Rice receives a large amount of water during land preparation and the growing period, causing poor crop water productivity and lower net benefits. In wheat, excessive tillage operations delay its sowing, resulting in low yields and net returns. Dry seeding of rice and zero tillage in wheat can be expected to reduce water inputs and tillage costs compared with the conventional system of rice-whe...

Wheat was the single most important product of the British economy during the Industrial Revolution, being both the largest component of national income and the primary determinant of caloric intake. This paper offers new estimates of annual wheat production during industrialisation. Whereas other researchers infer wheat production indirectly from demand equations, we estimate production direct...

A laboratory-scale fermentor designed for solid-substrate fermentation was constructed and tested. Its capacity to produce ochratoxin under varied conditions was determined with wheat as substrate. Ochratoxin yields of 2,000 to 2,500 mug/g of wheat were regularly obtained, and occasionally yields as high as 4,000 mug/g were obtained. The most critical factor in the fermentation was initial subs...

A quantitative understanding of yield response to water and nutrients is key to improving the productivity and sustainability of rainfed cropping systems. Here, we quantified the effects of rainfall, fertilization (NPK) and soil organic amendments (with straw and manure) on yields of a rainfed wheat-soybean system in the North China Plain (NCP), using 30-years' field experimental data (1982-201...

Prospects of doubling global wheat yields Malcolm J. Hawkesford, Jose-Luis Araus, Robert Park, Daniel Calderini, Daniel Miralles, Tianmin Shen, Jianping Zhang & Martin A. J. Parry Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Hertfordshire, AL5 2JQ, United Kingdom Unitat de Fisiologia Vegetal, Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, 08028, Barcelona, Spain Plant Breeding Institute, Faculty of Agricul...

Numerous experiments have demonstrated reductions in the yields of cereal crops due to tropospheric O(3), with losses of up to 25%. However, the only British econometric study on O(3) impacts on winter wheat yields, found that a 10% increase in AOT40 would decrease yields by only 0.23%. An attempt is made here to reconcile these observations by developing AOT40 maps for Great Britain and matchi...

Increasing crop yield and water use efficiency (WUE) in dryland farming requires a quantitative understanding of relationships between crop yield and the water balance over many years. Here, we report on a long-term dryland monitoring site at the Loess Plateau, Shanxi, China, where winter wheat was grown for 30 consecutive years and soil water content (0-200 cm) was measured every 10 days. The ...