Genome editing holds great promise for increasing crop productivity, and there is particular interest in advancing breeding in orphan crops, which are often burdened by undesirable characteristics ...resembling wild relatives. We developed genomic resources and efficient transformation in the orphan Solanaceae crop 'groundcherry' (Physalis pruinosa) and used clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-CRISPR-associated protein-9 nuclease (Cas9) (CRISPR-Cas9) to mutate orthologues of tomato domestication and improvement genes that control plant architecture, flower production and fruit size, thereby improving these major productivity traits. Thus, translating knowledge from model crops enables rapid creation of targeted allelic diversity and novel breeding germplasm in distantly related orphan crops.
Biochar is a promising soil additive for use in support of sustainable crop production. However, the high level of heterogeneity in biochar properties and the variations in soil composition present ...significant challenges to the successful uptake of biochar technologies in diverse agricultural soils. An improved understanding of the mechanisms that contribute to biochar-soil interactions is required to address issues related to climate change and cultivation practices. This review summarizes biochar modification approaches (physical, chemical, and biochar-based organic composites) and discusses the potential role of biochar in sustainable crop production and soil resiliency, including the degradation of soil organic matter, the improvement of soil quality, and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Biochar design is crucial to successful soil remediation, particularly with regard to issues arising from soil structure and composition related to crop production. Given the wide variety of feedstocks for biochar production and the resultant high surface heterogeneity, greater efforts are required to optimize biochar surface functionality and porosity through appropriate modifications. The design and establishment of these approaches and methods are essential for the future utilization of biochar as an effective soil additive to promote sustainable crop production.
Increasing temperatures resulting from climate change dramatically impact rice crop production in Asia. Depending on the specific stage of rice development, heat stress reduces tiller/panicle number, ...decreases grain number per plant and lower grain weight, thus negatively impacting yield formation. Hence improving rice crop tolerance to heat stress in terms of sustaining yield stability under high day temperature (HDT), high night temperature (HNT), or combined high day and night temperature (HDNT) will bolster future food security. In this review article, we highlight the phenological alterations caused by heat and the underlying molecular‐physiological and genetic mechanisms operating under different types of heat conditions (HDT, HNT, and HDNT) to understand heat tolerance. Based on our synthesis of HDT, HNT, and HDNT effects on rice yield components, we outline future breeding strategies to contribute to sustained food security under climate change.
In this review article we highlighted the phenological implications of heat stress and summarized the molecular physiological implications affecting HDT, HNT, and HDNT tolerance with a holistic approach of physiology, genomics, and systems‐genetics approaches. We outlined future breeding strategies to address sustained food security under climate change.
The application of genome editing for crop improvement has been lagging mainly owing to public debate about and continued activism against genetically modified crops. Cooperative Governance networks ...could be way out of the conundrum to enable safe and acceptable use of genome editing in agriculture.
A major challenge of the 21st century is to produce more food for a growing population without increasing humanity’s agricultural footprint. Urban food production may help to solve this challenge; ...however, little research has examined the productivity of urban farming systems. We investigated inputs and produce yields over a 1-y period in 13 small-scale organic farms and gardens in Sydney, Australia. We found mean yields to be 5.94 kg·m−2, around twice the yield of typical Australian commercial vegetable farms. While these systems used land efficiently, economic and emergy (embodied energy) analyses showed they were relatively inefficient in their use of material and labor resources. Benefit-to-cost ratios demonstrated that, on average, the gardens ran at a financial loss and emergy transformity was one to three orders of magnitude greater than many conventional rural farms. Only 14.66% of all inputs were considered “renewable,” resulting in a moderate mean environmental loading ratio (ELR) of 5.82, a value within the range of many conventional farming systems. However, when all nonrenewable inputs capable of being substituted with local renewable inputs were replaced in a hypothetical scenario, the ELR improved markedly to 1.32. These results show that urban agriculture can be highly productive; however, this productivity comes with many trade-offs, and care must be taken to ensure its sustainability.
There is a growing interest in exploring interactions at root–soil interface in natural and agricultural ecosystems, but an entropy-based understanding of these dynamic rhizosphere processes is ...lacking. We have developed a new conceptual model of rhizosphere regulation by localized nutrient supply using thermodynamic entropy. Increased nutrient-use efficiency is achieved by rhizosphere management based on self-organization and minimized entropy via equilibrium attractors comprising (i) optimized root strategies for nutrient acquisition and (ii) improved information exchange related to root–soil–microbe interactions. The cascading effects through different hierarchical levels amplify the underlying processes in plant–soil system. We propose a strategy for manipulating rhizosphere dynamics and improving nutrient-use efficiency by localized nutrient supply with minimization of entropy to underpin sustainable food/feed/fiber production.
Despite the inherently complex dynamics of the rhizosphere, it can be engineered.There are still many knowledge gaps regarding the rhizosphere and its engineering and how it can enhance the agricultural production.The models based on entropy can promote the understanding and the engineering of various components of the rhizosphere, up scaling it to the plant–soil system and other higher level systems.Engineering the rhizosphere by emphasizing and harnessing the heterogeneous (localized) nutrient supply to decrease entropy is a promising approach to achieve green, sustainable agriculture by growing more produce with less resources.
The Simple Algorithm for Yield estimates (SAFY) is a crop yield model that simulates crop growth and biomass accumulation at a daily time step. Parameters in the SAFY model can be determined from ...literature, in situ measurements, or optical remote sensing data through data assimilation. For effective determination of parameters, optical remote sensing data need to be acquired at high spatial and high temporal resolutions. However, this is challenging due to interference of cloud cover and rather long revisiting cycles of high resolution satellite sensors. Spatio-temporal fusion of multi-source remote sensing data may represent a feasible solution. Here, crop phenology-related parameters in the SAFY model were derived using an improved Two-Step Filtering (TSF) model from remote sensing data generated through spatio-temporal fusion of Landsat-8 and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. Remaining parameters were determined through an optimization procedure using the same dataset. The SAFY model was then used for dry aboveground biomass and yield estimation at a subfield scale for corn (Zea mays) and soybean (Glycine max). The results show that the improved TSF method is able to determine crop phenology stages with an error of <5 days. After calibration, the SAFY model can reproduce daily Green Leaf Area Index (GLAI) effectively throughout the growing season and estimate crop biomass and yield accurately at a subfield scale using three Landsat-8 and 10 MODIS images acquired for the season. This approach improves the accuracy of biomass estimation by about 4% in relative Root Mean Square Error (RRMSE), compared with the SAFY model without forcing the phenology-related parameters. The RMSE of yield estimation is 146.33 g/m2 for corn and 82.86 g/m2 for soybean. The proposed framework is applicable for local-scale or field-scale phenology detection and yield estimation.
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•Improves the Two-Step Filtering method for phenology detection•Calibrates the Simple Algorithm for Yield estimates model for corn and soybean•Estimates the biomass and yield accurately at a subfield scale•A good correlation is found between effective light use efficiency and fAPARmax.
Rice is the main staple food for almost half of the world’s population and leading cereal in terms of production area and consumption. Rapid urbanization and changes in consumer preferences have led ...to a concomitant increase in consumption which so far exceeds any other crop in Africa. Therefore, upland rice cropping has become a common sight in Africa as farmers engage in diversification and respond to demand for the crop. Interspecific hybridization of African rice (Oryza glaberrima Steud.) and Asian rice (Oryza sativa L.) produced upland rice NERICA varieties that combine adaptability, tolerance to stresses and high production potential. Traditional African rice varieties though adapted to the continent are prone to lodging, shattering and comparatively low yielding which adversely affects production and consequently their adoption. Some of the poorest farmers are found in Africa where there is dependence on biomass cooking fuel and upland rice has greater significance. There is, therefore, need to re-evaluate the role played by the crop, identify gaps and proffer solutions that will make it productive and widely cultivated. Accordingly, this review intends to examine upland rice production patterns and strides which can be made to sustainably increase its productivity so that there is food and nutrition security. Some of the pertinent issues that need to be considered include prioritization of farmer preferences in quality and agronomic attributes to enhance adoption. Upland rice breeding programs can go beyond traditional breeding for stresses and yield but focus on genetic biofortification to use the crop as a conduit for vital nutrients. Ultimately, for sustainable rice productivity, there is need to have affordable infrastructure to lessen labor requirement particularly during production and post-harvest processing. Moreover, there is need to build institutional capacity to conduct more research and offer extension services to support production of the crop. A wider product portfolio for the crop will subsequently have a multiplier effect and enhance adoption of rice production by many farmers in Africa. The ultimate aim is to spread awareness of upland rice as an alternative cash crop that can be produced in suitable agroecologies in Africa.
Foreign investors have acquired approximately 90 million hectares of land for agriculture over the past two decades. The effects of these investments on local food security remain unknown. While ...additional cropland and intensified agriculture could potentially increase crop production, preferential targeting of prime agricultural land and transitions toward export-bound crops might affect local access to nutritious foods. We test these hypotheses in a global systematic analysis of the food security implications of existing land concessions. We combine agricultural, remote sensing, and household survey data (available in 11 sub-Saharan African countries) with georeferenced information on 160 land acquisitions in 39 countries. We find that the intended changes in cultivated crop types generally imply transitions toward energy-rich, but nutrient-poor, crops that are predominantly destined for export markets. Specific impacts on food production and access vary substantially across regions. Deals likely have little effect on food security in eastern Europe and Latin America, where they predominantly occur within agricultural areas with current export-oriented crops, and where agriculture would have both expanded and intensified regardless of the land deals. This contrasts with Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where deals are associated with both an expansion and intensification (in Asia) of crop production. Deals in these regions also shift production away from local staples and coincide with a gradually decreasing dietary diversity among the surveyed households in sub-Saharan Africa. Together, these findings point to a paradox, where land deals can simultaneously increase crop production and threaten local food security.
Coffee farms have been adopting the microterraces system, a technique that reduces the effect of the slope by moving the soil between the crop lines. In this way, all the mechanized operations can be ...carried out normally, except for harvesting, due to the work limitation of the harvesters, who work in areas with a maximum slope of 20%. One option is to use unilateral harvesters, which crop one side at a time; however, there has been no research on these microterrace machines to evaluate their performance and to compare it with those of the other harvesting methods in those regions. This study aimed to compare the mechanized harvest performance in the microterraces with the manual and semimechanized harvesting methods. The study was carried out in an agricultural area of the municipality of Ouro Fino / MG, Brazil, in a crop production site where the microterraces were built six years before the experiment. The treatments were assigned to a split-block design with seven repetitions and consisted of mechanized harvest-unilateral harvester with bag storage; manual harvest-regionally experienced workers; and semimechanized harvest-with portable breakers. Through an analysis of the times and movements, the operational efficiency and operational and effective field capabilities were measured. The adoption of microterraces allows the efficient mechanization of areas previously impossible to mechanize. The unilateral harvester is a potential tool for the partial replacement of manual labor in the harvest, performing a service equivalent to that of 23.68 manual workers and 10.55 manual workers in the semimechanized system.
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