Grasslands cover one third of the earth’s terrestrial surface and are mainly used for livestock production. The usage type, use intensity and condition of grasslands are often unclear. Remote sensing ...enables the analysis of grassland production and management on large spatial scales and with high temporal resolution. Despite growing numbers of studies in the field, remote sensing applications in grassland biomes are underrepresented in literature and less streamlined compared to other vegetation types. By reviewing articles within research on satellite-based remote sensing of grassland production traits and management, we describe and evaluate methods and results and reveal spatial and temporal patterns of existing work. In addition, we highlight research gaps and suggest research opportunities. The focus is on managed grasslands and pastures and special emphasize is given to the assessment of studies on grazing intensity and mowing detection based on earth observation data. Grazing and mowing highly influence the production and ecology of grassland and are major grassland management types. In total, 253 research articles were reviewed. The majority of these studies focused on grassland production traits and only 80 articles were about grassland management and use intensity. While the remote sensing-based analysis of grassland production heavily relied on empirical relationships between ground-truth and satellite data or radiation transfer models, the used methods to detect and investigate grassland management differed. In addition, this review identified that studies on grassland production traits with satellite data often lacked including spatial management information into the analyses. Studies focusing on grassland management and use intensity mostly investigated rather small study areas with homogeneous intensity levels among the grassland parcels. Combining grassland production estimations with management information, while accounting for the variability among grasslands, is recommended to facilitate the development of large-scale continuous monitoring and remote sensing grassland products, which have been rare thus far.
Backgrounds and aims
Mowing and P-fertilization enhance legume seedling establishment, assisting in successful restoration of degraded grasslands. Legume establishment may influence soil chemical ...compounds and soil microbial assemblage to facilitate legume productivity. We aim to better understand these complex plant-soil-microbial interactions to improve grassland productivity following overgrazing.
Methods
We conducted a 3-years
Medicago falcata
reseeding experiment was in semi-arid meadows, assessing responses of aboveground plant biomass, soil chemical compounds, and soil microbial community composition. Reseeded plots were mowed and/or P-fertilized.
Results
Application of both management practices increased grassland biomass compared with all other combinations. Soil chemical diversity predicted fungal alpha diversity, and fungal alpha diversity positively correlated with aboveground biomass. Our results indicate reseeded alfalfa directly altered bulk soil chemical compounds with subsequent alterations in grassland microbial communities. Soils contained chemical compounds with antifungal properties that indirectly improved grassland productivity via antagonism to pathogenic fungi. Furthermore, we found three specific compounds (5-methyltridecane, pentatriacontane, and N-tridecane) reduced microbial diversity.
Conclusions
Here we demonstrate soil chemical compounds play an important role in shaping beneficial microbial communities to improve grassland biomass. These results may help direct beneficial soil microbial community composition through improved grassland management practices.
Worldwide, human appropriation of ecosystems is disrupting plant–pollinator communities and pollination function through habitat conversion and landscape homogenisation. Conversion to agriculture is ...destroying and degrading semi‐natural ecosystems while conventional land‐use intensification (e.g. industrial management of large‐scale monocultures with high chemical inputs) homogenises landscape structure and quality. Together, these anthropogenic processes reduce the connectivity of populations and erode floral and nesting resources to undermine pollinator abundance and diversity, and ultimately pollination services. Ecological intensification of agriculture represents a strategic alternative to ameliorate these drivers of pollinator decline while supporting sustainable food production, by promoting biodiversity beneficial to agricultural production through management practices such as intercropping, crop rotations, farm‐level diversification and reduced agrochemical use. We critically evaluate its potential to address and reverse the land use and management trends currently degrading pollinator communities and potentially causing widespread pollination deficits. We find that many of the practices that constitute ecological intensification can contribute to mitigating the drivers of pollinator decline. Our findings support ecological intensification as a solution to pollinator declines, and we discuss ways to promote it in agricultural policy and practice.
Abstract
The aim of the study is to identify the list of machines for harvesting grain crops from plots I-II stage of selection works and to outline promising directions of development of harvesting ...machines designs. The article discusses various options for harvesting machines and their development in the period from 1976 to 2020. The appearance of the machines, their purpose and some parameters are presented. Their design and technological advantages and disadvantages are outlined. It is revealed that despite the fact that developed models of the machines exist, they are not mass-produced. Obviously, this is due to their low demand and factories see no benefit in setting up such production. Each of the presented machines allows increasing the productivity of mowing plants by a factor of 1,5 to 3. Many of the developed machines eliminate operator injury during operation.
Mowing is a widely used practice for haymaking in the semi-arid grassland of northern China. Yet, how it impacts above- and belowground biota and ultimately affects the grassland ecosystem is ...unclear. Here we address this question by investigating the effects of three mowing regimes (no mowing, mowing once per year, mowing twice every three years) on vegetation characteristics, soil properties, and microbial communities in semi-arid grassland of Inner Mongolia. Our results show that two types of mowing treatments preserve high plant productivity by increasing subordinate species. However, mowing once per year led to grassland degradation when applied over a seven-year period. Mowing twice every three years facilitates soil bacterial communities and microbial interactions by generating a nutrient-rich ecological niche, whereas mowing once per year negatively impacted them via lessen the substrate quality. Given its clear positive effects upon above- and belowground biota, mowing twice every three years is the most suitable, convenient management practice for sustaining plant species richness on this type of grassland, a finding which suggests that sustainable utilization of grassland resources can only be achieved by using modest rotation cutting practices.
•Mowing once per year negatively influenced belowground biota.•Mowing twice every three years positively influenced above- and belowground biota.•Species compensatory growth is feedback into both above- and belowground biota.•Mowing twice every three years is a sustainable practice in semi-arid grassland.
Abstract
Since 2000, there has been a noticeable increase of overgrazing in Kurdistan region of Iraq, particularly in Duhok governorate, as a result of the widespread movement of livestock (sheep and ...goats) by animal breeders from the middle of Iraq, particularly from the Nineveh steppes, to graze in Kurdistan region constantly from early spring to late summer. In addition to local livestock, tens of thousands of animals contributed to increased grazing frequencies, overgrazing, and degradation of rangelands in countless and extensive patches. The occasional fires, droughts, and overgrazing over the past three decades have all contributed significantly to that same degradation of rangeland in Iraq, specifically in the Kurdistan region, by depleting the soil seed bank, which is the fundamental source of natural vegetation restoration. As a result, this study was carried out in the spring of 2016 in Duhok Governorate to ascertain the impact of mowing frequencies (as consequences of grazing) on the seeds productivity of natural vegetation cover (total seeds, grasses seeds, legumes seeds, and other seeds productivity), and to determine the appropriate mowing frequencies to improve vegetation cover and make rangelands more sustainable. Four treatments —no mowing, once, twice, and three times— with five replications in (RCBD) experiment were implemented. The findings showed that the productivity of all seeds declined as mowing was repeated (once, twice, and three times), with the exception of (other seeds group), whose productivity improved when mowed twice in comparison to once. Natural vegetation cover can be utilized (mowed) or grazed even twice if the plant growth season has not yet exceeded the middle stage.
Accurate approaches to aboveground biomass (AGB) estimation are required to support appraisal of the effectiveness of land use measures, which seek to protect grazing-adapted grasslands atop the ...Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP). This methodological study assesses the effectiveness of one commonly used visible band vegetation index, Red Green Blue Vegetation Index (RGBVI), obtained from unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), in estimating AGB timely and accurately at the local scale, seeking to improve the estimation accuracy by taking into account in situ collected information on disturbed grassland. Particular emphasis is placed upon the mapping and quantification of areas disturbed by grazing (simulated via mowing) and plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae) that have led to the emergence of bare ground. The initial model involving only RGBVI performed poorly in AGB estimation by underestimating high AGB by around 10% and overestimating low AGB by about 10%. The estimation model was modified by the mowing intensity ratio and bare ground metrics. The former almost doubled the estimation accuracy from R2 = 0.44 to 0.81. However, this modification caused the bare ground AGB to be overestimated by about 38 and 19 g m−2 for 2018 and 2019, respectively. Although further modification of the model by bare ground metrics improved the accuracy slightly to 0.88, it markedly reduced the overestimation of low AGB values. It is recommended that grazing intensity be incorporated into the micro-scale estimation of AGB, together with the bare ground modification metrics, especially for severely disturbed meadows with a sizable portion of bare ground.
The hypothesis was tested that the performance of lactating ewes is affected by the supplementation level and pasture management. Two supplementation levels (0.5 and 1.0% of body weight, BW) and two ...pasture managements (mowed and non-mowed) were tested. Forty adult ewes (2 years old) with an average weight at lambing of 62.97 ± 7.0 kg (day 0) and an average the body condition score of 2.5 points (day 0) were evaluated. Verminosis was monitored with periodic deworming. The number of eggs per gram of feces (EPG) of ewes at lambing was used as a covariate for performance assessments. Ewes lost an average of 7.5 kg over the 90 days post-partum (12% BW). The weaning rate was 53%. The body condition of the ewes was influenced by the post-partum period. The ewes mobilized their body reserves in the first 30 days of lactation. Mowing management negatively affected the nutritive value of the forage. Supplementation with 0.5% BW was sufficient for nutritional management post-partum. Pasture management (mowed vs. not mowed) cannot prevent post-partum weight loss. Supplementation levels and pasture management altered the morphological and chemical components of the pasture.
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