There is no easy in situ way to monitor large waterbodies for their aquatic vegetation change, especially during mowing works. The objective of this study is to choose the best automatic workflow ...that would estimate a change in the reed bed area and density over time. This workflow will assess the mowing effect on reeds over 3 years in the Plateliai Lake (Lithuania). Sentinel-2/MSI images were used to derive reed beds using water adjusted vegetation index (WAVI) and normalised difference water index (NDWI). The indices were classified using seven different binary thresholding algorithms. Results were validated with orthophotos gathered from unmanned aerial vehicle surveys in mowed regions and one reference area. Analysis demonstrated that using the NDWI together with the Yen thresholding algorithm generated the best accuracy results, with the highest accuracy resulting with high vegetation areas where the area under the curve values were 0.85 ± 0.17. The changes in estimated density did not show a significant correlation between mowed and reference areas and years. The results indicate that Sentinel-2/MSI is a feasible tool for the evaluation of reed bed change. On this basis, it is recommended to implement it as an additional monitoring tool that covers larger areas than in situ monitoring.
Aims
Once widely used across Europe, grazing of hay meadows is now a rare agricultural practice that is mainly applied in rural regions with maintained traditional agriculture. In this review, we ...examine the knowledge on grazing hay meadows in the Carpathian Mountains, including its historical distribution, implementation and timing, potential impacts on grassland productivity and biodiversity, and implications for grassland conservation and restoration.
Location
The Carpathian Mountains (43.8–50.1°N, 16.9–27.1°E).
Methods
We conducted a literature review including biological, ecological, agricultural, ethnological, and historical sources.
Results and Conclusions
In each of the seven farming systems that existed in parallel in the Carpathian Mountains before agricultural intensification, grazing of hay meadows was applied regularly. Spring, autumn, and occasionally summer grazing, along with corralling and manuring of hay meadows, were integral parts of these systems, adapted to the seasonal movement of dairy farms across various agroecosystems. The data reviewed provide insight into the role of animals in hay meadow management, as well as how the breakdown of these historical farming systems is impacting local biodiversity, the economy, and the community. According to the literature sources, grazing hay meadows has numerous positive impacts on grassland biodiversity, including suppressing fast‐growing competitors, reducing the accumulation of litter, increasing the availability of germination gaps, dispersing seeds through zoochory, supporting ground‐nesting birds through later mowing, and promoting the regeneration of plants from seeds. From this perspective, the combination of mowing and grazing can be considered a promising tool in current grassland conservation and restoration efforts.
Grazing hay meadows, once widespread across Europe, became limited to rural regions with maintained traditional agriculture. Spring and autumn grazing, along with corralling and manuring of hay meadows, were integral parts of all farming systems existing in the Carpathian Mountains in parallel before agricultural intensification. We describe details on their distribution, implementation, timing, and impacts on grassland productivity and biodiversity.
•Significant effect of mowing on the Dermacentor reticulatus ticks was identified.•Regular mowing can decrease tick densities several times.•Cessation of mowing for few years may cause significant ...increase in tick abundance.
The effect of agricultural activities on the environment has been falling in many areas of Europe in recent years and the associated abandonment of crop fields, meadows and pastures may enable an increase in tick densities. In the present study we assessed whether regular mowing would have a negative effect on Dermacentor reticulatus populations and whether the cessation of regular mowing would cause an increase in abundance of D. reticulatus ticks.
Two field experiments were conducted during a five-year period (2012–2016) in the Mazowieckie (Mazovia) region of Central Poland.
Experiment 1: The long-term effect of mowing on tick population was tested in the meadow ecosystem of Stoski, an old fallow land plot that was mowed three times a year.
Experiment 2: Neglecting the cultivation by abandonment of arable land was evaluated in Kury village. Four areas (2 experimental ‘fallow lands’, 2 control meadows) were selected. The first fallow land plot was a fenced off area comprising mostly of a horse pasture and the second fallow land plot was designated in an old abandoned orchard. At each site, ticks were collected in consecutive springs and autumns by dragging at least twice during each season from experimental and control areas.
Altogether 1452 D. reticulatus ticks were collected and their densities were compared by multifactorial ANOVA. In the end of the first experiment, a significant decrease (6 times) in tick abundance was observed in the mowed area in comparison to old fallow land. In the end of the second experiment, tick abundance was three times higher in the experimental fallow lands in comparison to the control meadows.
In conclusion it was found that regular mowing significantly reduced the density of questing D. reticulatus ticks in open areas. Cessation of mowing may enhance the number of ticks and the associated risk of acquiring tick-borne diseases.
The main objective of this paper is to report the effect of shrub removal, mowing, and grazing as grassland management methods on spider diversity. Sampling was conducted in the Mátra Mountains and ...four disturbed main road verges in Hungary. Shrub removal and mowing positively affected diversity. Moderate grazing caused increasing diversity, but intensive grazing reduced spider diversity. The intensity of mowing maintenance had various effects on diversity depending on the landscape impact. It is worth reducing the intensity of the application of mosaic treatments and considering the long-term maintenance of edge habitats in these areas.
Local, adaptive traditional grassland management systems have played a fundamental role in the creation, maintenance and conservation of high nature value (HNV) grasslands. The state of diverse HNV ...grasslands has deteriorated across Europe in conjunction with changes in various management factors, such as management type and management intensity. To conserve the species-rich vegetation of HNV grasslands and to avoid undesirable shifts in plant functional type dominance, it is important to explore the effects of management factors crucial for nature conservation and to adapt them to local circumstances. In our study, we focus on three of the main factors in the management of valuable meadow steppes in the Great Hungarian Plain region (Central Hungary). We studied management types (mowing, grazing and combined), different levels of herbage removal intensity (low, medium, high) and spatio-temporal complexity (low, medium and high) of grassland management. Altogether 172 plots (1 m × 1 m) were designated in 17 sites. Plant diversity indexes and plant functional types were calculated according to the presence and percentage cover of plant species in the plots. Regarding plant diversity and the dominance of plant functional types, herbage removal intensity and spatio-temporal complexity of management had, for the most part, stronger effects than the type of management. Higher spatio-temporal complexity of management resulted in higher plant diversity, while higher intensity of management led to significantly lower diversity. Proper application of type, intensity and spatio-temporal complexity of management practices (separately and in combination) proved to be determining factors in the long-term maintenance and conservation of diversity and species composition of HNV grasslands.
Nitrogen enrichment and land use are known to influence various ecosystems, but how these anthropogenic changes influence community and ecosystem responses to disturbance remains poorly understood. ...Here we investigated the effects of increased nitrogen input and mowing on the resistance and recovery of temperate semiarid grassland experiencing a three-year drought. Nitrogen addition increased grassland biomass recovery but decreased structural recovery after drought, whereas annual mowing increased grassland biomass recovery and structural recovery but reduced structural resistance to drought. The treatment effects on community biomass/structural resistance and recovery were largely modulated by the stability of the dominant species and asynchronous dynamics among species, and the community biomass resistance and recovery were also greatly driven by the stability of grasses. Community biomass resistance/recovery in response to drought was positively associated with its corresponding structural stability. Our study provides important experimental evidence that both nitrogen addition and mowing could substantially change grassland stability in both functional and structural aspects. Our findings emphasize the need to study changes across levels of ecological organization for a more complete understanding of ecosystem responses to disturbances under widespread environmental changes.
In order to manage invasive plant species efficiently, it is necessary to have a thorough understanding of different strategies of population control, including the underlying mechanisms of action ...and the consequences for target populations. Here, I explored the effectiveness of biomass removal as a method of control for the invasive perennial herb
Lupinus polyphyllus
. More specifically, using seed material from 11 populations, I assessed among-population variation (if any) in plant compensatory growth as a response to annual biomass removal under standardised growing conditions over two consecutive years, and quantified the demographic effects of a single biomass-removal event. In all study populations, annual biomass removal reduced plant size, flowering probability, and shoot and root biomass. Biomass removal also reduced plant survival and the number of flowering shoots, but these effects were pronounced at certain time points only. A population-level demographic analysis revealed that a single biomass-removal event considerably decreased the long-term population growth rate (λ); this decline in λ was due to a reduction in plant fecundity followed by survival and growth. These findings suggest that annual mowing has the potential to curb invasions of
L. polyphyllus
because plants are not able to fully compensate for drastic biomass loss.
Conventional methods of crop mapping need ground truth information to train the classifier. Thanks to the frequent acquisition allowed by recent satellite missions (Sentinel 2), we can identify ...temporal patterns that depend on both phenology and crop management. Some of these patterns are specific to a given crop and thus can be used to map it. Thus, we can substitute ground truth information used in conventional methods with agronomic knowledge. This approach was applied to identify irrigated permanent grasslands (IPG) in the Crau area (Southern France), which play a crucial role in groundwater recharge. The grassland is managed by making three mows during the May–October period, which leads to a specific temporal pattern of leaf area index (LAI). The mowing detection algorithm was designed using the temporal LAI signal derived from Sentinel 2 observations. The algorithm includes some filtering to remove noise in the signal that might lead to false mowing detection. A pixel is considered a grassland if the number of detected mows is greater than 1. A data set covering five years (2016–2020) was used. The detection mowing number was conducted at the pixel level, and then the results were aggregated at the plot level. An evaluation data set including 780 plots was used to assess the performances of the classification. We obtained a Kappa index ranging between 0.94 and 0.99 according to the year. These results were better than other supervised classification methods that include training data sets. The analysis of land-use changes shows that misclassified plots concern grasslands managed less intensively with strong intra-parcel heterogeneity due to irrigation defects or year-round grazing. Time series analysis, therefore, allows us to understand different management practices. Real land-use change in use can be observed, but long time series are needed to confirm the change and remove ambiguities with heterogeneous grasslands.
Bu çalışmanın temel amacı, Tekirdağ ilinde balya formunda yonca kuru otu üretiminde kullanılan farklı hasat sistemlerinin girdi ve çıktı enerjilerini belirlemektir. Veriler 2019 yılında 176 yonca ...işletmesinden toplanmıştır. Çalışılan işletme sayısını belirlemek için tesadüf örnekleme metodu kullanılmıştır. Hasat sistemleri, yonca üretiminde kullanılan farklı alet ve makina kombinasyonlarından oluşmaktadır. Kullanılan makinaların özellikleri ve kapasitesi birbirinden oldukça farklıdır. Hasat sistemlerinde; balya makinası (dikdörtgenler prizması/silindirik), şartlandırıcı tırmıkların kullanım sıklığı ve sayıları dikkate alınmıştır. Bu nedenle, çalışma gruplarında 6 farklı hasat sistemi oluşturulmuştur (H/1-6). İlave olarak, biçim sayısına göre (1,2,3,4,5,6) hasat sistemlerinin enerji tüketimleri de incelenmiştir. İlk biçim prosesi olarak yonca üretimi dikkate alınırken, tek biçim prosesi olarak kesme işleminden sonraki uygulamalar dikkate alınmıştır. Araştırma sonuçları enerji kullanım etkinliği, enerji üretkenliği, net enerji üretiminin balya makinası çeşidine, şartlandırıcı kullanım sayısına göre değiştiğini göstermiştir. Hasat sistemlerinde toplam girdi ve çıktı enerji değerleri oldukça değişken olmuştur. En yüksek enerji girdisi oranı yakıt (38.77%) ve azotlu gübrelemede (24.89%) kaydedilmiştir. En yüksek kullanılan yakıt miktarına karşılık olarak birim alan için toplam H6 sisteminde 3244.57 MJha-1 yakıt enerjisi hesaplanmıştır. Şartlandırıcı ekipman kullanım sayısının artışı ve biçim sayısının artmasına bağlı olarak enerji tüketimleri de artmıştır. Altı biçim yapıldığında; dikdörtgenler prizması şeklinde balya yapan balya makinası kullanılan hasat sisteminde 1248.57 MJha-1 makina enerjisi tüketimi, silindirik balya makinası kullanılan hasat sisteminde ise 1751.07 MJha-1 makina enerjisi tüketimi hesaplanmıştır. En yüksek toplam enerji girdisi (ilk biçim) silindirik balya makinasının kullanıldığı sistemlerde (H5-H6) 8179.41 MJha-1, 8377.54 MJha-1 olarak hesaplanmıştır. En düşük özgül enerji dikdörtgen balya makinası kullanılan sistemlerde (H3-H4) 2.94 MJkg-1, 3.17 MJkg-1 olarak hesaplanmıştır.
Short temporal baseline regular Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) interferometry is a tool well suited for wide area monitoring of agricultural activities, urgently needed in European Union Common ...Agricultural Policy (CAP) enforcement. In this study, we demonstrate and describe in detail, how mowing and ploughing events can be identified from Sentinel-1 6-day interferometric coherence time series. The study is based on a large dataset of 386 dual polarimetric Sentinel-1 VV/VH SAR and 351 Sentinel-2 optical images, and nearly 2000 documented mowing and ploughing events on more than 1000 parcels (average 10.6 ha, smallest 0.6 ha, largest 108.5 ha). Statistical analysis revealed that mowing and ploughing cause coherence to increase when compared to values before an event. In the case of mowing, the coherence increased from 0.18 to 0.35, while Sentinel-2 NDVI (indicating the amount of green chlorophyll containing biomass) at the same time decreased from 0.75 to 0.5. For mowing, there was virtually no difference between the polarisations. After ploughing, VV-coherence grew up to 0.65 and VH-coherence to 0.45, while NDVI was around 0.2 at the same time. Before ploughing, both coherence and NDVI values were very variable, determined by the agricultural management practices of the parcel. Results presented here can be used for planning further studies and developing mowing and ploughing detection algorithms based on Sentinel-1 data. Besides CAP enforcement, the results are also useful for food security and land use change detection applications.
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