Urban agriculture is developping fast because more and more people live in urban areas. Moreover urban food production is local, cheaper and social. There is therefore a need for advanced indoor techniques to cultivate plants. Indoor techniques will also benefits people leaving in far northern and southern latitudes due to long yearly periods with no or little sunlight. As plants prefer some light colours, using specific colours might improve plant growth. Sabzalian et al. tested red, blue and white light-emitting diode (LED) to grow mint, lentil, basil, and four ornamental plants. Their experiments unraveled surprising performance and production of vegetables and ornamental plants.
ASD
Better forecast of wheat production in semi-arid areas
Drought is decreasing wheat yields in semi-arid regions. This issue may be partly solved by better forecasting wheat production. Bregaglio et al. improved wheat forecast by adapting two wheat models to the specific agro-climatic of Morocco.
Better understanding of farmer seed exchange for agrobiodiversity and food security
Farmer seed exchange is essential for food security because seed exchange maintains crop biodiversity and, in turn, biodiverse crops survive better climate changes and pest infection. However, actually we do not understand exactly how seed exchange networks induce crop diversity. A study by Pautasso explains why individual farmers do not cultivate all varieties present in a region or a village.
Uniform canola yields more seeds
Canola is a major crop for food as canola oil, and energy as biodiesel. Many factors control the yield of canola, but there is actually little knowledge on the influence of the spatial arrangement of canola plants. Gan et al. shows that uniform canola stands increase seed yield by up to 32% at low-yielding sites and by up to 20% at the high-yielding sites, compared to non-uniform plant stands. Yields can thus be increased by more uniformity, regardless of environmental conditions.
Agroecology and pest management for less pesticides in Africa
Food security is increased and poverty is reduced in sub-Saharan African by cultivation of fruits and vegetables. However, up to 100% yield losses are due to insects and diseases. Misuse, overuse and use of unauthorized pesticides are common among small farmers. De Bon et al. presents solutions based on agroecology and integrated pest management (IPM) to reduce pesticide use. In particular ecological methods and good pesticide management should be taught to farmers and other stakeholders.
Biofertilisers to grow rice cheaper
Rice is a major food worlwide. The cost of rice fertilisation using mined fertilisers such as nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) amounts to 30-35% of the cropping cost, and is still increasing. This issue could be solved by replacing mined fertiliser by biofertilisers that contain microbes helping the plant to grow, so-called ‘plant growth-promoting microorganisms’. The report by Rose et al. indeed show that inoculant biofertilizers can replace up to 52% of mined nitrogen fertiliser without loss of yield.
Novel farmer-based indicators for sustainable maize production
Producing safe food could be achieved in a sustainable way by changing agricultural practices. However, there is actually a lack of suitable methods and indicators that measure sustainability. This lack of knowledge is particularly deep at the farm level in poor countries that represent most food production worldwide. In addition, actual indicators are defined only by scientists, thus not taking into account essential farmer knowledge. Using participatory indicators designed with farmers Yegbemey et al. reveal weaknesses of maize cropping in Benin. This knowledge can be used to set up sustainable cropping practices.
Climate-friendly coffee production
Industrial coffee production has increased greenhouse gas emissions because many forests have been converted to lightly shaded or full-sun crops. Indeed the huge amounts of carbon stored in forest trees and soil are decomposed then released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (CO2) upon deforestation. There is therefore a need for more ecological coffee production systems. Van Rikxoort et al. have compared the climate impact of four arabica coffee systems: unshaded monoculture, shaded monoculture, commercial polyculture and traditional polyculture. The authors provide advices for climate-friendly coffee production.
Pesticide-free strawberries by soil biosolarisation
Strawberry is delicious and a high-value crop grown worldwide. Strawberry diseases are commonly controlled by soil fumigation with toxic chemicals. Alternative control techniques are thus needed. The article by Domínguez et al. presents a new technique, named biosolarisation, that combine soil biofumigation and soil solarization. Soils were biofumigated with fresh chicken manure with or without Trichoderma, Brassica juncea pellets, sugar beet vinasse, or dried olive pomace. Soils were then solarised 30 days by covering with clear plastic mulch, thus allowing the sun to warm up and kill pests. Results show that strawberry yields were similar to higher than yields using classical chemical treatments. Biosolarization with fresh chicken manure is therefore a promising sustainable option for clean strawberry production.
Synthetic fertilisers: too much of a good thing
Today half of the world population would not be alive without the 68 million tons of nitrogen (N) fertiliser applied to agricultural soils yearly. However, synthetic N has become too much of a good thing because most applied N is not used by crop plants and escapes to pollute groundwater as nitrates and atmosphere as nitrogen oxides. An alternative and cheap solution is to return plant residues to the soil, thus producing ‘natural’ N by plant residue decomposition. Chen et al. reviewed the effects of crop residues on soil N behaviour to better understand the mechanisms of transformation, and to predict farming practices that optimise natural fertilisation.
