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Species interactions in crop communities
Published in Stephen R. Gliessman, V. Ernesto Méndez, Victor M. Izzo, Eric W. Engles, Andrew Gerlicz, Agroecology, 2023
Stephen R. Gliessman, V. Ernesto Méndez, Victor M. Izzo, Eric W. Engles, Andrew Gerlicz
In a crop community, cover crops are plant species (usually grasses or legumes) grown in pure or mixed stands to cover the soil of the crop community for part or all of the year. They are planted immediately after the harvest of the primary crop or during fallow seasons to maintain a protective cover over the soil and to capture and store nutrients mineralized as crop residues decompose. They can also be grown simultaneously with the primary crop as a living mulch that has the added benefit of suppressing weeds. The cover crop plants may be incorporated into the soil by tillage in seasonal cover crop systems, or retained as live or dead plants on the soil surface for several seasons. When cover crops (particularly leguminous ones) are tilled into the soil, the organic matter added to the soil is called green manure.
Farming: Organic
Published in Brian D. Fath, Sven E. Jørgensen, Megan Cole, Managing Soils and Terrestrial Systems, 2020
Green manures are crops that are grown to provide food and habitat for soil organisms, rather than products for harvest. Legumes are especially useful green manures, as they can partner with Rhizobia, which capture nitrogen from the air and make it available to the legumes. When these legumes are incorporated into the soil, soil organisms release the nitrogen in a form that other plants can use. Legumes and many other plants can also form beneficial relationships with mycorrhizae. Mycorrhizae form extensive networks of filaments throughout the soil and can “capture” soil nutrients from a much larger volume of soil than the plant roots could access on their own. Again, these nutrients are released in an accessible form when the green manure plants break down in the soil. Other green manure plants, such as cereals, provide “fiber,” or soil organic matter, which is crucial to soil organisms involved in nutrient cycling.
Nonrenewable Resources: Oil and Minerals
Published in John C. Ayers, Sustainability, 2017
Fortunately, Cuba had a high adaptive capacity that made it resilient, and it was able to avoid widespread starvation. Cuba had 2% of the population of Latin America but 11% of the scientists. Before the Special Period, scientists had conducted research on sustainable organic farming, and once the need arose, they implemented these methods nationwide. It took three to five years to make damaged soils fertile and productive again through systematic application of compost and green manure and use of crop rotation. Nationwide, farmers decreased oil-derived pesticide use from 21,000 tons to only 1000 tons per year by using crop-interplanting methods and biopesticides. Now, 80% of the food produced in Cuba is organic. The Cuban diet has changed in response: It is now more vegan-like and healthier, with greatly decreased consumption of meat, sugar, and dairy products and increased fiber content.
Phytoremediation of quinclorac and tebuthiuron-polluted soil by green manure plants
Published in International Journal of Phytoremediation, 2021
Kassio Ferreira Mendes, Bruno Aguiar Maset, Kamila Cabral Mielke, Rodrigo Nogueira de Sousa, Bianca Assis Barbosa Martins, Valdemar Luiz Tornisielo
Phytoremediation is a plant-based strategy to eliminate or reduce pollutants from soil and/or water (Salt et al. 1998; Mejía et al. 2014; Hegazy et al. 2017). Several physiological characteristics of green manure plants are important for phytoremediation, including rapid growth, high biomass production, and competitiveness (Pires et al. 2006). Plants with these characteristics have the potential to be used as herbicide decontamination agents in soils (Lamego and Vidal 2007), for example, transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana plants can be used as phytoremediators of in environments contaminated with simazine and linuron (Azab et al. 2016, 2018). Green manure plants generally compete with weeds and have been studied as decontaminant agents in soils treated with herbicides (Pires et al. 2003; Santos, Procópio, Silva, Pires, Ribeiro, Santos 2004; Pires, Souza, Cecon, et al. 2004; Pires, Souza, Silva, et al. 2005; Procópio et al. 2005; Chen et al. 2018; Teófilo et al. 2020). With the use of green manure plants in phytoremediation strategies, the interval between herbicide application and planting of the next crop can be significantly reduced (Monquero et al. 2013).
Iron Enriched Green Manure Can Increase Wheat Fe Concentration in Pb-polluted Soil in the Presence of Piriformospora Indica (P.indica)
Published in Soil and Sediment Contamination: An International Journal, 2020
Amir Hossein Baghaie, Aminollah Aghilizefreei
For the purpose of preventing Fe deficiency, the application of water-soluble mineral Fe fertilizer is the most common way. An alternative to mineral Fe fertilizers, which may not very effective in alkaline soil (Cakmak, Pfeiffer, and McClafferty 2010; Velu et al. 2014), is the application of organic amendments such as animal manure and plant residues (Alburquerque et al. 2015; Ramzani et al. 2016). These amendments can either act as a source of Fe to the plant, or effect on soil properties (Ramzani et al. 2016). It has been revealed that the application of organic matter can promote microbial activity, which adds complexion agents to the soil and also influence the soil redox condition. (Zahedifar, Karimian, and Yasrebi 2012). Overall, the amount of organic matter which exists near the soil surface causes changes in the status of the micronutrient (Ramzani et al. 2016). It has been reported that the application of plant residues as green manure is an important source of nutrient elements, that can impact soil quality according to their chemical composition such as their C/N ratio (Aghili et al. 2014). Therefore, the addition of appropriate plant residues to the soil could be a suitable strategy to enriched crop plants with micronutrients without decreasing plant yields (Khoshgoftarmanesh et al. 2017). Wang, Zhang, and Marschner (2012) reported that the application of legume plant residues to the soil can enhance wheat growth and increase plant nutrient availability (Wang, Zhang, and Marschner 2012). Singh et al. (2005) revealed that the addition of rice plant residues (Oryza sativa L.) in a sodic calcareous soil can increase soil micronutrient bioavailability due to the reduction of soil pH and exchangeable sodium percentage (Singh et al. 2005).