Effect of tillage, residue and nutrient management practices on yield attributes of rice

A study was performed to discern the effect of tillage, residue and nutrient management on yield attributes of rice in Rampur, Chitwan, Nepal. Rice var. Ramdhan was cropped in three replications along with eight treatments which were evaluated under strip-split plot design. Tillage treatments were CT (Conventional tillage) and NT (No tillage), residues treatment were RK (Residue kept) and RR (Residue removed) while nutrient management treatment were FD (farmer’s doses with 5Mt ha-1 of FYM + 50:23:0 NPK kg ha-1) and RD (recommended dose with 100:60:30 NPK kg ha-1)). Method of tillage, residue management and nutrient management significantly influenced the effective tillers per meter square. However, tillage and residue management practices did not affect panicle length and 1000-grain weight. The highest average grain yield (3.66 t ha-1) was obtained under no tillage which was statistically superior over conventional tillage (2.28 t ha-1). The grain yield obtained under residue kept (3.72 t ha-1) being at par was significantly superior over residue removed (2.22 t ha-1). Rice grain yield was significantly (p<0.05) higher on recommended dose of fertilizer (4.53 t ha-1) than the farmer’s dose of fertilizer (1.41 t ha-1). The yield attributes were found maximum under no tillage, residue kept and recommended doses of fertilizer. Adoption of cultivation practices involving no tillage, residue integration and recommended doses of fertilizer will help to improve soil properties and yield attributes of rice for sustaining productivity and protecting the environment

EFFECT OF TILLAGE, RESIDUE AND NUTRIENT MANAGEMENT ON SOIL qualities AND YIELD PARAMETERS OF RICE

A field experiment was conducted at Rampur, Nepal to see the effect of tillage, residue and nutrient management practices on soil properties and grain yield of rice. Three factors each with two levels i.e. tillage (with or without), residue (with or without) and nutrient management (recommended dose (RD) with 100:60:30 NPK kg ha-1 and farmer’s doses (FD) with 5Mt ha-1 of FYM + 50:23:0 NPK kg ha-1. Thus, altogether eight treatment combinations were evaluated under strip-split plot design with three replications. Higher soil organic matter was recorded in residue kept (5.73%) than the residue removed plots. Exchangeable potassium was found higher in no tillage (110.52 kg ha-1) than the conventional tillage (76.77 kg ha-1). Number of effective tillers was higher in no tillage; residue kept and recommended doses of fertilizer. Grain yield was significantly higher in no tillage with 3.66 Mt and residue kept with 3.72 Mt ha-1 compared to conventional tillage with 2.28 Mt and residue removed plots having 2.22 Mt ha-1. RD produced significantly higher grain yield of 4.53 Mt ha-1 than FD with 1.41 Mt ha-1. Therefore, untilled direct seeded rice with residue and recommend does of nutrients seem promising in Terai region of Nepal

Mapping 123 million neonatal, infant and child deaths between 2000 and 2017

Since 2000, many countries have achieved considerable success in improving child survival, but localized progress remains unclear. To inform efforts towards United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3.2—to end preventable child deaths by 2030—we need consistently estimated data at the subnational level regarding child mortality rates and trends. Here we quantified, for the period 2000–2017, the subnational variation in mortality rates and number of deaths of neonates, infants and children under 5 years of age within 99 low- and middle-income countries using a geostatistical survival model. We estimated that 32% of children under 5 in these countries lived in districts that had attained rates of 25 or fewer child deaths per 1,000 live births by 2017, and that 58% of child deaths between 2000 and 2017 in these countries could have been averted in the absence of geographical inequality. This study enables the identification of high-mortality clusters, patterns of progress and geographical inequalities to inform appropriate investments and implementations that will help to improve the health of all populations

Mapping geographical inequalities in access to drinking water and sanitation facilities in low-income and middle-income countries, 2000-17

Background: Universal access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities is an essential human right, recognised in the Sustainable Development Goals as crucial for preventing disease and improving human wellbeing. Comprehensive, high-resolution estimates are important to inform progress towards achieving this goal. We aimed to produce high-resolution geospatial estimates of access to drinking water and sanitation facilities. Methods: We used a Bayesian geostatistical model and data from 600 sources across more than 88 low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) to estimate access to drinking water and sanitation facilities on continuous continent-wide surfaces from 2000 to 2017, and aggregated results to policy-relevant administrative units. We estimated mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive subcategories of facilities for drinking water (piped water on or off premises, other improved facilities, unimproved, and surface water) and sanitation facilities (septic or sewer sanitation, other improved, unimproved, and open defecation) with use of ordinal regression. We also estimated the number of diarrhoeal deaths in children younger than 5 years attributed to unsafe facilities and estimated deaths that were averted by increased access to safe facilities in 2017, and analysed geographical inequality in access within LMICs. Findings: Across LMICs, access to both piped water and improved water overall increased between 2000 and 2017, with progress varying spatially. For piped water, the safest water facility type, access increased from 40·0% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 39·4–40·7) to 50·3% (50·0–50·5), but was lowest in sub-Saharan Africa, where access to piped water was mostly concentrated in urban centres. Access to both sewer or septic sanitation and improved sanitation overall also increased across all LMICs during the study period. For sewer or septic sanitation, access was 46·3% (95% UI 46·1–46·5) in 2017, compared with 28·7% (28·5–29·0) in 2000. Although some units improved access to the safest drinking water or sanitation facilities since 2000, a large absolute number of people continued to not have access in several units with high access to such facilities (>80%) in 2017. More than 253 000 people did not have access to sewer or septic sanitation facilities in the city of Harare, Zimbabwe, despite 88·6% (95% UI 87·2–89·7) access overall. Many units were able to transition from the least safe facilities in 2000 to safe facilities by 2017; for units in which populations primarily practised open defecation in 2000, 686 (95% UI 664–711) of the 1830 (1797–1863) units transitioned to the use of improved sanitation. Geographical disparities in access to improved water across units decreased in 76·1% (95% UI 71·6–80·7) of countries from 2000 to 2017, and in 53·9% (50·6–59·6) of countries for access to improved sanitation, but remained evident subnationally in most countries in 2017. Interpretation: Our estimates, combined with geospatial trends in diarrhoeal burden, identify where efforts to increase access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities are most needed. By highlighting areas with successful approaches or in need of targeted interventions, our estimates can enable precision public health to effectively progress towards universal access to safe water and sanitation

Mapping local patterns of childhood overweight and wasting in low- and middle-income countries between 2000 and 2017

A double burden of malnutrition occurs when individuals, household members or communities experience both undernutrition and overweight. Here, we show geospatial estimates of overweight and wasting prevalence among children under 5 years of age in 105 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) from 2000 to 2017 and aggregate these to policy-relevant administrative units. Wasting decreased overall across LMICs between 2000 and 2017, from 8.4% (62.3 (55.1–70.8) million) to 6.4% (58.3 (47.6–70.7) million), but is predicted to remain above the World Health Organization’s Global Nutrition Target of <5% in over half of LMICs by 2025. Prevalence of overweight increased from 5.2% (30 (22.8–38.5) million) in 2000 to 6.0% (55.5 (44.8–67.9) million) children aged under 5 years in 2017. Areas most affected by double burden of malnutrition were located in Indonesia, Thailand, southeastern China, Botswana, Cameroon and central Nigeria. Our estimates provide a new perspective to researchers, policy makers and public health agencies in their efforts to address this global childhood syndemic

Effect of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and angiotensin receptor blocker initiation on organ support-free days in patients hospitalized with COVID-19

IMPORTANCE Overactivation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) may contribute to poor clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19. Objective To determine whether angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) initiation improves outcomes in patients hospitalized for COVID-19. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In an ongoing, adaptive platform randomized clinical trial, 721 critically ill and 58 non–critically ill hospitalized adults were randomized to receive an RAS inhibitor or control between March 16, 2021, and February 25, 2022, at 69 sites in 7 countries (final follow-up on June 1, 2022). INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomized to receive open-label initiation of an ACE inhibitor (n = 257), ARB (n = 248), ARB in combination with DMX-200 (a chemokine receptor-2 inhibitor; n = 10), or no RAS inhibitor (control; n = 264) for up to 10 days. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was organ support–free days, a composite of hospital survival and days alive without cardiovascular or respiratory organ support through 21 days. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model. Odds ratios (ORs) greater than 1 represent improved outcomes. RESULTS On February 25, 2022, enrollment was discontinued due to safety concerns. Among 679 critically ill patients with available primary outcome data, the median age was 56 years and 239 participants (35.2%) were women. Median (IQR) organ support–free days among critically ill patients was 10 (–1 to 16) in the ACE inhibitor group (n = 231), 8 (–1 to 17) in the ARB group (n = 217), and 12 (0 to 17) in the control group (n = 231) (median adjusted odds ratios of 0.77 [95% bayesian credible interval, 0.58-1.06] for improvement for ACE inhibitor and 0.76 [95% credible interval, 0.56-1.05] for ARB compared with control). The posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitors and ARBs worsened organ support–free days compared with control were 94.9% and 95.4%, respectively. Hospital survival occurred in 166 of 231 critically ill participants (71.9%) in the ACE inhibitor group, 152 of 217 (70.0%) in the ARB group, and 182 of 231 (78.8%) in the control group (posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitor and ARB worsened hospital survival compared with control were 95.3% and 98.1%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this trial, among critically ill adults with COVID-19, initiation of an ACE inhibitor or ARB did not improve, and likely worsened, clinical outcomes. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT0273570

Evaluation of an On-Farm Water Storage System as a Bmp for Sediment and Nutrient Reduction, Nutrient Recycling, And Irrigation in East Mississippi

Evaluation of an On-Farm Water Storage (OFWS) system as a Best Management Practice (BMP) for nutrient and sediment loading control and irrigation in East Mississippi has shown that the system can effectively reduce sediment and nutrient loading as it was able to capture 46 tons of sediment and 558 kg of phosphorus over the monitoring period. The system was also able to decrease nitrogen loading as shown from the nitrogen concentration in the captured storm runoff events although an accurate estimate could not be made using AnnAGNPS because adequate model input data was not available. The system was able to provide about 63 million gallons of water for irrigation as a result of which increased corn and soybean yield was also obtained in irrigated fields when compared to non-irrigated fields. Water from the storage pond used for irrigation did not have adequate nutrient recycling to reduce commercial fertilizer application

Potential impacts of land use change on streamflow and groundwater resources under changing climate in the Flint River Basin, Georgia, United States

This study ascertains the factors affecting streamflow and irrigation water demand under different land use/cover (LULC) changes and future climate scenarios in the Flint River Basin, Georgia, United States, using the seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) panel model. An advantage of using the SUR model is that it accounts for cross-hydrological correlation, which is important due to the cross-sectional dependence between streamflow and pumpages. A set of streamflow, ground/surface water withdrawal, climatic, and LULC data used in this study was gathered from publicly available data sources and state agencies. Furthermore, the results show that a 10% increase in corn acreage in the watershed could lead to a significant rise in surface water and groundwater pumpings demands, respectively at 124% and 168%. This study identifies potential evapotranspiration (PET) threshold, which may lead to a water deficit in the region. For various LULC scenarios involving corn and urban area expansion, the probability of facing water scarcity at least once from 2025 to 2060 is estimated to range from 0.2% to 3.8% and 0.7% to 2.6% under RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios, respectively. These findings underscore the trade-off between water scarcity and food security in the context of changing climate, highlighting a need to design appropriate incentives to enhance water-use efficiency and adopt climate-smart strategies. The study’s significance extends to other similar watersheds worldwide that face similar challenges arising from changing land use and climate, which impact the sustainability of water resources, particularly groundwater resources, over time