Crop residue management for soil health, crop productivity and environment quality /
H. S. Shekhar.
- New Delhi, India : Random Publications, 2017
- vi, 272 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Introduction -- Methods of crop improvement -- Root adaptation and crop production -- Crop modeling: a tool for agricultural research -- Techniques of crop production -- Management steps to improve soil quality -- Basis of soil health -- Soil productivity management -- Environmental impact on crops.
"Managing for soil health (improved soil function) is mostly a matter of maintaining suitable habitat for the myriad of creatures that comprise the soil food web. This can be accomplished by disturbing the soil as little as possible, growing as many different species of plants as practical, keeping living plants in the soil as often as possible, and keeping the soil covered all the time. Nutrients in most crop residue are not immediately available for crop use. Their release (called generalization) occurs over a period of years. The biological processes involved in soil nutrient cycles are complex. As a rough guide, cereal straw releases about 10 to 15 per cent of its nutrients and pea residues release about 35 percent of their nutrients by the next year. The management of croplands has a large impact on the quantity and quality of food and fiber production and on air and water quality, all of which influence the quality of our environment. Management of the non-harvested plant tissues, such as leaves, stems, branches, and roots that constitute the residues from the production of food and fiber, is one of the farm practices that affects crop production via nutrient availability and cycling. The purpose of this book is to assist researchers in developing countries, to develop livestock feeding systems based on the available resources which are mainly crop residues, dry and/or mature pastures and agro-industrial by-products."--Back cover