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Ludwigs, P. (2016). How vulnerable are the world’s undernourished to food price strikes? B.Sc., B.Sc.. Bachelor's thesis, University of Bonn, Bonn.
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Liu, X., Lehtonen, H., Purola, T., Pavlova, Y., Rötter, R., & Palosuo, T. (2016). Dynamic economic modelling of crop rotations with farm management practices under future pest pressure. Agricultural Systems, 144, 65–76.
Abstract: Agricultural practice is facing multiple challenges under volatile commodity markets, inevitable climate change, mounting pest pressure and various other environment-related constraints. The objective of this research is to present a dynamic optimization model of crop rotations and farm management and show its suitability for economic analysis over a 30 year time period. In this model, we include management practices such as fertilization, fungicide treatment and liming, and apply it in a region in Southwestern Finland. Results show that (i) growing pest pressure favours the cultivation of wheat-oats and wheat-oilseeds combinations, while (ii) market prices largely determine the crops in the rotation plan and the specific management practices adopted. The flexibility of our model can also be utilized in evaluating the value of other management options such as new cultivars under different projections of future climate and market conditions.
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Liu, B., Asseng, S., Müller, C., Ewert, F., Elliott, J., Lobell, D. B., et al. (2016). Similar estimates of temperature impacts on global wheat yield by three independent methods. Nat. Clim. Change, 6(12), 1130–1136.
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Leogrande, R., Vitti, C., Lopedota, O., Ventrella, D., & Montemurro, F. (2016). Effects of Irrigation Volume and Saline Water On Maize Yield and Soil in Southern Italy: Irrigation with saline water on maize. Irrig. and Drain., 65(3), 243–253.
Abstract: A field experiment was carried out in southern Italy to investigate the effects of irrigation and salinity on a maize crop and soil properties. The experiment was laid out comparing different irrigation rates (I1, I2, I3—re-establishing 50, 75 and 100% of the calculated maximum evapotranspiration) and water quality (FW, fresh water and SW, saline water). Grain yield was significantly greater by 60% in 2008 than in 2010. No significant difference was shown for grain yield between the irrigation treatments, whereas water productivity decreased significantly with increasing irrigation rates. Irrigation with saline water did not significantly reduce grain yield compared with fresh water, but it improved grain quality with higher protein content (9.1%) and lower grain moisture percentage (13.3%). Saline water determined a significant increase of saturated soil paste extract Na, ECe, SAR, some exchangeable cations and ESP compared with FW in both years. Furthermore, at the end of the experiment these parameters were lower than those at the end of the first maize crop. Lastly, in the saline treatment, at the end of the trial, the ECe and ESP values were below the critical threshold for soil salinization and/or sodification.
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Leogrande, R., Lopedota, O., Vitti, C., Ventrella, D., & Montemurro, F. (2016). Saline water and municipal solid waste compost application on tomato crop: Effects on plant and soil. Journal of Plant Nutrition, 39(4), 491–501.
Abstract: A field experiment was conducted in Southern Italy to evaluate the effects of different water quality and fertilizers on yield performance of tomato crop. In mineral nitrogen (N) fertilizer and irrigation with fresh water (Electrical Conductivity, EC, = 0.9 dS m⁻¹) (FWF); mineral N fertilizer and irrigation with saline water (EC = 6.0 dS m⁻¹) (SWF); municipal solid waste (MSW) compost and irrigation with fresh water (EC = 0.9 dS m⁻¹) (FWC); MSW compost and irrigation with saline water (EC = 6.0 dS m⁻¹) (SWC). At harvest, weight and number of fruits and refractometric index (°Brix) were measured, total and marketable yield and dry matter of fruit were calculated. The results indicated that MSW compost, applied as amendment, could substitute the mineral fertilizer. In fact, in the treatments based on compost application, the tomato average marketable yield increased by 9% compared with treatments with mineral fertilizer. The marketable yield in the SWF and SWC treatments (with an average soil EC in two years to about 3.5 dS m⁻¹) decreased respectively of 20 and 10%, in respect to fresh water treatments. At the end of the experiment, application of compost significantly decreased the sodium absorption rate (SAR) of SWC treatment in respect of SWF (−29.9%). Significant differences were observed among the four treatments both on soil solution cations either exchangeable cations. In particular compost application increased the calcium (Ca) and potassium (K) contents in saturated soil paste respect to the SWF ones (31.4% and 59.5%, respectively). At the same time saturated soil paste sodium (Na) in SWC treatment recorded a decrease of 17.4% compared to SWF.
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