TY - JOUR
T1 - Agronomic management factors impacting yield, quality stability, and environmental footprints of barley in a mediterranean environment
AU - De Santis, Michele Andrea
AU - Cammarano, Davide
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Authors
PY - 2024/4/1
Y1 - 2024/4/1
N2 - Context or Problems: The impact of different agronomic strategies (such as sowing, fertilization, and tillage) under different environmental conditions (soil type, and long-term weather conditions) can provide an increased knowledge on how barley grain yield, quality and environmental footprints can be optimized. Objectives: The objectives of this study are to: i) understand what are the different agronomic and environmental combinations that optimize grain quality and minimize environmental impacts; ii) which environmental-agronomic combination allow production and quality stability to be achieved over time, while providing lower environmental footprints. Methods: An existing crop simulation model was calibrated on a nitrogen response experiment and evaluated on an independent dataset of nitrogen response. Results: Overall, the interaction of sowing, soil type, fertilization and tillage impacted grain quality more than grain yield. The optimization of the environmental, economic and quality outcome is strongly soil-climate dependent to optimizing grain quality and minimizing environmental impacts. Rainfall in pre-sowing, vegetative and reproductive stages is the most important environmental parameter impacting grain yield. While grain quality needed for malting/distilling is impacted by interaction of weather and agronomic practices. Conclusions: In Mediterranean environments, optimizing for quality, yield and lower environmental impacts is challenging, and crop simulations can help to provide useful information on the dynamic interactions of those factors. Implications: The tradeoff indicator can be derived considering how agronomy-soil-weather interactions impact the relationship between net income and environmental implications (in terms of nitrogen losses). This indicator can be used for building a tool to be used with system-based models to evaluate at different spatial scales the impacts of different agronomic management (as impacted by weather variability) on economic and environmental sustainability.
AB - Context or Problems: The impact of different agronomic strategies (such as sowing, fertilization, and tillage) under different environmental conditions (soil type, and long-term weather conditions) can provide an increased knowledge on how barley grain yield, quality and environmental footprints can be optimized. Objectives: The objectives of this study are to: i) understand what are the different agronomic and environmental combinations that optimize grain quality and minimize environmental impacts; ii) which environmental-agronomic combination allow production and quality stability to be achieved over time, while providing lower environmental footprints. Methods: An existing crop simulation model was calibrated on a nitrogen response experiment and evaluated on an independent dataset of nitrogen response. Results: Overall, the interaction of sowing, soil type, fertilization and tillage impacted grain quality more than grain yield. The optimization of the environmental, economic and quality outcome is strongly soil-climate dependent to optimizing grain quality and minimizing environmental impacts. Rainfall in pre-sowing, vegetative and reproductive stages is the most important environmental parameter impacting grain yield. While grain quality needed for malting/distilling is impacted by interaction of weather and agronomic practices. Conclusions: In Mediterranean environments, optimizing for quality, yield and lower environmental impacts is challenging, and crop simulations can help to provide useful information on the dynamic interactions of those factors. Implications: The tradeoff indicator can be derived considering how agronomy-soil-weather interactions impact the relationship between net income and environmental implications (in terms of nitrogen losses). This indicator can be used for building a tool to be used with system-based models to evaluate at different spatial scales the impacts of different agronomic management (as impacted by weather variability) on economic and environmental sustainability.
KW - Barley
KW - Crop modelling
KW - Nitrogen use efficiency
KW - Sowing date
KW - Tillage
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85187404496&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.fcr.2024.109334
DO - 10.1016/j.fcr.2024.109334
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85187404496
SN - 0378-4290
VL - 309
JO - Field Crops Research
JF - Field Crops Research
M1 - 109334
ER -