South-Oriented PV Trackers: A Solution for Tree Plantations?

Intercropping maize and soybean increases efficiency of land and fertilizer nitrogen use; A meta-analysis

Ecosystem service provision of grain legume and cereal intercropping in Africa

Development of a Benchmark Eddy Flux Evapotranspiration Dataset for Evaluation of Satellite-Driven Evapotranspiration Models Over the CONUS

Tenure, Agricultural Investment, and Productivity in the Customary Tenure Sector of Malawi

The performance of integration of photovoltaic (PV) systems into agricultural settings specifically, in Malaysia environment is the objective of this research. It assesses how well various PV setups operate and how they affect the output of energy and productivity in agriculture. Two distinct configurations were examined: Configuration 1, which had six parallel panels, and Configuration 2, which had three seriesconnected pairs of parallel-connected panels. Using CREO Parametric software, these panels were designed and simulated as part of the research process. This was followed by realworld performance evaluations in an agricultural setting. According to the results, Configuration 1, which had six parallel panels, performed better than Configuration 2, generating energy more efficiently and having a beneficial influence on the growth of crops that can withstand shade, such as tomato cherries and chilli. The study also highlighted the potential economic and environmental advantages of adopting agrivoltaics system, which can contribute to Malaysia’s renewable energy goals and promote sustainable agricultural practices. The research emphasizes the importance of selecting appropriate crop types and PV configurations for optimal results. The thesis provides valuable insights into the design, implementation, and benefits of agrivoltaics system, guiding future research and practical applications in Malaysia and similar regions.

Quantifying the hydrological impact of soil mulching across rainfall regimes and mulching layer thickness

Field performance in agricultural settings of a wireless temperature monitoring system based on a low-cost infrared sensor

To ascertain whether parental involvement in agricultural work and residence in an agricultural setting are associated with the development of congenital limb reduction defects, we carried out a case-control study using California birth records from 1982, 1983, and 1984. Cases with limb reduction defects (N = 237) and randomly selected controls (N = 475) were compared regarding parental occupation and maternal county of residence. After adjustment for potential confounders in a multivariate analysis, the estimated relative risk (RR) of parenting a child with a limb reduction defect among parents involved in agricultural work was 0.9 (95 per cent confidence limits = 0.4, 1.7). The RR among mothers who resided in a county of high agricultural productivity as compared with minimal agricultural productivity was 1.7 (95% CL = 1.1, 2.7), while the RR associated with residence in a county with high pesticide use as compared with minimal pesticide use was 1.9 (95% CL = 1.2, 3.1). When we limited the cases to children with limb reduction defects who had at least one additional anomaly (n = 79) and compared them to the control births, the corresponding RRs were 1.6 (95% CL = 0.7, 3.6), for parental involvement in agricultural work, 2.4 (CL = 1.2, 4.7) for county agricultural productivity, and 3.1 (CL = 1.5, 6.5) for county pesticide use.

This study evaluates the effectiveness of stone bunds in enhancing soil moisture, vegetation health, and crop yields in Ghana’s semi-arid Upper East Region, an important area for agricultural productivity in West Africa. In this region, agricultural practices are heavily impacted by erratic rainfall and poor soil moisture retention, threatening food security. Despite the known benefits of traditional soil conservation practices like stone bunds, their effectiveness in this context has not been fully quantified. Field and remote sensing data were used to evaluate the influence of stone bunds on soil moisture dynamics, vegetation growth, and crop yield. Experimental plots with and without stone bunds were monitored for climate, soil water infiltration, and soil moisture and analyzed using the NDVI from Sentinel-2 satellite imagery over two growing seasons under sorghum production (2022–2023). The results indicated that stone bunds enhanced soil moisture retention and increased infiltration rates. The NDVI analysis consistently revealed higher vegetation health and growth in the plots with stone bunds, particularly during critical growth periods. The intermediate results of the conducted experiment indicated that stone bunds increased sorghum yields by over 35% compared to the control plots. The substantial agronomic benefits of stone bunds as a soil and water conservation strategy were evident, improving soil water infiltration, water retention, vegetation health, and crop yields. The findings support the broader adoption of stone bunds in semi-arid regions to enhance agricultural productivity and resilience against climate variability. Further research is recommended to explore the long-term impacts and the integration of stone bunds with other sustainable farming practices to optimize rainfed agricultural outcomes.

Agricultural production is one of the most negatively affected sectors from increasing population and global warming. Increasing food demand along with narrowing agricultural production areas increased the need for sustainable agricultural approaches where the unit area is better utilized. Intercropping systems are of those approaches based on the principle of growing more than one crop in the same area. In this study, it was aimed to analyze the opportunities of increasing land-use efficiency in open field fruit sapling production. For this aim, lettuce and radish were grown on the inter-rows of almond, apple, apricot, cherry, and pear sapling growing lines. When compared with control plants, results indicated a slight negative effect of intercropping systems on sapling quality. Yield and growth characteristics were lower in the vegetables subjected to intercropping. On the other hand, Land Equivalent Ratio (LER) and Net Economic Profit (NEP) were higher in intercropping systems. LER value varied between 1.86 and 1.97, and NEP value between 3328 and 6962 USD/da. These results indicated that land-use efficiency was increased with the examined intercropping systems. As a result of the study notwithstanding the quality and yield loses, it was concluded that intercropping of lettuce and radish in fruit sapling production is a beneficial growing application for the mentioned aims.

Background Sustainable agricultural practices are crucial for enhancing soil health and crop productivity in the face of increasing climate variability. Although conservation tillage and crop residue management are known to enhance resource use efficiency and carbon sequestration, their combined effects on soil carbon dynamics and yield in cereal–legume intercropping systems, especially in semiarid regions, remain underexplored. Aim This study examines the synergistic effect of combining reduced tillage (RT) paired with residue return on soil organic carbon sequestration and crop productivity in a maize–soybean intercropping system. Method A field experiment was conducted using different tillage practices, such as conventional tillage (CT), minimum tillage (MT), RT, and residue management approaches (with and without residue return) in a maize–soybean intercropping setup over 2 years. Results RT combined with residue return in sole soybean cultivation significantly enhanced soil nutrient availability, recording the highest concentrations of nitrate (8.65 mg kg −1 ), phosphorus (6.7 mg kg −1 ), and potassium (85 mg kg −1 ), outperforming CT. RT also improved total organic carbon (TOC) content (6.1 g kg −1 ) and carbon sequestration rate (2.42 Mg ha −1 year −1 ), compared to lower values under CT with sole maize (5.3 g kg −1 and 2.00 Mg ha −1 year −1 ), emphasizing the carbon storage potential of legume‐based systems. In terms of productivity, both CT and RT improved grain yield and land equivalent ratio (LER: 1.43 and 1.38, respectively), whereas MT consistently showed the lowest performance (LER: 1.08–1.09). However, the outcomes are site‐specific to semiarid conditions, and their broader applicability may depend on factors such as soil type, management history, and environmental variability across different regions. Conclusion These findings demonstrate that combining climate‐smart tillage with residue return is an effective strategy to enhance both environmental sustainability and agricultural productivity in cereal–legume systems under semiarid conditions.

Cereal-legume intercropping provides a solution for achieving global food security, but the mechanism of greenhouse gas emissions and net ecosystem economic benefits of maize-soybean relay intercropping are poorly understood. Hence, we conducted a two-factor experiment to investigate the effects of cropping systems, containing maize-soybean relay intercropping (IMS), monoculture maize (M) and monoculture soybean (S), as well as three nitrogen levels at 0 (N0), 180 (N1), 240 (N2) kg N ha-1 on crop grain yield, greenhouse gas emissions, soil carbon stock and net ecosystem economic benefit (NEEB). The average grain yield of IMS (7.7 t ha-1) increased by 28.5% and 242.4% compared with M (6.0 t ha-1) and S (2.2 t ha-1). The land equivalent ratio (LER) of IMS was 2.0, which was mainly contributed by maize (partial LER: 1.2) rather than soybean (partial LER: 0.8). Although the total grain yield of IMS remarkably enhanced by 43.6% and 45.5% in N1 and N2 contrast in N0, the LER was 37.5% and 38.6% lower in N1 and N2 than in N0. The net global warming potential (GWP) of maize and soybean was 11.6% and 1.8% lower in IMS than in the corresponding monoculture, which resulted from a decline in GWP and enhanced soil organic carbon stock rate. Moreover, NEEB was 133.5% higher in IMS (14 032.0 Chinese yuan per year) than in M, mainly resulting from an increase in total economic gains and a decline in GWP cost. A more robust response in yield gain rather than total costs to N inputs of IMS led to 46.8% and 48.3% higher NEEB in N1 and N2 than in N0. Maize-soybean relay intercropping with 180 kg N ha-1 application can obtain yield advantages without raising environmental costs, which provides an approach to achieving sustainable agricultural production. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry.

Intercropping Wolfberry with Gramineae plants improves productivity and soil quality

Current status of agrivoltaic systems and their benefits to energy, food, environment, economy, and society

Prediction of economical growth is a complex task which is essential for planning sustainable economy. The economy has a wide range of indicators that are monitored and recorded by governments and international organizations. Agriculture is one of the most essential factors to modern day economical sustainability. The Food and Agriculture Organization keeps essential agricultural data sets which consist of records on production of crops and other agricultural products whose production strongly relates to the Gross Domestic Product of many countries. Assuming that total crop production and agricultural economy growth are highly related, the production of crops and total value of income from agriculture can be learnt by machine learning models. As data is recorded along an axis of time, it can be interpreted as a time series of various factors. Recurrent Neural Network excel in learning time series and sequential data. This paper presents experimental results on training various recurrent neural networks for modeling the changes of Agricultural and Gross Domestic Products. The paper details the data transformation, model building and model validation steps. Our experimental results showed that the models could achieve 85% accuracy.