More recently, there has been a steady trend towards lower initial stocking rates, e.g. 833 stems per hectare (4 × 3 m spacing), with better quality nursery stock and establishment practices accounting, in part, for this trend.
The main management responses are described by Booth et al. (2010), including: spacing and thinning, watering and nutrient regimes, fire management, pest, disease and weed management, use of genotypes and site selection, climate monitoring and establishment practices.
In this full factorial study on a valley terrace in Nepal, the influence of tillage (shallow T1, deep chisel T2, deep chisel + moldboard plough T3) and establishment practice (TPR, DSR) on the field water balance and rice performance were evaluated in two adjacent landscape settings (terrace edge "upland", central terrace "lowland").
Although deep tillage had only modest influences on seepage and percolation (SP) rates in both years (Y1, Y2), landscape placement and establishment practice had significant implications for the water balance (e.g. Y2 SP cm day−1: TPR-lowland = 1.6, DSR-lowland = 2.3, TPR-upland = 4.1, DSR-upland = 6.1).
It has been demonstrated that proper establishment practices and weed control after planting can lead to high survivability and good growth rates (Bowles 1980; Nicholas and Rapley 2008).
Our treatments represented available establishment practices and increased in intensity from mechanical or chemical site preparation with subsequent banded herbaceous control to mechanical and chemical site preparation with 2 years of subsequent broadcast herbaceous weed control applications.
The lowest yields of wheat (2.78 3.07 t ha−1) and rice (4.38 6.52 t ha−1) were recorded with the current farmers' practices (S1), consisting of intensive tillage (wet tillage or puddling in rice and dry tillage in wheat) followed by inefficient crop establishment practices (transplanting in rice and broadcasting in wheat) with complete removal of crop residues.
Overall, application of pendimethalin as PE and imazethapyr as POE in ZT proved to be the most effective herbicide strategy for weed management in soybean leading to higher grain yield and net returns, irrespective of crop establishment practices.
By 1960 the results of poor establishment practices in the new forests had become apparent, and measures were adopted to raise standards, while much emphasis has also been placed on the maintenance of existing plantations and on the conservation of the remaining natural forest resources.
We recommend forest managers continue to incorporate a variety of stand establishment practices to ensure habitat availability for a variety of bird species, and that researchers further investigate mechanistic factors of avian community responses to silvicultural practices.
Concern has arisen over possible effects of stand establishment practices on vegetation communities within commercial forests, particularly relative to use of herbicides and burning.
