Academic Journal

Impact of Practice Change on Runoff Water Quality and Vegetable Yield—An On-Farm Case Study

التفاصيل البيبلوغرافية
العنوان: Impact of Practice Change on Runoff Water Quality and Vegetable Yield—An On-Farm Case Study
المؤلفون: Gunasekhar Nachimuthu, Neil Halpin, Michael Bell
المصدر: Agriculture; Volume 7; Issue 3; Pages: 30
بيانات النشر: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
سنة النشر: 2017
المجموعة: MDPI Open Access Publishing
مصطلحات موضوعية: capsicum, zucchini, runoff, nutrients, sediments, GBR
جغرافية الموضوع: agris
الوصف: Intensive agricultural practices in farming systems in eastern Australia have been identified as a contributor to the poor runoff water quality entering the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). A field investigation was carried out to measure the off-farm water quality and productivity in a coastal farming system in northeastern Australia. Two vegetable crops (capsicum and zucchini) were grown in summer 2010–2011 and winter 2011 respectively using four different management practices (Conventional—plastic mulch, bare inter-row conventional tillage and commercial fertilizer inputs; Improved—improved practice with plastic mulch, inter-row vegetative mulch, zonal tillage and reduced fertilizer rates; Trash mulch—improved practice with cane-trash or forage-sorghum mulch with reduced fertilizer rates, minimum or zero tillage; and Vegetable only—improved practice with Rhodes grass or forage-sorghum mulch, minimum or zero tillage, reduced fertilizer rates). Results suggest improved and trash mulch systems reduced sediment and nutrient loads by at least 50% compared to conventional systems. The residual nitrate nitrogen in soil accumulated at the end-of-break crop cycle was lost by deep drainage before the subsequent sugarcane crop could utilize it. These results suggest that future research into establishing the linkages between deep drainage, groundwater quality and lateral movement into adjacent streams is needed. The improvement in runoff water quality was accompanied by yield reductions of up to 55% in capsicum and 57% in zucchini under trash mulch systems, suggesting a commercially unacceptable trade-off between water quality and productivity for a practice change. The current study has shown that variations around improved practice (modified nutrient application strategies under plastic mulch, but with an inter-space mulch to minimize runoff and sediment loss) may be the most practical solution to improve water quality and maintain productivity. However, more work is required to optimize this approach and thus reduce the ...
نوع الوثيقة: text
وصف الملف: application/pdf
اللغة: English
Relation: https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/agriculture7030030
DOI: 10.3390/agriculture7030030
الاتاحة: https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture7030030
Rights: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
رقم الانضمام: edsbas.87000670
قاعدة البيانات: BASE
الوصف
DOI:10.3390/agriculture7030030