Agricultural Science Commons^™

Assessment Of Rice Self-Sufficiency In 2025 In Eight African Countries, P. A.J. Van Oort, K. Saito, E. Amovin-Assagba, Lenny G.J. Van Bussel, Justin Van Wart, Hugo De Groot, Martin K. Van Ittersum, Kenneth Cassman, M. C.S. Wopereis

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Most African countries are far from self-sufficient in meeting their rice consumption; in eight countries the production: consumption ratio, ranged from 0.16 to 1.18 in 2012. We show that for the year 2025, with population growth, diet change and yield increase on existing land (intensification), countries cannot become fully self-sufficient in rice. This implies that for the future, a mixture of area expansion and imports will be needed on top of yield gap closure. Further research is needed for identification of most suitable new land for rice area expansion and areas that should be protected.

Patch Burning: Implications On Water Erosion And Soil Properties, Altingul Ozaslan Parlak, Mehmet Parlak, Humberto Blanco-Canqui, Walter H. Schacht, John A. Guretzky, Martha Mamo

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Patch burning can be a potential management tool to create grassland heterogeneity and enhance forage productivity and plant biodiversity, but its impacts on soil and environment have not been widely documented. In summer 2013, we studied the effect of time after patch burning (4 mo after burning [recently burned patches], 16 mo after burning [older burned patches], and unburned patches [control]) on vegetative cover, water erosion, and soil properties on a patch-burn experiment established in 2011 on a Yutan silty clay loam near Mead, NE. The recently burned patches had 29 ± 8.0% (mean ± SD) more bare ground, 21 …

Productivity And Biological Nitrogen Fixation Of Different Species Of Vetches (Vicia Spp.) Under The Rainfed Conditions Of West Asia, Ali Abd El Moneim, Mohan C. Saxena

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

The low rainfall areas of West Asia are characterized by pastoral production system primarily based on small ruminants (sheep and goats). Rangelands serve as the main source of feed. With increasing population, the demand for livestock products has increased. As a consequence, the stocking rates have soared, increasing the pressure on rangelands. Rangeland degradation has therefore been increasing threatening the sustainability of livestock production system and the livelihood of the people dependent on it. Production of additional feed is essential to reduce the pressure on rangelands. Vetches (Vicia spp.) are endemic in the area and can be potential source …

Livestock Production From Grasslands With Improved Management Compared To Traditional Management, Florian Leiber

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

The value of traditional versus improved management systems for grassland is discussed. The set target is the persistence of the ecological, economic and social multifunctionality of grasslands and the increase of food output from these areas without increasing parallel requirements for arable crop or energy inputs. Based on the fact that historically traditional systems were stable and sustainable in many cases, while severe damage is faced nowadays, it is argued that lot of improvement should be based on the acknowledgment of successful traditional practises. The challenge might rather be to define improvement as a contemporary development of traditional techniques. The …

Potential Of Forages In Crop Diversification And Crop Rotation, Martin H. Entz, Joanne Thiessen Martens

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Redesign of agricultural systems according to ecological principles has been proposed for the development of sustainable systems. We review a wide variety of ecologically-based crop production practices that focus on forage crops in farming systems and discuss their potential role in enhancing the profitability, environmental sustainability and resilience. Crop-livestock systems that most closely mimic natural systems through appropriate integration of diverse components appear to offer the greatest potential benefits. These systems are more energy efficient and combine high productivity with low ecological footprint. Greater understanding of ecological relationships within crop-livestock systems are required to purposefully and proactively redesign agricultural systems …

Forage Seed Quality: Dormancy, Standards And Quarantine, John G. Hampton

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

There are many dimensions to the concept of seed quality. Viable seed which will not germinate when provided with all the requirements for germination is dormant. Forage grasses mostly exhibit non-deep physiological dormancy (PD), while physical dormancy (PY) is common in forage legumes where imbibition is prevented by the seed coat’s impermeability to water (hard seed). Methods for breaking PD and PY to allow germination testing and/or crop establishment are discussed.

In the seed industry seed quality standards are an important feature of quality assurance and may apply for seed production contracts, seed certification, seed sale and seed importing. Standards …

Quality Seed Production And Effective Marketing Systems For Development Of Grasslands, M. Philip Rolston

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Seed quality is defined as (i) maintaining genetic purity using seed certification principles (generation system; isolation; previous cropping history); (ii) achieving high levels of physical purity (especially low weed seed levels) by in field weed control and seed cleaning; (iii) achieving high levels of seed germination at harvest and maintaining germination through the seed supply chain. Seed production systems must not only produce high quality seed but also achieve economic seed yields. Seed crops have to be profitable (by being high yielding) to justify the investment of time and input costs to achieve quality. This in turn requires supporting research …

Scouting Benefits And Developing Innovations In Temperate Grassland To Sustainable Agriculture Production, Walter Ayala, Ethel Barrios, Ignacio Macedo, Jorge Sawchik, José A. Terra

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Agricultural intensification raises concern about land use and future effects to natural resources. The world demand for grain, meat and forest products is increasing constantly. Changes are occurring at large scale, being a compromise for policy makers to contribute to identify opportunities to readdress the productive scenario. There is available technology to reduce impacts, without restricting necessarily productivity. Grasslands provide a large series of economical and ecological benefits to the agricultural systems, being the literature exhaustive in examples. Ley-farming and cover crops technologies are good examples of environmentally sound soil management practices. The society is also worried about an improper …

Evergraze: A Partnership Between Researchers, Farmers And Advisors To Deliver Effective Grassland Management, Warwick B. Badgery, Kate Sargeant, Michael A. Friend, Scott Glyde, Paul Sanford, Ralph Behrendt, Meredith L. Mitchell, Sean Murphy, Angela Avery

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

The profitable and sustainable management of livestock production from grassland systems is challenging and it can be difficult to develop a research structure that addresses farmer’s needs and has acceptable rigour and on-ground impact. This paper describes the attributes of research, development and extension (RD&E) programs that are required for a successful partnership between researchers, farmers and advisors. Insights are provided from the EverGraze program that designed, tested and implemented farming systems based on perennial pastures across southern Australia. With this project farmers and advisors were involved in setting research direction, designing experiments, providing strategic guidance over the management of …

Ecologically And Socially Sustainable Livestock Development In Marginal Areas, Ilse Köhler-Rollefson

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

“Marginal areas” are perceived as difficult and unproductive landscapes, always under the threat of drought, desertification and poverty. Yet, both dryland and high altitude marginal areas have an extraordinary output of livestock products; in the efficiency of producing human-edible protein they far surpass more fertile areas. This productivity under adverse climatic conditions rests on sophisticated strategies and social institutions developed by pastoral communities to deal with variability in the availability of resources. It depends on the use of animal genetic resources that are adapted to make best use of local vegetation and can cope with seasonal variations in availability. Livestock …

Valuing Variability--New Perspectives On Climate Resilient Dryland Development, Saverio Kratli

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Valuing Variability is a challenge to the view of the drylands as naturally vulnerable to food insecurity and poverty. It argues that improving agricultural productivity in dryland environments is possible by working with climatic uncertainty rather than seeking to control it – a view that runs contrary to decades of development practice in arid and semi-arid lands.

Participatory And Holistic Approaches With Grassland Farmers And Development Of Policies, Alain Peeters

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

The world is changing rapidly. Grassland farmers and ruminant livestock breeders will have to adapt to these changing environmental, social and economic conditions. Research can help them at the condition that linear ‘top-down’ technology transfer methods are abandoned for the benefit of participatory and holistic approaches. These approaches classified in the generic term of ‘Farming System Research’ consider farmers as real research partners, and they merge farmer’s and scientist’s ideas with those of other stakeholder types. They combine scientist’s and farmer’s knowledge for creating fast innovations, easily adopted by farmers since farmers themselves contribute to their design and their development. …

Sustainable Grasslands: Resolving Management Options For Livelihood And Environmental Benefits, David R. Kemp, Warwick B. Badgery, David L. Michalk

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

To help solve the major issues of improving livelihoods and environmental services, grassland research needs to be evaluated within the context of relevant farm systems. Treatments need to show that they not only have significant effects but that they have effects that are meaningful in the context of the relevant farm system. Research often defines an optimum criterion for management that is a single point, but that is difficult to achieve in practice, especially when there are several components in a grassland system that need to be optimised. It is argued that an appropriate criterion for optimising management is a …

Climate Change Impact And Adaptation In Temperate Grassland And Livestock Industries, Afshin Ghahramani, Andrew D. Moore

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Climate is projected to have negative impact on temperate grassland and livestock productions across the globe. Moderately elevated atmospheric CO₂ in the near future is expected to increase plant photosynthetic rates but this is likely to be limited by soil nitrogen deficits. However, in Australia at least it is unlikely that positive effect of elevated CO₂ on plant production be able to offset the negative impacts of climate change. Currently there is a considerable gap between actual and achievable production and profit in Australian grazing systems and many management and genetic improvements for climate adaptation would operate by …

Climate-Smart Brachiaria For Improving Livestock Production In East Africa: Emerging Opportunities, Sita R. Ghimire, Donald M. G. Njarui, Mupenzi Mutimura, Juan A. Cardoso, Linda Johnson, Elias M. Gichangi, Suliana Teasdale, Kennedy Odokonyero, John Caradus, Idupulapati M. Rao, Appolinaire Djikeng

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Brachiaria grass is an important tropical forage of African origin with desirable attributes of agricultural and environmental significance. Brachiaria has been extensively cultivated as a pasture across the tropics except in its endemic provenance of Africa. In 2013, a collaborative research program was initiated in Kenya and Rwanda with the aim of improving the availability of quality livestock feeds adapted to drought and low fertility soils using Brachiaria. The outcomes sought were increased livestock productivity leading to improved farmer income and the development of seed production opportunities. The program has identified five preferred cultivars, and four of them are currently …

Tropical Grassland Ecosystems And Climate Change, C. R. Babu, Vivek Kr. Choudhary, Vijay Kumar

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Grasses are unique group of flowering plants that form the foundation for the trophic structure in terrestrial communities. The grasses are found in every conceivable habitat where plants can thrive – from sea to deserts and from wetlands to peaks of highest mountains. The grasses form a distinct biome – a major ecological formation in the global classification of vegetation.

Recent Trends In Breeding Of Tropical Grass And Forage Species, J. S. Sandhu, Dinesh Kumar, Vijay Kumar Yadav, Tejveer Singh, R. P. Sah, Auji Radhakrishna

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Germplasm enrichment in major tropical grasses and their characterization for emerging environmental challenges have been major focussed area in the recent past. Breeding efforts in tropical grasses are still limited to few selected species viz. Panicum spp, Cenchrus spp, Pennisetum spp and Bracharia spp and all other grasses use of land races for varietal development through selection have been major source of improvement. The pace of breeding efforts in the tropical grasses have been slowed because of many inherent characteristics viz. apomixis, poor seed set, high photo and thermo sensitivity often creating problem in designing and implementing an effective breeding …

Sustainability, Biodiversity And Environmental Issues: A Global Perspective For Livestock Production, David L. Michalk

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

To meet world food demand through the 21st century, agricultural production needs to increase, but this needs to be done sustainably through increasing efficiency, optimising sufficiency and achieving consistency, such that resource use is optimised, waste reduced and environmental benefits gained. These strategies need to be developed against changing food patterns, especially a decline in per capita consumption of cereals and an increase in meat consumption as household incomes increase. Grasslands are collectively the larger group of land-based ecosystems on the planet. Their values are not always recognised, often being seen as ‘reserves’ for exploitation for urban expansion, …

Wastelands Of The Mind: The Identity Crisis Of India’S Savanna Grasslands, Abi Tamim Vanak

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

The idea that wastelands are unproductive continues to be pervasive and is used by various agencies to gain control over marginal landscapes and remake them for productive purposes with dire results.

Grassland And Livestock Production: The East African Case, David Miano Mwangi

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Grasslands cover over 26% of the world land mass and about 80% of the agricultural area. They are the source of a livelihood for about 1 million people in the developing countries. Livestock contributes 40% of the global value of agricultural outputs. Approximately 60% of rural households keep livestock. In East Africa there are a number of grasslands. The most extensive of these are the Acacia based Savanna grasslands. Others include the sudd flooded grasslands of South Sudan and the Miobo woodlands of Tanzania. More than 60% of the livestock and wildlife in this region are found on these grasslands. …

Three Is Company: Fixing The Grazing-Land Business Conundrum, Ralph Von Kaufmann

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Grazing-lands have the largest footprint on the world’s land surface area but this is not reflected in the amount of business conducted on them. The most common land use systems are very land intensive, i.e., they use a lot of land to produce not very much and few jobs. The health of the planet depends on having healthy grazing-lands but there is a perfect storm brewing in which the demand from expanding pastoral communities for more food and jobs cannot be met just by applying good grazing-land management practices. Compatible businesses must be found that can create jobs without increasing …

Tropical Grasslands--Trends, Perspectives And Future Prospects, Panjab Singh

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

This paper attempts a rapid summary of the present day state of tropical grassland and livestock based production systems globally, especially in tropics, in relation to recent trends, future assessment, grassland rehabilitation and management strategies, future perspectives of grassland science and development including policy imperatives.

About Sponsors, National Organizing Committee, International Grassland Congress

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

No abstract provided.

Volunteer Glyphosate-Resistant Corn And Soybean Competition And Control, Jill Alms

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The continuous use of glyphosate-resistant crops has resulted in volunteer crops with the same herbicide resistance as the cash crop and an increasing weed problem. Volunteer corn reduces soybean yields however; little research has examined corn yield loss due to volunteer corn or volunteer soybean competition. These studies investigated yield loss and control of volunteer soybean in corn, and volunteer corn in soybean and corn. Using several densities of competitive plants, the yield loss was fit to a hyperbolic equation that indicated incremental yield loss (I value) to be 29.9 for volunteer corn in soybeans, 5.6 for volunteer corn in …

Draft Genome Sequence Of Cercospora Arachidicola, Causal Agent Of Early Leaf Spot In Peanuts, Valerie A. Orner, Emily G. Cantowine, Xinye Monica Wang, Amr Abouelleil, James Bochicchio, Chad Nusbaum, Albert C. Culbreath, Zaid Abdo, Renee S. Arias

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Cercospora arachidicola, causal agent of early leaf spot, is an economically important peanut pathogen. Lack of genetic information about this fungus prevents understanding the role that potentially diverse genotypes may have in peanut breeding programs. Here, we report for the first time a draft genome sequence of C. arachidicola.

Transgenic Wheat Expressing A Barley Udp-Glucosyltransferase Detoxifies Deoxynivalenol And Provides High Levels Of Resistance To Fusarium Graminearum, Xi Li, Sanghyun Shin, Shane Heinen, Ruth Dill-Macky, Franz Berthiller, Natalya Nersesian, Thomas Clemente, Susan Mccormick, Gary J. Muehbauer

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Fusarium head blight (FHB), mainly caused by Fusarium graminearum, is a devastating disease of wheat that results in economic losses worldwide. During infection, F. graminearum produces trichothecene mycotoxins, including deoxynivalenol (DON), that increase fungal virulence and reduce grain quality. Transgenic wheat expressing a barley UDP-glucosyltransferase (HvUGT13248) were developed and evaluated for FHB resistance, DON accumulation, and the ability to metabolize DON to the less toxic DON-3-O-glucoside (D3G). Pointinoculation tests in the greenhouse showed that transgenic wheat carrying HvUGT13248 exhibited significantly higher resistance to disease spread in the spike (type II resistance) compared with nontransformed controls. Two transgenic …

Nitrogen Management Of Forages In Relation To Gaseous Emissions – New Approaches And Considerations, Shabtai Bittman, Derek Hunt

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Forages have a high N demand, a long growing season, and an effective root system all contributing to effective nutrient capture. However forages are restrictive in methods available for mitigating gaseous losses both as NH₃ and as N₂O, due to both practical and cost considerations. Strategies are needed to address the challenges of both N efficiency and N losses. Agronomic techniques in long term experiments can enhance estimates of N loss pathways and N efficiency, and demonstrate the importance of integrated multinutrient approaches. The dual manure stream concept divides manure into a thin fraction suitable as an …

Impact Of Market Forces On Product Quality And Grassland Condition, David L. Michalk, Jianping Wu, Warwick B. Badgery, David R. Kemp

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Meeting demands for livestock products which are predicted to more than double during the next 20 years, is central to the challenge of feeding the world sustainably. Smallholders will play a key role in achieving global security in animal protein. However, this requires a shift from subsistence to market-oriented farming where production efficiency not the number of livestock is the key focus with the aim of producing ‘more from less’. For grassland-based ruminant production, reducing stocking rate from current unsustainable levels under subsistence management is an essential first step to producing more production and profit from fewer animals. This is …

Stakeholders Integration For Sustainable Use Of Temperate Forage/Livestock Agriculture, Garry D. Lacefield, Don Ball

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Forage/livestock production is complex, and best management options are often site-specific, but some concepts have broad application. The intent of this article is to provide an overview of research-based management approaches that the authors believe are necessary to ensure the sustainability of forage/livestock farms. This overview discussion is needed because livestock agriculture is changing, thus creating both challenges and opportunities for producers. In the last 30 years, beef numbers in the USA have declined by 20%, but production per cow has more than doubled, resulting in increased total production on less land with fewer animals. Similar statistics exist for the …

Socio-Cultural Factors Challenging Development Interventions In Cattle Production In The Remote Areas Of Vietnam, Duong-Nam Ha, Pham-Van Hung, Tran-The Cuong, Ninh-Xuan Trung, Tran-Van Long, Laurie Bonney, Peter A. Lane, Guillaume Duteurtre, Stephen Ives

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

The northwest highlands of Vietnam are characterized by high altitude, low infrastructure, and low population densities composed of a wide diversity of different ethnic groups. Their socio-cultural characteristics strongly influence their lifestyle and production systems, including agricultural activities. The majority of these people have suffered from slow economic development, with the highest poverty rate in the country. This is a real need for plausible interventions where behavioral changes of smallholders throughout local value chains would be a critical foundation. Our project implemented in this context of development in the Northwest highlands of Vietnam aims to understand the role of socio-cultural …