The areas for each combination of cropping system and tillage management were documented for individual counties at a two-year interval.
The six catchments have different land use compositions with functional combinations of crop, grassland, shrubland, secondary forest, and plantations.
The full factorial number of possible combinations of crops is limited by a number of filters controlled by the user.
Farmers grow combinations of crops on different agricultural sites, and under annul production and multi-annual regimes.
Then, the effect of cropping systems was studied by simulating rape evolution for 100 000 randomly chosen combinations of crop succession and cultivation techniques.
The combinations of crops and environments analyzed, the concept of a critical period for yield determination, and avoidance of water deficit in this period are the keystone for devising cropping practices.
Based on the agronomic and economic performances best combinations of crop and land preparation method were: lentil sown on broad bed and furrow, and wheat and tef sown after reduced tillage.
The experimental design provided the four combinations of crop protection and fertility (CON-CP CON-FM, CON-CP ORG-FM, ORG-CP CON-FM and ORG-CP ORG-FM) to evaluate their effects on yield, quality (protein content and hectolitre weight) and disease levels during the period 2004 2008.
One of the main challenges to interpreting comparisons of organic and inorganic food production systems is the high heterogeneity arising from combinations of (1) crops, crop types and/or crop-based foods, (2) countries, and/or (3) pedo-climatic and agronomic background conditions.
These management practices were designed as follows: (1) traditional farming practice (FP); (2) optimized combination of cropping and fertilization (OPT-1); (3) practice for high yield (HY), which does not consider the cost of resource inputs to maximize grain yield; and (4) further optimized combination of cropping and fertilization (OPT-2), which is based on the HY practice.
