Crop Diversity

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NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION SERVICE SOIL TECH NOTES 18A Crop Diversity CONCERN: “I hear a lot about crop diversity or having different crops growing in my fields. What does that do?” CROP DIVERSITY BENEFITS: 1. Increases total soil organic matter because of added residue and roots. 2. Variety of plants with different growing seasons provides the soil with a living plant during a longer period of time. 3. Roots of added plants also interact with and improve the total rhizosphere affect within the soil. 4. Added roots also provide more opportunities for sugars, amino acids, proteins, organic acids, etc. to be “sloughed off” into the soil environment which adds to the natural productivity of the soil. 5. Each kind of plant has its own variety of microbes associated with it. 6. Diversity supports a broader and more stable food web. 7. More roots, more water infiltration and more air and water movement. H0W? Cover crops of all varieties and mixes will provide diversity. If variety of microbes in the soil exists because of prior farming practices, it is imperative to keep that variety present with current farming systems. Excessive tillage, even if cover crops are present, will tend to lower diversity qualitative effects. Variety can also be as simple as a corn-soybean-wheat rotation. Not as effective as others, but can still add some variety. No-till farming is an excellent way to add diversity to crop fields. Long term condition in the soil has reaped extensive microbial populations of bacteria, fungi, actinomyces, earthworms, larger microbes, etc. Don’t destroy long-term situation! National Soil Health Website: www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/national/soils/health/ Helping People Help the Land. www.il.nrcs.usda.gov USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer..

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Indian Crop Diversity
Indian crop diversity N Sivaraj, SR Pandravada, V Kamala, N Sunil, K Rameash, Babu Abraham, M Elangovan* & SK Chakrabarty National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR), Regional Station, Hyderabad 500030. *Directorate of Sorghum Research (DSR), Hyderabad 500 030, Andhra Pradesh. What is Crop diversity? exchange for broadening the genetic base, conservation Crop diversity is the variability in genetic and phenotypic of crop diversity, exploring and promoting the under- traits that is found in cultivars grown by the farming utilized crops; developing genetic diversity to reduce crop community. Crop varieties may vary in height, branching vulnerability to climate changes and to overcome other pattern, flower colour, fruiting time or seed size etc. and they yield limiting characters. may also vary in their response to less obvious abiotic traits such as their response to heat, cold or drought, or their Status of India’s Crop diversity ability to resist specific disease and pests. It is possible to The Indian subcontinent is extremely diverse in its discern variation in almost every conceivable trait, including climate, physiography and flora and the Indian gene nutritional qualities, preparation and cooking techniques, centre is among the 12 mega diversity regions of the and of course how a crop tastes. And if a trait cannot be world. Rich diversity occurs in several crop plants and found in the crop itself, it can often be found in a wild their wild progenitors. About 25 crop species were relative of that crop, a plant that has similar traits of that domesticated in India. It is endowed with rich diversity of species which is not under cultivation or used in agriculture, more than 18,000 species of higher plants including, 160 but exist in the wild.
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Social Organization of Crop Genetic Diversity. the G × E × S Interaction Model
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Diversifying Cropping Systems PROFILE: THEY DIVERSIFIED to SURVIVE 3
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Aquaponics Greenhouses
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Research Article Full Title: National-Scale
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Crop diversity indicators: literature review and applications at farm level Ghislain Geniaux, Stephane Bellon, J. Fleury, Guillaume Ollivier To cite this version: Ghislain Geniaux, Stephane Bellon, J. Fleury, Guillaume Ollivier. Crop diversity indicators: literature review and applications at farm level. Farming Systems Design 2009 : an international symposium on Methodologies for Integrated Analysis of Farm Production Systems, Aug 2009, Monterey CA, United States. hal-02753388 HAL Id: hal-02753388 https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-02753388 Submitted on 3 Jun 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Crop diversity indicators: literature review and applications at farm level Geniaux G., Bellon S., Fleury J., Ollivier G. INRA UR 767 Site Agroparc 84914 Avignon Cedex 9, France [email protected] INTRODUCTION The effects of intensification and specialisation at farm and regional levels are often mentioned as leading to standardize both landscapes and agricultural practices, with subsequent losses in terms of biodiversity. Crop diversity is increasingly considered as a component of the sustainability of agroecosystems (Moonen and Barberi, 2008). Enhancing crop diversity would contribute to regulate pest populations, to reduce farmers’ reliance on external chemical inputs, to foster risk aversion strategies, etc.
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