Global Climate Change Impacts on Crop Production in Hungary

Global climate change is one of the major issues today. There is a continuous rise in temperature escorted by the increasing frequencies of weather anomalies. In Hungary two facts can be observed: the ascending levels of temperature rise, with a magnitude of 1 Celsius and the annual precipitation decrease. Human activities are signii cantly altering the natural carbon cycle. Long-term rise in atmospheric CO(2) affects crop production regarding both adaptation and mitigation. The negative effects of climate change can be limited by changing crops and crop varieties, improved water-management and irrigation systems, adapted plant nutrition, protection and tillage practices, and better watershed management and land-use planning. The global potential of carbon sequestration through crop production, land use and soil management practices may of set one-fourth to one-third of the annual increase in atmospheric CO(2)

Environmentally-sound adaptable tillage – Solutions from Hungary

In the last centuries, the need for tillage was to provide suitable soil conditions for plant growth (crop-focusing tillage). During the last decades, traditional goals of soil tillage have really been improved considering environmental consequences (environment-focusing tillage). In the next decade a new task is stressed, that is mitigating the climate induced losses (climate-focusing tillage). New challenges for the future are prevention of tillage-induced soil quality deterioration, and to reduce climate induced damages by the use of environmentally-sound adaptable tillage. In the adaptable tillage program ten important steps are suggested, namely: (1) Risk assessment in the fields. (2) Prevention of tillage induced defects affecting climate stresses. (3) Maintaining an optimal soil physical and biological state and fertility. (4) Use soil structure conservation methods in any seasons. (5) Mulch the surface at least in summer. (6) Improve soil loading capacity connected with carbon conservation. (7) Utilize stubble residues rationally. (8) Maintain an optimal water management in soils by the soil state improving. (9) Create small water-loss surface at tillage operations. (10) Improve a harmony between soil disturbance and environmental requirements

Soil tillage needs a radical change for sustainability

In Central Europe, the challenge in soil tillage throughout the last century can be characterized as a fi ght against extreme climatic and economic situations. From 1800s till the 1970s, the main requirement of soil tillage was to provide suitable soil conditions for plant growth (moreover with fi ne structure). Both climatic and economic diffi culties were benefi cial in establishing new tillage trends, however overestimation of the crop demands have presumably been promoted by the deterioration in soil quality. From the end of the 1990s, new requirements have also been introduced because of the rise in energy prices and because of the need to cut production costs. Th e reduced tillage in Central European region showed some advantages, e.g. less soil disturbance and traffi c however, that resulted in new soil condition defects (e.g. top- and subsoil compaction, structure degradation). Th e ideas of sustainability off ered a better solution that is to conserve soil resources and to protect the environment. A new problem, the global climate change, and the importance of the adaptability fasten to the original sustainable goals. In this paper the features of soil quality deteriorating tillage (conventional, over-reduced) are summarised, the steps of improvement are demonstrated, and factors aff ecting sustainable soil tillage are formulated

A növénytermesztés és a klímaváltozás összefüggése

A klímaváltozáshoz való alkalmazkodást a növénytermesztésben a termelők hozzáállása eredményessé teheti, de ismeretek hiányában ellehetetlenítheti (vö. a szélsőségek ellenére sokan nem hisznek benne, ezért nem is tesznek erőfeszítéseket a kárcsökkentés érdekében). Az alkalmazkodás legfontosabb teendői a talajhoz, a vízhez és a szerves anyaghoz kapcsolódnak. Nem várható eredményes klímakár csökkenés akkor, ha megmarad a talaj szerkezetét romboló, a nedvesség és a szén kiáramlását fokozó, a talajok vízbefogadását korlátozó művelés gyakorlata. A zöldenergia-előállítás félreértelmezése, a tarlómaradványok fűtőanyagnak eladása rövid időn belül a talajok klímával szembeni érzékenységének fokozódásához vezet. A klímakár csökkentés legfontosabb feladatai a talajok szerves anyagának és szerkezetének védelme, a talajok vízbefogadó, tároló és vízmegtartó képességének javítása. A teendők összefoglalva: – A nedvességforgalmat akadályozó tömör rétegtôl mentes állapot létrehozása vagy megtartása arra alkalmas eljárásokkal. – Tömörödési kár esetén megfelelő mélységű átlazítás, vízvesztő felület kiképzése nélkül. – A felszín takarása zúzott tarlómaradványokkal, idényen kívül talaj- és nedvesség- védelmi célból, a tenyészidőben a hőstressz csökkentése érdekében. – Nedvesség-, szén- és szerkezetkímélő alapművelés bármely idényben és talajon. – Kis vízvesztő felület kialakítása, bármely idényben, ősszel is (kivéve az erózió veszélyeztette talajokat). – A magágykészítés és vetés közti időszak lerövidítése (pl. egymenetes mód alkalmazása) a nedvesség- és szénkímélés érdekében

Importance of Soil Quality in Environment Protection

Soil quality can be characterised by the harmony between it’s physical and biological state and the fertility. From the practical crop production viewpoint, some important contrasting factors of soil quality are: (1) soil looseness – compaction; (2) aggregation – clod and dust formation; friable structure – smeared or cracked structure; (3) organic material: conservation – decrease; (4) soil moisture: conservation – loss; water transmission – water-logging; (5) at least soil condition as a result of the long term ef ect of land use moderates or strengthens climatic harm. In our long-term research project practical soil quality factors were examined in arable i eld and experimental conditions. We state that prevention of the soil quality deterioration can be done by the developing and maintaining harmony between land use and environment. Elements of the soil quality conditions such as looseness, aggregation, workability, organic matter, water transport are examined and the improving methods are suggested. Tillage and production factors which can be adopted to alleviate the harmful climatic impacts are also summarised

New challenges in soil management

Soil management represents two important tasks that are harmonization of the soil protection with demands of the crop to be grown on the given land under prevailing farming condition. Further goals are to preserve and/or develop the soil physical, biological and chemical condition and to avoid the unfavourable changes of the soil biological activity and the soil structure. Classical authors emphasised the importance of creating proper seedbed for plants. In the physical approach, tillage was believed to play an important role in controlling soil processes. Consequently, the period of several centuries dominated by this approach is referred to as the era of crop-oriented tillage (Birkás et al., 2017). The overestimation of the importance of crop requirements resulted in damaging the soils, which inevitably led to turn to the soil-focused tillage. Since the first years of climate change, as the new trends have raised concern, tillage must be turned into a climate-focused effort with the aim of reducing climate-induced stresses through improving soil quality. The development of soil management has always been determined by the economical background. At the same time, deteriorating site conditions have contributed to the conception of new tillage trends by forcing producers to find new solutions (e.g. dry farming theory in the past or adaptable tillage theory nowadays). Győrffy (2009) recited the most important keywords were listed in 2001 and that seemed to be important in the future of crop production. These keywords (endeavours) were as follows: − Biofarming, organic farming, alternative farming, biodynamic farming, low input sustainable agriculture; − Mid-tech farming, sustainable agriculture, soil conservation farming, no till farming, environmentally sound, environmentally friendly, diversity farming; − Crop production system, integrated pest management, integrated farming, high-tech farming; − Site specific production, site-specific technology, spatial variable technology, satellite farming; − Precision farming. Győrffy’s prognosis proved to be realistic and the efforts mentioned above have mostly been implemented. New challenges have also appeared in soil management in relation to the last decades. The most important endeavours for the future are: 1) Preserving climate-induced stresses endangering soils. 2) Turn to use climate mitigation soil tillage and crop production systems. 3) Applying soil management methods are adaptable to the different soil moisture content (over dried or wet may be quite common). 4) Use effectual water conservation tillage. 5) Use soil condition specific tillage depth and method. 6) Adapting the water and soil conservation methods in irrigation. 7) Preserving and improving soil organic matter content by tillage and crop production systems. 8) Considering that stubble residues are matter for soil protection, humus source and earthworm’ feed. 9) Site-specific adoption of green manure and cover crops. 10) Applying site-adopted (precision) fertilization and crop protection. Considering the development in agriculture, new endeavours will occur before long

Influences of precipitation and temperature trend on maize yields

Maize yield for three decade period of the last century (1961-1990) were in Hungary for 15% higher than in Croatia (means 3.81 and 4.39 t/ha, respectively) and this trend was continued in the 1996-2007 period. However, amplitude of maize yields (differences among year (for the 1996-2007) in Hungary were higher (from 3.60 to 7.56 t/ha) than in Croatia (from 3.86 to 6.92 t/ha). Aim of this study was testing maize yield, precipitation and air-temperature variations in four Counties (Croatia: Vukovarsko-Srijemska =VSC and Virovitiţko-Podravska =VPC; Hungary: Békés = BC and Fejér =FC). Mean yield in VSC for 1996-2007 period was for 16% higher than in VPC. Yields in three less favorable years (LFY: 2000, 2003 and 2007) were considerably lower (means 5.22 and 4.41 t/ha, for VSC and VPC, respectively) than in three more favorable years (MFY: 1997, 2002 and 2005) years (means 7.50 and 7.00, respectively). Precipitation (means of two sites: Osijek and Virovitica) in 3-months period June-August was in LFY for 58% lower than in MFY (129 mm and 305 mm, respectively). At the same time, air-temperatures were for 2.0°C higher (22.7 and 20.7°C, respectively). Mean yield in BC for 1996-2007 period was for 21% higher than in FC. Yields in three LSY were considerably lower (means 3.78 and 3.79 t/ha, for BC and FC, respectively) than in three MFY (means 6.13 and 7.30 t/ha, respectively). Precipitation (means of two sites: Békéscsaba and Székesfehérvár) in 3-months period June-August was in LFY for 51% lower (115 mm and 235 mm, respectively) and air-temperatures were for 1.9°C higher (22.1 and 20.2°C, respectively) than in MFY. Precipitation and temperature trends for LFY and MFY in two sites of both countries were similar with emphasis that in Hungary they were negligible lower