Cover crops slow erosion, improve soil, smother weeds, enhance nutrient and moisture availability, help control many pests and bring a host of other benefits to your farm. At the same time, they can reduce costs, increase profits and even create new sources of income. You¿ll reap dividends on your cover crop investments for years, since their benefits accumulate over the long term. This book will help you find which ones are right for you. Captures farmer and other research results from the past ten years. The authors verified the info. from the 2nd ed., added new results and updated farmer profiles and research data, and added 2 chap. Includes maps and charts, detailed narratives about individual cover crop species, and chap. about aspects of cover cropping.

Conservation agriculture—consisting of four components including permanent soil cover, minimum soil disturbance, diversified crop rotations and integrated weed management—is considered the principal pathway to sustainable agriculture and the conservation of natural resources and the environment. Leading researchers in the field describe the basic principles of conservation agriculture, and synthesize recent advances and developments in conservation agriculture research. This book is a ready reference on conservation agriculture and reinforces the understanding for its utilization to develop environmentally sustainable and profitable food production systems. The book describes various elements of conservation agriculture; highlights the associated breeding and modeling efforts; analyses the experiences and challenges in conservation agriculture in different regions of the world; and proposes some pragmatic options and new areas of research in this very important area of agriculture.

Many agriculturalists, conservationists, and environmentalists are stressing the importance of sustaining soil productivity so that future generations will have adequate productive land on which to produce food. One significant factor affecting soil productivity is the retention of crop residues on the surface of the soil to help control soil erosion. This book provides a review of the vast amount of literature on the subject, condensing the findings in a comprehensive, easy-to-understand manner. It focuses on topics such as erosion control, crop production in systems involving surface residues, residue use for fuel and animal feed, plant pathogens, insects, soil properties, and the economics of conservation tillage.

In large parts of the developed and developing worlds soil tillage by plough or hoe is the main cause of land degradation leading to stagnating or even declining production levels and increasing production cost. It causes the soil to become more dense and compacted, the organic matter content to be reduced and water runoff and soil erosion to increase. It also leads to droughts becoming more severe and the soil becoming less fertile and less responsive to fertiliser. This book brings together the key notes lectures and other outstanding contributions of the I World Congress on Conservation Agriculture and provides an updated view of the environment and economic advantages of CA and of its implementation in diferent areas of the World.

“Principles of Soil Management and Conservation” comprehensively reviews the state-of-knowledge on soil erosion and management. It discusses in detail soil conservation topics in relation to soil productivity, environment quality, and agronomic production. It addresses the implications of soil erosion with emphasis on global hotspots and synthesizes available from developed and developing countries. It also critically reviews information on no-till management, organic farming, crop residue management for industrial uses, conservation buffers (e.g., grass buffers, agroforestry systems), and the problem of hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico and in other regions. This book uniquely addresses the global issues including carbon sequestration, net emissions of CO2, and erosion as a sink or source of C under different scenarios of soil management. It also deliberates the implications of the projected global warming on soil erosion and vice versa. The concern about global food security in relation to soil erosion and strategies for confronting the remaining problems in soil management and conservation are specifically addressed. This volume is suitable for both undergraduate and graduate students interested in understanding the principles of soil conservation and management. The book is also useful for practitioners, extension agents, soil conservationists, and policymakers as an important reference material.