This textbook explains the various aspects of sustainable agricultures to undergraduate and graduate students. The book first quantifies the components of the crop energy balance, i.e. the partitioning of net radiation, and their effect on the thermal environment of the canopy. The soil water balance and the quantification of its main component (evapotranspiration) are studied to determine the availability of water to rain fed crops and to calculate crop water requirements. Then it sets the limitations of crop production in relation to crop phenology, radiation interception and resource availability (e.g. nutrients). With that in mind the different agricultural techniques (sowing, tillage, irrigation, fertilization, harvest, application of pesticides, etc.) are analyzed with special emphasis in quantifying the inputs (sowing rates, fertilizer amounts, irrigation schedules, tillage plans) required for a given target yield under specific environmental conditions (soil & climate). For all techniques strategies are provided for improving the ratio productivity/resource use while ensuring sustainability. The book comes with online practical focusing on the key aspects of management in a crop rotation (collecting weather data, calculating productivity, sowing rates, irrigation programs, fertilizers rates etc).
PART A: CROPS AND THE ENVIRONMENT.
Chapter
1. Introduction to
agricultural systems.
Chapter
2. The soil. Physical and chemical
properties.
Chapter
3. Radiation balance.
Chapter
4. Wind and turbulence.-
Chapter
5. Air temperature and humidity.
Chapter
6. Soil temperature.-
Chapter
7. The energy balance.
Chapter
8. Water balance: Infiltration,
runoff and percolation.
Chapter
9. Evapotranspiration and crop water
requirements.- PART B: DETERMINANTS OF CROP PRODUCTIVITY
Chapter 10 Crop
development and growth.
Chapter 11 Photosynthesis and respiration.
Chapter
12 Density and competition.
Chapter
13. Potential productivity.
Chapter 14
Water-limited productivity.
Chapter
15. Other limitations to crop
productivity.- PART C: SOWING, SOIL MANAGEMENT AND SOIL CONSERVATION.-
Chapter
16. Planting and sowing.
Chapter
17. Tillage.
Chapter
18. Soil
erosion and soil conservation.- PART D: WATER MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL OF
SALINITY.
Chapter
19. Irrigation systems.
Chapter
20. Irrigation
scheduling.
Chapter
21. Deficit irrigation.
Chapter
22. Control of
salinity.- PART E: FERTILIZER MANAGEMENT.
Chapter
23. Fertilizers.
Chapter
24. N fertilization.
Chapter
25. P, K and other nutrients.
Chapter
26.
Fertigation.- PART F: ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL AND OTHER TECHNIQUES.
Chapter
27. Windbreaks, agroforestry.
Chapter
28. Temperature modification.
Chapter
29. Frost control.
Chapter
30. Control of weeds and other biotic factors.-
Chapter
31. Application of herbicides and other biotic control agents.-
Chapter
32. Harvest and conservation.
Chapter
33. New tools and methods in
agronomy: remote sensing, site specific agriculture and simulation modeling
applications.- PART G: Cropping systems.
Chapter
34. Cropping and farming
systems.
Chapter
35. Farming and the sustainability of food systems.
Francisco J. Villalobos is Professor of Agronomy at the University of Cordoba, Spain. He obtained his PhD at the University of Cordoba and then worked as a postdoc in the group of Joe T. Ritchie at Michigan State University. His teaching has been primarily on agronomy and on crop modelling. His research at the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture (IAS-CSIC) has focused on crop simulation models (sunflower, olive) and agrometeorology (evapotranspiration, water balance). He has been the Editor in Chief of the European Journal of Agronomy for ten years.
Elķas Fereres is Professor of Agronomy at the University of Cordoba, Spain. He studied agronomy engineering at the Polytechnic University of Madrid and got his PhD at the University of California, Davis, where he worked afterwards for six years. His teaching has been on agronomy, water relations and irrigation. His research at IAS-CSIC has covered various aspects of water-limited agriculture and irrigation management. He is currently Chief Editor of the journal Irrigation Science, and President of the Royal Academy of Engineering of Spain.
