured runoff series at interior points revealed large deviations. Therefore, we compared three different strategies for deriving sub-basin evapotranspiration: (1) modelled by SWIM without any spatial calibration, (2) derived from remotely sensed surface temperatures, and (3) calculated from long-term precipitation and discharge data. The results show certain consistencies between the modelled and the remote sensing based evapotranspiration rates, but there seems to be no correlation between remote sensing and water balance based estimations. Subsequent analyses for single sub-basins identify amongst others input weather data and systematic error amplification in inter-gauge discharge calculations as sources of uncertainty. The results encourage careful utilisation of different data sources for enhancements in distributed hydrological modelling.
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Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1607-7938 ISBN Medium Article
Area Expedition Conference
Notes CropM Approved no
Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4485
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Author Waha, K.; Müller, C.; Rolinski, S.
Title Separate and combined effects of temperature and precipitation change on maize yields in sub-Saharan Africa for mid- to late-21st century Type Journal Article
Year 2013 Publication Global and Planetary Change Abbreviated Journal (down) Global and Planetary Change
Volume 106 Issue Pages 1-12
Keywords climate change; wet season; water stress; temperature stress; hierarchical cluster analysis; global vegetation model; climate-change; southern africa; east-africa; part i; food; heat; agriculture; variability; impacts
Abstract Maize (Zea mays L) is one of the most important food crops and very common in all parts of sub-Saharan Africa. In 2010 53 million tons of maize were produced in sub-Saharan Africa on about one third of the total harvested cropland area (similar to 33 million ha). Our aim is to identify the limiting agroclimatic variable for maize growth and development in sub-Saharan Africa by analyzing the separated and combined effects of temperature and precipitation. Under changing climate, both climate variables are projected to change severely, and their impacts on crop yields are frequently assessed using process-based crop models. However it is often unclear which agroclimatic variable will have the strongest influence on crop growth and development under climate change and previous studies disagree over this question. We create synthetic climate data in order to study the effect of large changes in the length of the wet season and the amount of precipitation during the wet season both separately and in combination with changes in temperature. The dynamic global vegetation model for managed land LPJmL is used to simulate maize yields under current and future climatic conditions for the two 10-year periods 2056-2065 and 2081-2090 for three climate scenarios for the A1b emission scenario but without considering the beneficial CO2 fertilization effect. The importance of temperature and precipitation effects on maize yields varies spatially and we identify four groups of crop yield changes: regions with strong negative effects resulting from climate change (<-33% yield change), regions with moderate (-33% to -10% yield change) or slight negative effects (-10% to +6% yield change), and regions with positive effects arising from climate change mainly in currently temperature-limited high altitudes (>+6% yield change). In the first three groups temperature increases lead to maize yield reductions of 3 to 20%, with the exception of mountainous and thus cooler regions in South and East Africa. A reduction of the wet season precipitation causes decreases in maize yield of at least 30% and prevails over the effect of increased temperatures in southern parts of Mozambique and Zambia, the Sahel and parts of eastern Africa in the two projection periods. This knowledge about the limiting abiotic stress factor in each region will help to prioritize future research needs in modeling of agricultural systems as well as in drought and heat stress breeding programs and to identify adaption options in agricultural development projects. On the other hand the study enhances the understanding of temperature and water stress effects on crop yields in a global vegetation model in order to identify future research and model development needs. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0921-8181 ISBN Medium Article
Area Expedition Conference
Notes CropM, ft_macsur Approved no
Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4508
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Author Waha, K.; Müller, C.; Bondeau, A.; Dietrich, J.P.; Kurukulasuriya, P.; Heinke, J.; Lotze-Campen, H.
Title Adaptation to climate change through the choice of cropping system and sowing date in sub-Saharan Africa Type Journal Article
Year 2013 Publication Global Environmental Change Abbreviated Journal (down) Glob. Environ. Change
Volume 23 Issue 1 Pages 130-143
Keywords multiple cropping; sequential cropping systems; crop modelling; agricultural management; adaptation options; global vegetation model; future food-production; rainy-season; west-africa; agriculture; yield; maize; soil; variability; heat
Abstract Multiple cropping systems provide more harvest security for farmers, allow for crop intensification and furthermore influence ground cover, soil erosion, albedo, soil chemical properties, pest infestation and the carbon sequestration potential. We identify the traditional sequential cropping systems in ten sub-Saharan African countries from a survey dataset of more than 8600 households. We find that at least one sequential cropping system is traditionally used in 35% of all administrative units in the dataset, mainly including maize or groundnuts. We compare six different management scenarios and test their susceptibility as adaptation measure to climate change using the dynamic global vegetation model for managed land LPJmL. Aggregated mean crop yields in sub-Saharan Africa decrease by 6-24% due to climate change depending on the climate scenario and the management strategy. As an exception, some traditional sequential cropping systems in Kenya and South Africa gain by at least 25%. The crop yield decrease is typically weakest in sequential cropping systems and if farmers adapt the sowing date to changing climatic conditions. Crop calorific yields in single cropping systems only reach 40-55% of crop calorific yields obtained in sequential cropping systems at the end of the 21st century. The farmers’ choice of adequate crops, cropping systems and sowing dates can be an important adaptation strategy to climate change and these management options should be considered in climate change impact studies on agriculture. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Address 2016-10-31
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0959-3780 ISBN Medium Article
Area Expedition Conference
Notes CropM Approved no
Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4823
Permanent link to this record