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Hydrochar, carbon-rich material produced during the thermochemical processing of biomass, is receiving increased attention due to its potential value as soil amendment. It can increase agroforestry systems’ productivity through direct and indirect effects on growth and soil quality. Hydrochar may also directly help mitigate climate change by sequestering stable carbon compounds in the soil and perhaps indirectly through increased C uptake by trees. In this research, we aim to evaluate how the application of hydrochar produced by two feedstock types, Cynara cardunculus L. (Hc) residuals and sewage sludge (Hs), and in two different doses (3 and 6 kg m−2) could improve the growth and water use efficiency of Populus alba L., a fast-growing tree species largely used in agroforestry as bioenergy crops and in C sequestration. We considered five plants per treatment, and we measured apical growth, secondary growth, leaf area and intrinsic water use efficiency in each plant for the whole growing season from February to October 2022. Our results highlighted that hydrochar applications stimulate the growth and water use efficiency of plants and that the double dose (6 kg m−2) of both hydrochars, and particularly Hc, had positive effects on plant performance, especially during extremely hot periods. Indeed, the year 2022 was characterized by a heat wave during the summer period, and this condition allowed us to evaluate how plants, growing in soils amended with hydrochar, could perform under climate extremes. Our findings showed that the control plants experienced severe damage in terms of dried stems and dried leaves during summer 2022, while hydrochar applications reduced these effects.

Agricultural adaptation to climate change is critical for ensuring future food security. Social capital is important for climate change adaptation, but institutions and social networks at multiple scales (e.g., household, community, and institution) have been overlooked in studying agricultural climate change adaptation. We combine data from 13 sites in 11 low-income countries in East Africa, West Africa, and South Asia to explore how multiple scales of social capital relate to household food security outcomes among smallholder farmers. Using social network theory, we define three community organizational social network types (fragmented defined by lack of coordination, brokered defined as having a strong central actor, or shared defined by high coordination) and examine household social capital through group memberships. We find community and household social capital are positively related, with higher household group membership more likely in brokered and shared networks. Household group membership is associated with more than a 10% reduction in average months of food insecurity, an effect moderated by community social network type. In communities with fragmented and shared organizational networks, additional household group memberships is associated with consistent decreases in food insecurity, in some cases up to two months; whereas in brokered networks, reductions in food insecurity are only associated with membership in credit groups. These effects are confirmed by hierarchical random effects models, which control for demographic factors. This suggests that multiple scales of social capital—both within and outside the household—are correlated with household food security. This social capital may both be bridging (across groups) and bonding (within groups) with different implications for how social capital structure affects food security. Efforts to improve food security could recognize the potential for both household and community level social networks and collaboration, which further research can capture by analyzing multiple scales of social capital data.

In the transition from linear production systems, unsustainable from the point of view of resources, to a model that finds strength in environmental, social and economic sustainability, the circular economy paradigm is the foundation that facilitates the planetary agro-ecological transition. The European Union has taken a number of steps (including the Circular Economy Package of Directives) shaping circularity as a wide-ranging driver measure involving many sectors. The paper intends to provide a regulatory framework on the current general situation regarding circularity in European Union, in order to extrapolate and give evidence to the aspects that intersect the agri-food sector. This is not only because they are poorly addressed in the literature, but also because there is a lack of regulatory instruments on the circular economy specifically addressing this area of interest. For this purpose, the analysis focuses on waste and residue/scrap management issues, recognized by law as by-products and end-of-waste status, as they are covered by circular economy legislation and as they can be applied to the agri-food sector. The latter allow the implementation of circularity strategies in the agri-food sector and, given the numerousness of production chains and the peculiarities of each of them, various regeneration and/or reuse processes of specific resources may be depicted. The intent is to provide useful knowledge on how to implement sustainable waste management, also proposing a concrete case on a by-product of olive oil processing, through which it is possible to highlight how the correct application of regulations favors the adoption of circular economic and management models in the firms involved, as well as informing the relevant economic operators on the possible profiles of legal liability that may arise from insufficient knowledge. Furthermore, this paper delves into the European Green Deal’s Strategy as it enriches the circular economy paradigm with new facets. NextGenerationEU and the National Recovery and Resilience Plan financially support this strategy in the aftermath of the socioeconomic crisis from COVID-19 in the EU Member States. This is in order to achieve the objective of achieving the agro-ecological transition.

In the agricultural sector, climate change (CC) affects multiple weather variables at different stages of crop cycles. CC may influence the mean level or affect the distribution of events (e.g., rainfall, temperature). This work evaluates the economic impact of CC-related changes in multiple climatic components, and the resulting uncertainty. For this purpose, a three-stage discrete stochastic programming model is used to represents farm sector of an irrigated area of Italy and to examine the influence of CC on rainfall and on maximum temperature. These variables affect the availability of water for agriculture and the water requirements of irrigated crops. The states of nature, and their change, are defined more broadly than in previous analyses; this allows examining the changes of more climatic variables and crops cultivation. The effect of CC is obtained by comparing the results of scenarios that represent the climatic conditions in the current situation and in the future. The results show that the agricultural sector would seek to lower costs by modifying patterns of land use, farming practices and increasing the use groundwater. The overall economic impact of these changes is small and due primarily to the reduced availability of water in the future. The temperature increase is, in fact, largely offset by the effects of the increase in CO2 levels, which boosts the yield of main crops of the irrigated zone. Therefore, availability and water management becomes a crucial factor to offset the increase of evapotranspiration and of water stress resulting from the increase of temperature. However, the costs of CC are very high for some types of farming, which suffer a large reduction in income.

Abstract Agricultural practice is facing multiple challenges under volatile commodity markets, inevitable climate change, mounting pest pressure and various other environment-related constraints. The objective of this research is to present a dynamic optimization model of crop rotations and farm management and show its suitability for economic analysis over a 30 year time period. In this model, we include management practices such as fertilization, fungicide treatment and liming, and apply it in a region in Southwestern Finland. Results show that (i) growing pest pressure favours the cultivation of wheat-oats and wheat-oilseeds combinations, while (ii) market prices largely determine the crops in the rotation plan and the specific management practices adopted. The flexibility of our model can also be utilized in evaluating the value of other management options such as new cultivars under different projections of future climate and market conditions.

Urea is the most common nitrogen (N) fertilizer in agriculture, due to its cheaper price and high N content. Although the reciprocal influence between NO3- and NH4+ nutrition are well known, urea (U) interactions with these N-inorganic forms are poorly studied. Here, the responses of two tomato genotypes to ammonium nitrate (AN), U alone or in combination were investigated. Significant differences in root and shoot biomass between genotypes were observed. Under AN+U supply, Linosa showed higher biomass compared to UC82, exhibiting also higher values for many root architectural traits. Linosa showed higher Nitrogen Uptake (NUpE) and Utilization Efficiency (NUtE) compared to UC82, under AN+U nutrition. Interestingly, Linosa exhibited also a significantly higher DUR3 transcript abundance. These results underline the beneficial effect of AN+U nutrition, highlighting new molecular and physiological strategies for selecting crops that can be used for more sustainable agriculture. The data suggest that translocation and utilization (NUtE) might be a more important component of NUE than uptake (NUpE) in tomato. Genetic variation could be a source for useful NUE traits in tomato; further experiments are needed to dissect the NUtE components that confer a higher ability to utilize N in Linosa.

The aim of this study was to quantify direct and indirect relationships between soil microbial community properties (potential basal respiration, microbial biomass) and abiotic factors (soil, climate) in three major land-cover types. Location: Europe Time period: 2018 Major taxa studied: Microbial community (fungi and bacteria) We collected 881 soil samples from across Europe in the framework of the Land Use/Land Cover Area Frame Survey (LUCAS). We measured potential soil basal respiration at 20ºC and microbial biomass (substrate-induced respiration) using an O2-microcompensation apparatus. Climate and soil data were obtained from previous LUCAS surveys and online databases. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to quantify relationships between variables, and equations extracted from SEMs were used to create predictive maps. Fatty acid methyl esters were measured in a subset of samples to distinguish fungal from bacterial biomass. Soil microbial properties in croplands were more heavily affected by climate variables than those in forests. Potential soil basal respiration and microbial biomass were correlated in forests but decoupled in grasslands and croplands, where microbial biomass depended on soil carbon. Forests had a higher ratio of fungi to bacteria than grasslands or croplands. Soil microbial communities in grasslands and croplands are likely carbon-limited in comparison with those in forests, and forests have a higher dominance of fungi indicating differences in microbial community composition. Notably, the often already-degraded soils of croplands could be more vulnerable to climate change than more natural soils. The provided maps show potentially vulnerable areas that should be explicitly accounted for in coming management plans to protect soil carbon and slow the increasing vulnerability of European soils to climate change. [Methods] Soil samples were collected during the 2018 LUCAS soil sampling campaign. Soil chemical and physical properties were measured at the Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy (Orgiazzi et al., 2018). Soil microbial respiration and biomass, as well as water content and water holding capacity, were measured in the Eisenhauer lab of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research. Fungi/Bacteria was measured by fatty acid analysis by Felipe Bastida at CEBAS CSIC. Climate and geographical data were harvested from various databases, which are listed in Appendix 1 (data sources) of the associated paper. For more details on the soil sampling and physical and chemical properties, see: Orgiazzi, A., Ballabio, C., Panagos, P., Jones, A., & Fernández-Ugalde, O. (2018). LUCAS Soil, the largest expandable soil dataset for Europe: a review. European Journal of Soil Science, 69(1), 140-153. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejss.12499 For more details on the measurements of soil microbial respiration and biomass, fatty acids, and water holding capacity, see the supplementary methods of the associated paper (Appendix 2). [Usage Notes] Fatty acid analysis was performed for a subset of 267 samples. Water holding capacity and associated measurements of basal respiration was analyzed in a subset of 100 samples. The samples that were not in these subsets have NA values for the columns associated with these measurements. In order to protect the precise locations of the LUCAS sampling sites, latitude and longitude values could not be given. The approximate location of each sampling site is instead described by the NUTS3 region. If you wish to replicate the structural equation modeling described in the paper, for which latitude is required, please get in touch. A description of each column is available in the associated metadata file. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Award: FZT 118-202548816. European Research Council, Award: 694368. European Commission. Directorate-General for the Environment. Direction Générale Opérationnelle Agriculture, Ressources Naturelles et Environnement du Service Public de Wallonie. Eurostat. Peer reviewed

1. Predicted changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme rainfall events in the UK have the potential to disrupt terrestrial ecosystem function. However, responses of different trophic levels to these changes in rainfall patterns, and the underlying mechanisms, are not well characterised. 2. This study aimed to investigate how changes in both the quantity and frequency of rainfall events will affect the outcome of interactions between plants, insect herbivores (above- and below- ground) and natural enemies. 3. Hordeum vulgare L. plants were grown in controlled conditions and in the field, and subjected to three precipitation scenarios: ambient (based on a local 10 year average rainfall); continuous drought (40% reduction compared to ambient); drought/ deluge (40% reduction compared to ambient at a reduced frequency). The effects of these watering regimes and wireworm (Agriotes species) root herbivory on the performance of the plants, aphid herbivores above-ground (Sitobion avenae, Metapolophium dirhodum and Rhopalosiphum padi), and natural enemies of aphids including ladybirds (Harmonia axyridis) were assessed from measurements of plant growth, insect abundance and mass, and assays of feeding behaviour. 4. Continuous drought decreased plant biomass, whereas reducing the frequency of watering events did not affect plant biomass but did alter plant chemical composition. In controlled conditions, continuous drought ameliorated the negative impact of wireworms on plant biomass. 5. Compared to the ambient treatment, aphid mass was increased by 15% when feeding on plants subjected to drought/ deluge; and ladybirds were 66% heavier when feeding on these aphids but this did not affect ladybird prey choice. In field conditions, wireworms feeding below-ground reduced the number of shoot-feeding aphids under ambient and continuous drought conditions but not under drought/ deluge. 6. Predicted changes in both the frequency and intensity of precipitation events under climate change have the potential to limit plant growth, but reduce wireworm herbivory, while simultaneously promoting above-ground aphid numbers and mass, with these effects transferring to the third trophic level. Understanding the effect of future changes in precipitation on species interactions is critical for determining their potential impact on ecosystem functioning and constructing accurate predictions under global change scenarios. Controlled environment and field experimental dataData file containing all data reported in the paper including plant, soil and insect data from controlled environment and field experiments. First spreadsheet in the data file contains a key to explain all abbreviations used throughout the file.Experimental data.xlsx