34 research outputs found

    Residual Effects of Legumes in Wheat-Based Cropping Systems in a Temperate Environment

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    Sustainable agricultural systems preserve soil quality and biodiversity through an appropriate croprotation. In Southern Europe's environments, non-irrigated agricultural systems depend on wintercrops; with limited alternatives, farmers rely on short rotations of wheat and barley. One way toimprove the sustainability of these systems is to introduce legume crops such as faba bean and fieldpeas into the rotation. These species play beneficial effects including increased soil organic mattercontent, reduced incidence of root and leaf diseasesi n subsequentc rops, reduced weed populations(Blackshawe t al.,1994), increasedP , K and S availability (Bullock, 1992),improved soil structurea ndstability (Karle et al., 1994). Overall they may represent an altemative to commercial nitrogenfertilizers and provide a net input to soil N, particularly important in organic farming systems.This work is aimed at investigating on the residual effect on wheat of two legume species (faba beanand freld peas) at two different sowing time (autumn and winter) in a biannual rotation system wheatpulsecrops[...

    Experiences from two ways of integrating Pre- and Post-course Multiple-choice assessment questions in educational events for surgeons

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    To examine how to optimise the integration of multiple-choice questions (MCQs) for learning in continuing professional development (CPD) events in surgery, we implemented and evaluated two methods in two subspecialities over multiple years. The same 12 MCQs were administered pre- and post-event in 66 facial trauma courses. Two different sets of 10 MCQs were administered pre- and post-event in 21 small animal fracture courses. We performed standard psychometric tests on responses from participants who completed both the pre- and post-event assessment. The average difficulty index pre-course was 57% with a discrimination index of 0.20 for small animal fractures and 53% with a discrimination index of 0.15 for facial trauma. For the majority of the individual MCQs, the scores were between 30%-70% and the discrimination index was >0.10. The difficulty index post-course increased in both groups (to 75% and 62%). The pre-course MCQs resulted in an average score in the expected range for both formats suggesting they were appropriate for the intended level of difficulty and an appropriate pre-course learning activity. Post-course completion resulted in increased scores with both formats. Both delivery methods worked well in all regions and overall quality depends on applying a solid item development and validation process

    Improved multivariate analyses to discriminate the behaviour of faba bean varieties

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    Agricultural systems of Southern European regions are often based on short rotations of winter cereals and are thus subject toagro-ecological problems such as decreasing biodiversity, loss of soil fertility and increasing reliance on mineral fertilisers. Introducing newcrops such as new varieties of faba bean, and new production methods, e.g. different planting times, may increase the sustainability of farmingsystems. To advance the use of these methods, both multi-environment field experiments and improved statistical methods to summarise andinterpret results are needed. This report summarizes experiments conducted over three years and two locations where we compared phenology,morphology and yield of six faba bean, Vicia faba L., genotypes, sown in November and February. We have analyzed the data using canonicalvariate and additive main effect multiplicative interaction (AMMI). We demonstrate how such methods may be useful to obtain relevantinformation about a more successful introduction of faba bean in southern Europe. Our results show that sowing in November is much moresuitable to Southern European regions than a February planting. Indeed, for the November planting, beans flower earlier and pods fill beforethe drought period. Concerning morphology, November sown plants were taller of 0.93 m versus 0.79 m on average; gave a lower insertion offirst fertile branch of 0.44 m versus 0.51 m; gave a higher number of lateral branching per plant, of 1.5 versus 0.8; and gave a higher numberof pods per plant of 10.2 versus 7.6. On the average yield levels were the highest for November sown varieties, of 3.55 versus 2.66 t ha−1.These findings indicate autumn sown faba bean could be introduced in Southern European regions. Using adequate varietal selection, this cropmay improve the agro-environmental sustainability of farming systems. These results also highlight the usefulness of canonical variate andAMMI analysis, as 576 morphological data, e.g. 6 varieties, 2 sowing times, 6 environments and 8 variables, and 72 yield data, e.g. 6 varieties,2 sowing times and 6 environments, can be summarised in two bi-plots, clearly depicting the effect of sowing dates on crop morphology andyield, across locations and years. Such methods deserve a more widespread use when it is necessary to interpret crop response to environmentaland agronomic factors.[...
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