Issues such as food contamination by toxic pesticides have fostered the need to develop safer cropping. Farmers are thus trying to implement alternative ecological practices, but the results of such changes, either positive or negative, is so far not clear. Therefore agronomists Toffolini et al. have analyzed indicators of ecological change to provide guidelines.
Safflower is a major crop used for flavoring foods, dyes, livestock feeds and medicine. However, safflower production is threatened by climate change that increases soil salinity and drought. To solve this issue, plant scientists Hussein et al. review the mechanisms of the impact of drought and salt on plants, and the strategies to enhance safflower resistance.
Agriculture consumes more than two-thirds of the planet freshwater. As a consequence there are conflicts of freshwater allocation between agriculture and other water users. There is therefore a need for advanced methods to save water in agriculture. Scientists Gan et al. found that regulated deficit irrigation is an alternative method that saves large amounts of water without yield decrease. Moreover, deficit irrigation enhances plant adaptation to drought stress.
Industrial production of soybean developed in the Argentinean Pampa since the 1990s is not sustainable. Specifically, herbicide use creates glyphosate-tolerant weeds and pollutes waters. To solve this issue scientists Salembier et al. designed a method to identify alternative practices developed by farmers. These alternative practices include diversification of crop rotations, occasional return to tillage, and low pesticide use.
Legume farming has many benefits such as natural fertilisation by fixation of air nitrogen. However, grain legume production is decreasing in Europe, whereas Europe imports legumes, mainly soybean, to meet protein needs. To understand why farmers stop producing legumes in Luxemburg, Zimmer et al. surveyed farmer knowledge and issues of grain legume cultivation.
Inorganic phosphorus (P) is a non-renewable and strategic resource for plant growth in agriculture. Most soil P is not used efficiently by plants because we do not fully understand the mechanisms of P availability and P uptake by roots. Agronomists Recena et al. uncover the role of soil organic P and root activity for P fertilisation.
Both increasing human population and pesticide pollution call for alternative food production. Agronomists are thus currrently designing new cropping practices such as ecological intensification and sustainable intensification. However, the meaning and concrete applications of such practices is not clear so far. Wezel et al. review the definitions, principles and practices of ecological intensification, sustainable intensification and agroecological intensification. The photo shows relay intercropping of wheat and undersown lucerne in south-eastern France, an example of agroecological intensification.
Agroforestry is a land use management system in which trees are grown around or among crops or pastureland. The presence of trees brings many benefits such as higher biodiversity, restoring soil fertility, cleaner water through reduced soil and fertiliser runoff and increased crop stability. A study of Nasielski et al. on soybean agroforestry suggests that yields in the tree-crop competitive zone will not be reduced under drier climate.
The growing world food demand and climate change is threatening the long term survival of the human society on Earth. Sustainable solutions are therefore urgently needed. Agronomists Jacobsen et al. describe innovative solutions based upon the use and protection of biodiversity in agriculture. Examples include cultivation of quinoa (photo), lupine, yam, watermelon, amaranth and nopal.
Herbicides have been used for decades to control weeds in crop fields. However, a such strategy fails in the long run because weeds, as any living organism, adapt and modify their metabolism to tolerate the toxic chemical. Scientists Fernandez et al. have evidenced the first case in France of glyphosate-resistant weed in the species Lolium rigidum. They also found that this smart weed has not developped only one, but three different defense mecanisms in weed genes.