About Book

Today agriculture stays a significant if not predominant piece of most building up nations' economies, and is the most probable wellspring of huge financial development and decrease in neediness. Crop management is concerned with selection and improvement of crops. It includes research and development on production techniques, improving agriculture productivity, minimizing the effects of pest, planting, maintenance, protection, harvesting and storage aspects of post-harvest. Generally, rural development and increments in farming efficiency have been essential for continued monetary development and advancement. All around oversaw, farming can improve jobs, save soil, water assets, save tree, biodiversity and add to the locking of carbon. It can prompt nourishment uncertainty, ecological debasement and contamination, exhaustion of regular assets, sullied nourishment and poor sustenance and wellbeing. This book examines weed responses to soil compaction, natural resources protection in salt-threatened irrigated lands, cereal canopy structure – its assessment and use in efficient crop management and optimizing fungicide applications for plant disease management. A conceptual model to design prototypes of crop management has been proposed and demonstrated in it. This book also focuses on integrated agronomic crop managements to improve Tef productivity under terminal drought. It is a comprehensive guide for students, crop scientists or agronomists interested in agronomy, crop production, plant, soil and pest management.

Preface ....................................................................................................................... v

1. Cereal Canopy Structure – Its Assessment and Use in Efficient

Crop Management ................................................................................................ 1

1. Introduction ................................................................................................... 1

2. Canopy structure development – problem statement ............................ 6

3. Experiments and methods .......................................................................... 12

4. Results and discussion ................................................................................ 16

5. Conclusions .................................................................................................. 32

Appendix ....................................................................................................... 35

Acknowledgement ....................................................................................... 41

2. Soil, Water and Crop Management for Agricultural Profitability and Natural

Resources Protection in Salt-Threatened Irrigated Lands ........................... 48

1. Introduction ................................................................................................. 48

2. SALTIRSOIL_M: A new tool to assess monthly soil salinity and for

irrigation management in salt-threatened soils .................................... 55

3. Conclusion .................................................................................................... 66

4. Acknowledgment ........................................................................................ 67

3. Weed Responses to Soil Compaction and Crop Management ................... 71

1. Introduction ................................................................................................. 71

2. Material and methods ................................................................................. 74

3. Results and discussion ................................................................................ 76

4. Conclusion .................................................................................................... 94

5. Acknowledgment ........................................................................................ 94

4. Understanding Sugarcane Yield Gap and Bettering Crop Management

Through Crop Production Efficiency ............................................................ 100

1. Introduction ............................................................................................... 100

2. Methods and input data ........................................................................... 101

3. Sugarcane crop efficiency in the state of Sao Paulo .............................. 103

4. Conclusion remarks .................................................................................. 110

5. A Conceptual Model to Design Prototypes of Crop Management:

A Way to Improve Organic Winter Oilseed Rape Performance in

Farmers’ Fields .................................................................................................. 113

1. Introduction ............................................................................................... 113

2. Materials and methods ............................................................................. 115

3. Results and discussion .............................................................................. 121

4. Conclusion .................................................................................................. 140

6. Integrated Agronomic Crop Managements to Improve Tef Productivity

Under Terminal Drought ................................................................................. 153

1. Introduction ............................................................................................... 153

2. Tef productivity under changing climate .............................................. 157

3. Crop management strategies to avert the effect of terminal drought163

4. Conclusion .................................................................................................. 173

7. Optimizing Fungicide Applications for Plant Disease Management:

Case Studies on Strawberry and Grape ........................................................ 179

1. Introduction ............................................................................................... 179

2. Components of epidemics and fungicides ............................................. 181

3. Fungicide resistance and plant disease management ......................... 182

4. Management of fungicide resistance ...................................................... 184

5. IPM approaches revisited ......................................................................... 185

6. Physical mode of action of fungicides ..................................................... 188

7. Fungicide use based on disease risk assessment tools ......................... 189

8. Case study 1: Phomopsis cane blight and leaf spot of grape .............. 190

9. Case study 2: Leather rot of strawberry................................................ 193

10. Concluding remarks .................................................................................. 197

Citation ................................................................................................................ 205

Index .................................................................................................................... 207

About Author

Cameron Spence obtained his Ph.D. in Plant Physiology from Public University, Orihuela. He is an expert in remote sensing of vegetation and aerial mapping at Technical Institute, Gondrin. His major areas of research are agricultural management strategies for countering drought conditions, soil, water and crop management for agricultural profitability and natural resources protection in salt-threatened irrigated lands and bettering crop management through crop production efficiency. He has written several articles and journals related to horticulture, plant science, biochemistry and biotechnology.