Strategies of Transition to Sustainable Agriculture in Iran I- Improving Resources Use Efficiency

بوم شناسی کشاورزی

Article 2, Volume 9, Issue 3 - Serial Number 33, September 2016, Pages 618-637   

Document Type: Scientific - Research

DOI: 10.22067/jag.v9i3.27137

Authors

Alireza Koocheki^{* 1}; Mehdi Nassiri Mahallati¹; Rohollah Moradi^{1, 2}; Hamed Mansouri^{1, 3}

¹Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

²Department of Plant Productions, Agricultural Faculty of Bardsir, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Iran

³Sugar Beet Research Department, Hamedan Agricultural and Natural Resources Research and Education Center, AREEO, Hamedan, Iran

Abstract

Introduction
Fast switch to sustainable agriculture patterns is not impossible for many farmers. However to achieve perfect sustainable in agro-ecosystems which are friendly with environment, changing conventional to sustainable agriculture should be carried slowly. For this purpose, three effective steps were mentioned: first level is increasing of inputs efficiency such as fertilizer and chemical pesticides which used in conventional agriculture now. Second level is related to changing inputs by friendly environmental inputs as alternative inputs and the final level is redesigning of the agro-ecosystems that its function is based on series of ecological process. On the other hand, achieving sustainable agriculture requires higher efficiency of inputs and many process should be replaced by friendly environmental inputs with chemical inputs and new system is designed based on ecological principles. The objective of this study was to offer approaches for improving inputs use efficiency as first step to transition from conventional to sustainable agriculture.

Material and Methods
In order to evaluate the transition status from conventional to sustainable agriculture in agro-ecosystems of Iran, scientific resource and researches that was performed about increasing of inputs efficiency as first step to transition from conventional to sustainable agriculture was studied. For this purpose, 177 studies that had been performed about using different inputs and its efficiency in various crops were assessed. Applied inputs included water, nitrogen and herbicides and studied plants included cereals (wheat, barley, rice, maize and sorghum), beans (bean, pea and lentil), oil crops (canola, sunflower, safflower and sesame), medicinal plants, potato, sugar beet and cotton. In this study, average and range of inputs use efficiency in different crops and also the relationship between increasing of inputs application with their use efficiency was assessed. In the next part of the study, the potential of increasing resource use efficiency without increase in inputs was evaluated. Management approaches was considered as main factor to increase in resource use efficiency without increasing of inputs.

Results and Discussion
Many studies have shown that the range of resource use efficiency for various crops is different in Iran. Nitrogen use efficiency for fine-grain cereals ranged from 4.76 to 83 and for coarse-grain cereals was 3.6-94 by 37 and 44 as average, respectively. The higher mean resource use efficiency in coarse-grain cereal in comparison to fine-grain cereal was due to higher yield of coarse-grain cereal. On the other hand, a coarse-grain cereal use lower nitrogen to produce one kilogram grain than fine-grain cereal. Potato has the highest nitrogen use efficiency by 190 as average and 22-510 as its ranging among other crops. Medicinal plants had the lowest mean of nitrogen use efficiency. The results of the investigations illustrated that there was a negative relation between increasing of nitrogen amount and its use efficiency in fine-grain cereal by 0.65 as determination coefficient. The trend of water use efficiency showed that increasing of extra water had adverse effect on its use efficiency in all crops. Reduction slope of water use efficiency by applied water amount in various crops was different and the highest decreasing was for potato as -10.6 and the lowest decreasing was -0.27 for sugar beet. Water use efficiency for oil crops was reported from 15-111 kg per cm water. Some solutions was reported to improve nitrogen use efficiency such as type of fertilizer source, split of nitrogen application and foliar application, also changing common irrigation to pressurized irrigation methods, applying mulches and reduced tillage to also improve of water use efficiency. To improve other inputs use efficiency especially herbicides, using advanced technologies, splitting application time and mixed them with additives such as adjuvant and oils was suggested. According to the findings of this study, the positive relation was observed between water and nitrogen use efficiency with 0.049 determination coefficient, whereas it was not observed the clear correlation between other inputs.

Conclusion
In general, it is necessary to adopt transferring these findings and solutions to farmers in Iran.

Keywords

Adjuvant; Ecological; Mulch; Planting pattern; productivity; Split

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