Cover crop treatments and nitrogen (N) fertilization rates were investigated for their impact on sorghum grain quality attributes. Sorghum was planted in field plots treated with differing cover cropping systems and fertilization rates. The size (weight and diameter) and hardness of the kernels were influenced by both the cover crop and N rates. The protein content increased as the N rate incre...

Rice-rice system and rice fallows are no longer productive in Southeast Asia. Crop and varietal diversification of the rice based cropping systems may improve the productivity and profitability of the systems. Diversification is also a viable option to mitigate the risk of climate change. In Eastern India, farmers cultivate rice during rainy season (June-September) and land leftovers fallow aft...

Modern agriculture is based on the notion that nitrate is the main source of nitrogen (N) for crops, but nitrate is also the most mobile form of N and easily lost from soil. Efficient acquisition of nitrate by crops is therefore a prerequisite for avoiding off-site N pollution. Sugarcane is considered the most suitable tropical crop for biofuel production, but surprisingly high N fertilizer app...

Mixture crops, as opposed to pure sowing crops, are characterised by more stable output, reduced expenditure on pesticides as well as smaller environment pollution thanks to the biological diversification of species. It seems mixture crops have good prospects while the pro-ecology movements are growing in popularity. The growth and development of plants, both in natural and formed ecosystems, a...

Wheat is one of the most widely distributed crops worldwide and is of primary importance as food for human nutrition. Increasing the productivity of the new wheat varieties according to the specific climate of the region is a permanent major task. The impact of environment and some agronomy practices (previous crop and mineral fertilization) on the productivity and the structural elements of yi...

Grain amaranths, edible C4 dicots, produce pseudo-cereals high in lysine. Lysine being one of the most limiting essential amino acids in cereals and C4 photosynthesis being one of the most sought-after phenotypes in protein-rich legume crops, the genome of one of the grain amaranths is likely to play a critical role in crop research. We have sequenced the genome and transcriptome of Amaranthus ...

The potential of biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) to provide sufficient N for production has encouraged re-appraisal of cropping systems that deploy legumes. It has been argued that legume-derived N can maintain productivity as an alternative to the application of mineral fertilizer, although few studies have systematically evaluated the effect of optimizing the balance between legumes and no...

Preventing the introduction of weeds into the farming system through sowing of clean seeds is an essential component of weed management. The weed seed contamination of cleaned grain and herbicide resistance levels of the recovered weed seeds were examined in a study conducted across 74 farms in the Western Australian grainbelt. Most farmers grew and conserved their own crop seed. The majority o...

The European Energy Crops Overview (EECO) project was carried out with 20 partners from fourteen EU countries during 1996. The EECO-project provides the state-of-the-art on energy crops activities in Europe. More than 30 potential energy crop species have been investigated in Europe, but only a few have achieved commercial status so far. The introduction of energy crops in agriculture is relati...