Local Cultivation Practices Research Articles

Human impact on vegetation at Lago di Vedana (Dolomites, Northern Italy) during the last seven centuries

Studying the legacies of past human-environment interactions is essential for understanding current landscape and biodiversity patterns. Human influences on past terrestrial and aquatic vegetation are reconstructed based on palynological analysis conducted on a sediment core from Lago di Vedana (Province of Belluno, Northern Italy). This study represents the first pollen record from the Dolomitic lowlands with varying anthropogenic influences throughout the last 700 years. The radiocarbon-dated pollen record begins ca. A.D. 1300 with semi-open forest and moderate human impact, possibly due to activities of the nearby hospice of San Gottardo. Human impact increased with the foundation of the Vedana Charterhouse in the immediate catchment of the lake in A.D. 1457. Activities of the monks involved extensive forest clearing, cultivation of Cannabis/Humulus and possibly hemp retting. In the 19th century the composition of cultivated species changed following the transformation of the Charterhouse into a farm. The 20th century is characterized by expansion of forest taxa and a distinct decline of human influences, probably due to a rural exodus and abandonment of agricultural activities. Vegetation development at Lago di Vedana is consistent with general trends in the Italian Alps and reveals local cultivation practices. The results illustrate the close intertwinement of climatic trends and local human influences, modulated by regional socio-cultural developments during the last millennium.

A Decreased Nitrogen Rate with Increased Planting Density Facilitated Better Palatability of Conventional japonica Rice at High Yield Levels

A decreased nitrogen (N) rate with increased planting density (DNID) is recommended as a feasible method to maintain rice grain yield and N-utilization efficiency. However, it is still unclear whether DNID could improve grain quality, particularly the edible quality of rice. Three high-yield rice with superior palatability (HYSP) and three high-yield rice with inferior palatability (HYIP) were grown under DNID and local cultivation practices (LCP) in the same paddy fields during the 2018 and 2019 rice planting seasons. HYSP exhibited similar grain yields to HYIP under both cultivation treatments. HYSP had more spikelets per m2 through panicles per m2, while having lower spikelets per panicle and 1000-kernel weight than HYIP. DNID increased panicles per m2 and 1000-kernel weight and decreased spikelets per panicle of HYSP and HYIP compared with LCP. HYSP exhibited more biomass accumulation during heading to maturity under NDID and LCP (p < 0.05), which is supported by a higher leaf area index (LAI) and SPAD values after heading. DNID reduced shoot biomass weight and non-structural carbohydrate, while increasing harvest index and NSC remobilization reserve, especially for HYSP (p < 0.05). HYSP had a higher amylopectin content, total starch content, gel consistency, stickiness, and overall palatability (p < 0.05), while it had a lower hardness (p < 0.05) than HYIP. Compared with LCP, DNID increased the amylose content, amylopectin content, total starch content, gel consistency, stickiness, and overall palatability, while it decreased grain protein content and hardness of HYSP and HYIP. HYSP showed consistently higher peak viscosity, breakdown, and gelatinization temperatures (p < 0.05), while it showed lower setback (p < 0.05) than HYIP. For HYSP and HYIP, DNID increased the peak viscosity, breakdown, and gelatinization temperatures (p < 0.05), while it decreased the setback compared with LCP. Generally, the results indicated that coordinated yield components, more post-heading biomass accumulation, lower amylose content, higher peak viscosity and breakdown with lower setback, and higher gelatinization temperatures facilitated high-level grain yield and excellent cooked rice palatability of HYSP. DNID is a feasible method to maintain rice grain yield and enhance the quality of cooked rice for edible properties.

Diversified responses to contemporary pressures on sloping agricultural land: Thai farmer’s perception of mountainous landscapes in northern Vietnam

Mountains cover approximately three quarters of the Vietnam, mainly in the north, west, and central parts of the country. Among the 38 ethnic minorities inhabiting the northern mountains of Vietnam, the Thai population is the second largest. Cultural landscapes and traditional agricultural uplands shaped by the Thai have a long history and represent a mosaic of paddy and vegetable fields along rivers and springs, forests and plantations of trees on slopes. This pattern is now changing significantly, which results in a diversification of the fields shaped by Thai farmers. This study deals with understanding the pressures driving the changes, the new state of the upland agriculture, and the way the Thai of the Son Thinh mountain (Yen Bai, Vietnam) respond to sustain their upland farming systems. Land quality indicators (LQIs) are identified using the pressure–state–response (PSR) framework. Sixty completed questionnaires with 65 closed questions each using a five-point Likert scale were collected in 2016. The results show that Thai farmers nowadays apply a wider-scale solutions to deal with the sustainability of agricultural upland on the slopes as compared to a limited number of traditional farming techniques that were used in the past. Climate change hazards (floods, droughts, landslides, extreme cold, and flash floods), the scarcity of irrigation water, and agricultural land put pressure on the slopes. The most noticeable socioeconomic impacts are migration, population growth, and unstable input and output prices. The most considerable changes in the state of the land quality are soil erosion, land degradation, and local cultivation practices. Modifying cultivation options, applying soil conservation practices, improving indigenous techniques, and implementing agricultural land use policies are the most significant responses to modify land use and its pressures. Responses of the Thai farmers on sustainable sloping land use are put in a structural model with a horizontal diversification strategy. Recommendations concern mainstreaming the local indigenous knowledge on agricultural land use, land management policies, and implementing the LQIs based on PSR framework for sustainable land use planning on the slopes in Vietnam.

Effectiveness of Trichoderma harzianum in soil and yield conservation of tomato crops under saline irrigation

Protected horticultural crops in the Mediterranean region are typically under deficit irrigation and intensive cultivation practices and must cope with poor irrigation and soil quality due to salinization. The effects of variable irrigation water quality and use of the beneficial fungus Trichoderma harzianum on the evolution of soil salinization and yield during a single cropping season are examined at a small-scale Solanum lycopersicum L. cv Elpida greenhouse experiment. The experiment simulates typical coastal Mediterranean greenhouse cultivation conditions of the RECARE Project soil salinization Case Study in Greece (Timpaki basin in Crete). Local NaCl-free but highly calcareous planting soil as well as local cultivation practices were used to replicate prevailing conditions at the Case Study. Tomato plants were drip irrigated with NaCl solutions of low (L) (ECw = 1.1 dS m−1) and high (H) (ECw = 3.5 dS m−1) concentration to emulate a typical “good quality” and “marginal quality” irrigation water, respectively. T. harzianum (T) was selectively applied resulting in a total of 2 treatments colonized with the fungus (LT, HT) and two not (N) colonized (LN, HN). For high salinity irrigation treatments HN and HT, sodium adsorption ratio (SAR) values settled at 22.2 and 13.4, respectively, showing that T. harzianum reduced the effect salinity significantly. Monitoring of soil nutrients showed a significant decrease of P-Olsen in non-T. harzianum treatments versus no change in P-Olsen in T. harzianum treatments. Final total and marketable tomato yield for treatment HN were reduced compared to LN by 28% and 42%, respectively, with in T. harzianum treatments having no significant effect. Fruit quality characteristics were overall less sensitive to higher irrigation salinity than to timing of harvest. We conclude that, under high salinity irrigation, an early harvest and termination of the cultivation has no significant impact on tomato yield while obviating pressure on soil resources and conserving agricultural input.

‘Planting Seeds/The Fires of War’

Through a reading of Jumana Manna’s feature-length film, Wild Relatives (2018), this article explores the geopolitics of seed saving, reading global efforts to preserve genetic biodiversity in the face of climate change through the logic of the pharmakon (ie, as both poison and cure). The film follows the journey of seeds between the Global Seed Vault at Svalbard (Norway) and the Bekaa Valley (Lebanon), where seeds from Syria are being cultivated due to the ongoing civil war, probing the relationship between the preservation and (re)patriation of seeds on the one hand and global conflict and humanitarianism on the other, and considering local cultivation practices vis-à-vis the lasting legacies of the developmentalist, geopolitical agendas of the US-sponsored Green Revolution. The article situates the film within Manna’s broader oeuvre, problematising the epistemological and temporal logic of heritage practices that seek to preserve both cultural and natural diversity. As such, the article demonstrates the neo-orientalist and neo-colonial logic of cryopreservation as a form of ‘imperialist nostalgia’ or techno-capitalist wizardry. Adapting anthropologist Michael Taussig’s notion of ‘agribusiness writing’ to the institutionalised, globalised images and narratives of productivity, bio-conservation and peacemaking, Wild Relatives is interpreted as a form of ‘apotropaic’ (‘countermagical’) film-making that warns against the appropriative, ‘green banking’ and ‘green washing’ logic of techno-scientific sorcery and celebrates the reciprocal, co-evolutionary plant–human relations of which the seed itself is an archive.

Do historical production practices and culinary heritages really matter? Food with protected geographical indications in Japan and Austria

BackgroundGeographical indications (GIs) are collective intellectual property rights that protect food and other products uniquely linked to the production area, local geophysical conditions, and traditions, namely, with the terroir. Thus, GIs can contribute to the transmission and retention of culinary heritages and historical production practices. MethodsBased on an analysis of application documents, we compare the historical linkages of all the Japanese and Austrian GI products. Although more than half of the Japanese applications refer to historical roots in the 20th century, the median of the Austrian GI linkages is in the 17th century. To closely examine these GI linkages, and to better understand their relevance to current cultivation practices, we compared three Japanese cases with roots of diverging depth to the first Austrian GI regarding motivations, geographical and historical linkages, and current cultivation practices and governance. ResultsThe comparison found that all four products refer to the historical roots of the product name, the product varieties, or cultivation techniques. However, deeper roots did not automatically translate into higher priorities of protecting these historical linkages. The four in-depth case studies found that historic provenance and traditional production methods, although prominently highlighted in the official GI documents of all four GIs, were eclipsed by commercial motivations for GI protection and/or current production practices. In the cases analyzed, we found some potential mismatches between GI historical claims in registration documents and actual GI cultivation and GI management practices. ConclusionsWe conclude that our four GI cases do not represent “museums of production” or overly fixed perceptions of history. However, the collective action of the producer group has resulted in dynamic local cultivation practices without restricting innovation. The GI status has rather resulted in the protection of local farmers' collective action and old varieties than in the protection of old production methods.

Greenhouse Soil Moisture Deficit under Saline Irrigation and Climate Change

The sustainability of protected horticultural crops in the Mediterranean region, typically under deficit irrigation and intensive cultivation practices, is facing increasing risks due to soil salinization. Climate change may augment this threat to ecosystem services. In this study, the SALTMED leaching requirements model was calibrated using soil moisture measurements from time domain reflectometry (TDR) sensors. Measurements are performed on a small-scale Solanum lycopersicum (tomato) greenhouse experiment that simulates semi-arid conditions in the RECARE Project Case Study in Greece (Timpaki basin in Crete). The use of local planting soil with initial Electrical Conductivity (ECe) 1.8 dS m-1 and local cultivation practices aim to replicate prevailing conditions at the Case Study. Plants are drip irrigated with two NaCl treatments: slightly (S) saline (ECw= 1.1 dS m-1) and moderately (M) saline water (ECw= 3.5 dS m-1), resulting to very high and excessively high ECe, respectively. Based on these approaches, the calibrated SALTMED model was used for simulating groundwater degradation by seawater intrusion. In order to estimate crop yield in a warmer future, climate model data obtained from 9 GCMs for the “worst case” Representative Concentration Pathway of 8.5W m−2 of the 5th phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project are corrected for bias against historical observations with the Multisegment Statistical Bias Correction method. Preliminary results predict that to sustain greenhouse productivity at current levels in the future, a substantial increase of water demand will be required.

Impact of frontline demonstration of SRI technology of paddy cultivation in Navsari district of Gujarat

The front line demonstration on SRI technology of paddy cultivation was conducted for two year (2012-13 and 2013-14) on farmers field in two talukas of Navsari district in Kharif season. It was observed that average yield performance of SRI technology of 10 and 36 demonstrations in area of 2.5 and 8.6 hectares of 8064 and 8168 kg/ha during the year 2012-13 and 2013-14, respectively. The percentage increase in demonstration yield over local cultivation practices was 58.6 and 70.6 per cent during the year 2012-13 and 2013-14, respectively. The farmers have incurred average higher gross return of Rs. 101476/ha and benefit cost ration of 3.06 through these demonstrations over local paddy cultivation practices, which was recorded Rs.. 61607/ha and 2.21, respectively. The average additional gain of Rs. 39869/ha was obtained by farmers through these demonstration. Results of the demonstration had shown that the SRI technology of paddy cultivation obtained higher productivity of paddy.

Extension de la pourriture molle du céleri branche en maraîchage périurbain de Yaoundé (Cameroun)*

Celery, Apium graveolens var. dulce, is the most important leafy vegetable crop in the Nkolondom inland valley, which supplies the majority of vegetables destined for sale in Yaoundé (Cameroon). Celery is a traditional leafy vegetable, but in recent years the crop has been threatened by the extension of soft decay which reduces the period during which it can be grown by one third. As the bacterium Pectobacterium carotovorum, formerly called Erwinia carotovora, was identified as the causal agent, the harvest technique, which involves the phased removal of individual leaves, was suspected of facilitating the spread of the disease through scars left on the stems. Local cultivation practices were compared with standard practices in temperate regions (where celery originated), which differ in sowing, planting, and harvesting techniques. The results showed, firstly, that the extension of the disease was not due to the local harvesting technique, which is well adapted to the local market, and secondly, that better yields are obtained using the local technique. The recent extension of the disease could be due to a change in the variety of celery, which was introduced at the same time as the extension of the disease became apparent. The new variety was planted because of difficulties in importing celery seeds, thus highlighting the inherent risk of any poorly organized innovation in a vegetable sector.

Effects of deforestation on grass biomass and soil nutrient status in miombo woodland, Zambia

There is a growing concern in central and southern Africa about the negative effects of deforestation caused by shifting cultivation and charcoal production. In the absence of long-term studies that document and assess impacts of tropical deforestation, it is difficult to evaluate the relevance of current policy interventions that address the negative effects of deforestation. To contribute to the knowledge about impacts of tropical deforestation, the effects of clearing Brachystegia– Julbernardia (miombo) woodland on grass biomass and soil nutrient status were assessed at four sites over a 10-years period, from 1991 to 2000 in central Zambia. Woodland clearing increased grass biomass by 20–50% and although its impacts on topsoil organic matter and available phosphorus were apparent, these were not statistically significant. Site and year had the most significant effects on soil nutrient stocks, regardless of the woodland clearing treatment. Generally, fire did not affect grass production but reduced topsoil organic matter and nitrogen at three of the study sites. Deforestation followed by cultivation significantly reduced soil organic matter in the study area. Based on these results, it is recommended that local cultivation practices should incorporate measures that minimize loss of soil organic matter in order to sustain long-term soil fertility.

Effects of soil treatment practices on pink root disease of onion in the Senegalese cultivation system

Abstract Pink root disease of onion, a known worldwide constraint upon onion production, significantly reduces crop levels in the main Senegalese cultivation area. So far there have been no satisfactory solutions to this problem owing to the specific socloeconomic and environmental conditions. Compared with local farmers’ practices, the soil chemotherapeutant dazomet was effective in lowering disease development and improving yields and harvest quality. Application rates as low as 40 g a.i m2 were found to provide economically acceptable control. Solarization also helps minimize the effect of the incidence of pink root disease on yields but is less efficient than dazomet because of local cultivation practices.

Early Secondary Succession on Abandoned Shifting Cultivator's Plots in the Miombo of South Central Africa

In the burned miombo of northern Zambia, succession was followed on plots cleared and burned during the practice of shifting cultivation. Twelve formerly cultivated gardens were surveyed in various stages of regrowth (1, 2, 4, 6, 13, and 25 yr after burning). The early vegetation was woody, mainly caused by stumps and root stocks remaining at the site from the preexisting cover. Species diversity was lowest after four years, primarily because the distribution of individuals among species was highly uneven in the middle of the succession. Early and late stages of succession were found be more similar than intermediate stages. An apparant dynamism of the ecological processes was observed; the turnover between different succession stages varied significantly. Three phases could be distinguished: 0-1 yr, 2-6 yr, and 6-25 yr. The canopy of woody species developed in the late stage did not include the dominant miombo species. The diminution of Brachystegia and Julbernardia spp. and the presence of species characteristic of Combretum savanna strongly question the interpretation that succession is occuring towards miombo woodland. THE CONCEPT OF SECONDARY SUCCESSION in southern Africa has recently been contested by Walker (1981), but few studies provide data test the concept of early directed succession. Often the interest is focused more on later stages in the changing of vegetation communities (Trapnell & Langdale-Brown 1962), frequently with emphasis on special ecological groups (Lawton 1964, 1978; Brenan, 1978). Especially, the miombo, the most widespread type of vegetation in southern Africa, is well described Jeffers & Boaler 1966; Malaisse et al. 1972; Freson 1973; Malaisse 1974, 1978; Ernst 1975; Celander 1981; Lawton 1982). Other works from southern Africa are purely grassland studies (Brockington 1960, Vesey-Fitzgerald 1963). Only Adams and Baker (1962) and Strang (1974) described the effects of local cultivation practices on the vegetation. The studies, however, chiefly covered effects recorded several years after the cutting of the forest. Early plant succession after shifting cultivation has been studied in other continents (Richardson 1963, Walker 1966, Harris 1971, Kunstadter et al. 1978, Scott 1978). However, from Africa most works deal with vegetation change (Pielou 1952, Clayton 1958, White 1965, Boaler 1966), soils (Trapnell et al. 1976), or the effects of burning (Trapnell 1959, West 1965, Philips 1974, Trapnell et al. 1976). Trapnell's studies from Zambia are in this respect current, but deal more with changes in woodland composition under varying degrees of fire-protection. Here, too, the effect of fire is studied, though slightly differently. Burning is part of the local agricultural system of the Bemba tribe of northern Zambia. The system, chitemene (Chibemba: to cut), is described by Rich' Received 25 June 1984, revision accepted 24 January 1985. ards (1939), Trapnell (1953), Allan (1967), and Stromgaard (1984b, c, 1985a). It is an infield outfield farming system, i.e., a farming system utilizing its area at two different levels of intensity, an intensively farmed infield and an outfield exploited at low intensity (Stromgaard 1985b). The branches lopped from a larger surrounding area, the outfield, are concentrated on the future field, the infield. The stacked branches are burned just before the beginning of the rain, and seeds are then sown in the ash patch. The large trees are not felled, only branches are lopped; thus, the trees will reach reproductive age faster. The chitemene shifting cultivation system requires vegetative matter for nutrients, and the system also influences the structure and composition of the vegetation. In the study area, two vegetation types are dominant: miombo woodland and Combretum savannah. A dynamic interaction is hypothesized when the recovery of miombo is delayed after cultivation and the fallow becomes dominated by species characteristic of Combretum savannah. In order test this hypothesis, early secondary succession was followed on abandoned shifting cultivator's plots of varying age.

Ecology of a Miombo Site, Lupa North Forest Reserve, Tanzania: III. Effects on the Vegetation of Local Cultivation Practices

Ecology of a Miombo Site, Lupa North Forest Reserve, Tanzania: III. Effects on the Vegetation of Local Cultivation Practices