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An annual plant is a plant that completes its life cycle, from germination to the production of seeds, within one growing season, and then dies. Globally, 6% of all plant species and 15% of herbaceous plants are annuals. The annual life cycle has independently emerged in over 120 different plant families throughout the entire angiosperm phylogeny.
Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of different types of crops in the same area across a sequence of growing seasons. This practice reduces the reliance of crops on one set of nutrients, pest and weed pressure, along with the probability of developing resistant pests and weeds.
Sustainable agriculture is farming in sustainable ways meeting society's present food and textile needs, without compromising the ability for current or future generations to meet their needs. It can be based on an understanding of ecosystem services. There are many methods to increase the sustainability of agriculture. When developing agriculture within sustainable food systems, it is important to develop flexible business processes and farming practices. Agriculture has an enormous environmental footprint, playing a significant role in causing climate change, water scarcity, water pollution, land degradation, deforestation and other processes; it is simultaneously causing environmental changes and being impacted by these changes. Sustainable agriculture consists of environment friendly methods of farming that allow the production of crops or livestock without causing damage to human or natural systems. It involves preventing adverse effects on soil, water, biodiversity, and surrounding or downstream resources, as well as to those working or living on the farm or in neighboring areas. Elements of sustainable agriculture can include permaculture, agroforestry, mixed farming, multiple cropping, and crop rotation.
In agriculture, cover crops are plants that are planted to cover the soil rather than for the purpose of being harvested. Cover crops manage soil erosion, soil fertility, soil quality, water, weeds, pests, diseases, biodiversity and wildlife in an agroecosystem—an ecological system managed and shaped by humans. Cover crops can increase microbial activity in the soil, which has a positive effect on nitrogen availability, nitrogen uptake in target crops, and crop yields. Cover crops reduce water pollution risks and remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Cover crops may be an off-season crop planted after harvesting the cash crop. Cover crops are nurse crops in that they increase the survival of the main crop being harvested, and are often grown over the winter. In the United States, cover cropping may cost as much as $35 per acre.
In agriculture, polyculture is the practice of growing more than one crop species together in the same place at the same time, in contrast to monoculture, which had become the dominant approach in developed countries by 1950. Traditional examples include the intercropping of the Three Sisters, namely maize, beans, and squashes, by indigenous peoples of Central and North America, the rice-fish systems of Asia, and the complex mixed cropping systems of Nigeria.
The Land Institute is an American nonprofit research, education, and policy organization dedicated to sustainable agriculture, based in Salina, Kansas. Their goal is to develop an agricultural system based on perennial crops that "has the ecological stability of the prairie and a grain yield comparable to that from annual crops".
No-till farming is an agricultural technique for growing crops or pasture without disturbing the soil through tillage. No-till farming decreases the amount of soil erosion tillage causes in certain soils, especially in sandy and dry soils on sloping terrain. Other possible benefits include an increase in the amount of water that infiltrates into the soil, soil retention of organic matter, and nutrient cycling. These methods may increase the amount and variety of life in and on the soil. While conventional no-tillage systems use herbicides to control weeds, organic systems use a combination of strategies, such as planting cover crops as mulch to suppress weeds.
Land management is the process of managing the use and development of land resources. One aim of sustainable land management is to prevent or reverse land degradation. Another aim is to ensure water security by increasing soil moisture availability, decreasing surface runoff, and decreasing soil erosion. Land resources are used for a variety of purposes which may include for example agriculture, forestry, water resource management, human settlements and tourism. Unsustainable land managements leads to land being over- or misused which in turn degrades the land, reduces productivity and disrupts natural equilibriums.
Prairie restoration is a conservation effort to restore prairie lands that were destroyed due to industrial, agricultural, commercial, or residential development. The primary aim is to return areas and ecosystems to their previous state before their depletion.
Energy crops are low-cost and low-maintenance crops grown solely for renewable bioenergy production. The crops are processed into solid, liquid or gaseous fuels, such as pellets, bioethanol or biogas. The fuels are burned to generate electrical power or heat.
Miscanthus × giganteus, also known as the giant miscanthus, is a sterile hybrid of Miscanthus sinensis and Miscanthus sacchariflorus. It is a perennial grass with bamboo-like stems that can grow to heights of 3–4 metres (13 ft) in one season. Just like Pennisetum purpureum, Arundo donax and Saccharum ravennae, it is also called elephant grass.
Soil carbon is the solid carbon stored in global soils. This includes both soil organic matter and inorganic carbon as carbonate minerals. It is vital to the soil capacity in our ecosystem. Soil carbon is a carbon sink in regard to the global carbon cycle, playing a role in biogeochemistry, climate change mitigation, and constructing global climate models. Microorganisms play an important role in breaking down carbon in the soil. Changes in their activity due to rising temperatures could possibly influence and even contribute to climate change. Human activities have caused a massive loss of soil organic carbon. For example, anthropogenic fires destroy the top layer of the soil, exposing soil to excessive oxidation.
Soil biodiversity refers to the relationship of soil to biodiversity and to aspects of the soil that can be managed in relative to biodiversity. Soil biodiversity relates to some catchment management considerations.
Perennial rice are varieties of long-lived rice that are capable of regrowing season after season without reseeding; they are being developed by plant geneticists at several institutions. Although these varieties are genetically distinct and will be adapted for different climates and cropping systems, their lifespan is so different from other kinds of rice that they are collectively called perennial rice. Perennial rice—like many other perennial plants—can spread by horizontal stems below or just above the surface of the soil but they also reproduce sexually by producing flowers, pollen and seeds. As with any other grain crop, it is the seeds that are harvested and eaten by humans.
Soil management is the application of operations, practices, and treatments to protect soil and enhance its performance. It includes soil conservation, soil amendment, and optimal soil health. In agriculture, some amount of soil management is needed both in nonorganic and organic types to prevent agricultural land from becoming poorly productive over decades. Organic farming in particular emphasizes optimal soil management, because it uses soil health as the exclusive or nearly exclusive source of its fertilization and pest control.
A perennial grain is a grain crop that lives and remains productive for two or more years, rather than growing for only one season before harvest, like most grains and annual crops. While many fruit, nut and forage crops are long-lived perennial plants, all major grain crops presently used in large-scale agriculture are annuals or short-lived perennials grown as annuals. Scientists from several nations have argued that perennial versions of today's grain crops could be developed and that these perennial grains could make grain agriculture more sustainable.
Regenerative agriculture is a conservation and rehabilitation approach to food and farming systems. It focuses on topsoil regeneration, increasing biodiversity, improving the water cycle, enhancing ecosystem services, supporting biosequestration, increasing resilience to climate change, and strengthening the health and vitality of farm soil.
Soil regeneration, as a particular form of ecological regeneration within the field of restoration ecology, is creating new soil and rejuvenating soil health by: minimizing the loss of topsoil, retaining more carbon than is depleted, boosting biodiversity, and maintaining proper water and nutrient cycling. This has many benefits, such as: soil sequestration of carbon in response to a growing threat of climate change, a reduced risk of soil erosion, and increased overall soil resilience.
Carbon farming is a set of agricultural methods that aim to store carbon in the soil, crop roots, wood and leaves. The technical term for this is carbon sequestration. The overall goal of carbon farming is to create a net loss of carbon from the atmosphere. This is done by increasing the rate at which carbon is sequestered into soil and plant material. One option is to increase the soil's organic matter content. This can also aid plant growth, improve soil water retention capacity and reduce fertilizer use. Sustainable forest management is another tool that is used in carbon farming. Carbon farming is one component of climate-smart agriculture. It is also one way to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Climate change and agriculture are complexly related processes. In the United States, agriculture is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG), behind the energy sector. Direct GHG emissions from the agricultural sector account for 8.4% of total U.S. emissions, but the loss of soil organic carbon through soil erosion indirectly contributes to emissions as well. While agriculture plays a role in propelling climate change, it is also affected by the direct and secondary consequences of climate change. USDA research indicates that these climatic changes will lead to a decline in yield and nutrient density in key crops, as well as decreased livestock productivity. Climate change poses unprecedented challenges to U.S. agriculture due to the sensitivity of agricultural productivity and costs to changing climate conditions. Rural communities dependent on agriculture are particularly vulnerable to climate change threats.
References
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- ↑ Poppenwimer, Tyler; Mayrose, Itay; DeMalach, Niv (2023-11-08). "Revising the global biogeography of annual and perennial plants". Nature. 624 (7990): 109–114. arXiv: 2304.13101 . doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06644-x. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 37938778. S2CID 260332117.
- ↑ "Perennial Grain Crop Development". The Land Institute. Retrieved 2023-12-05.
- ↑ Wagoner, Peggy; Schaeffer, Jurgen R. (January 1, 1990). "Perennial grain development: Past efforts and potential for the future". Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences. 9 (5): 381–408. Bibcode:1990CRvPS...9..381W. doi:10.1080/07352689009382298.
- ↑ Wahlquist, Asa. "Perennial crops a win for food security". The Australian. Retrieved 24 March 2011.
- 1 2 "Terrestrial Carbon Removal and Sequestration". Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration: A Research Agenda. National Academies Press. 2019. pp. 87–136. ISBN 978-0-309-48452-7.
- ↑ Rich, Deborah (24 November 2007). "Perennial crops: The garden that keeps giving". SFGate.com. Archived from the original on April 16, 2010. Retrieved 25 March 2011.
- ↑ "Perennial Grain Cropping Research: Why Perennial Grain Crops?". The Land Institute. Archived from the original on 15 April 2013. Retrieved 25 March 2011.
- ↑ Zhou, X. (2010). "Perennial filter strips reduce nitrate levels in soil and shallow groundwater after grassland-to-cropland conversion". Journal of Environmental Quality. 39 (6): 2006–15. doi:10.2134/jeq2010.0151. PMID 21284298.
- ↑ Glover, J. D.; Reganold, J. P.; Bell, L. W.; Borevitz, J.; Brummer, E. C.; Buckler, E. S.; Cox, C. M.; Cox, T. S.; Crews, T. E.; Culman, S. W.; DeHaan, L. R.; Eriksson, D.; Gill, B. S.; Holland, J.; Hu, F.; Hulke, B. S.; Ibrahim, A. M. H.; Jackson, W.; Jones, S. S.; Murray, S. C.; Paterson, A. H.; Ploschuk, E.; Sacks, E. J.; Snapp, S.; Tao, D.; Van Tassel, D. L.; Wade, L. J.; Wyse, D. L.; Xu, Y. (24 June 2010). "Increased Food and Ecosystem Security via Perennial Grains". Science. 328 (5986): 1638–1639. doi:10.1126/science.1188761. PMID 20576874. S2CID 130815466.
- ↑ Dohleman, Frank G.; Long, Stephen P. (August 2009). "More Productive Than Maize in the Midwest: How Does Miscanthus Do It?". Plant Physiology. 150 (4): 2104–2115. doi:10.1104/pp.109.139162. PMC 2719137 . PMID 19535474.
- ↑ Zan, Claudia S; Fyles, James W; Girouard, Patrick; Samson, Roger A (2001-08-01). "Carbon sequestration in perennial bioenergy, annual corn and uncultivated systems in southern Quebec". Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment. 86 (2): 135–144. doi:10.1016/S0167-8809(00)00273-5. ISSN 0167-8809.
- ↑ Jackson, L. E.; Pascual, U.; Hodgkin, T. (2007-07-01). "Utilizing and conserving agrobiodiversity in agricultural landscapes". Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment. Biodiversity in Agricultural Landscapes: Investing without Losing Interest. 121 (3): 196–210. doi:10.1016/j.agee.2006.12.017. ISSN 0167-8809.
- ↑ Rouw, Anneke de; Soulilad, B.; Phanthavong, K.; Dupin, B. (2005). "The adaptation of upland rice cropping to ever-shorter fallow periods and its limit". In Bouahom, B.; Glendinning, A.; Nilsson, S.; Victor, M. (eds.). Poverty reduction and shifting cultivation stabilization in the uplands of Lao PDR. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.538.3332 . hdl:10568/37412. OCLC 169891017.