Using a systems modeling approach to improve soil management and soil quality

doi:10.15302/J-FASE-2020337

Front. Agr. Sci. Eng.

2020, Vol. 7

Issue (3) : 289-295 https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2020337

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Using a systems modeling approach to improve soil management and soil quality

Enli WANG(

), Di HE, Zhigan ZHAO, Chris J. SMITH, Ben C. T. MACDONALD

CSIRO Agriculture and Food, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia

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Abstract

Soils provide the structural support, water and nutrients for plants in nature and are considered to be the foundation of agriculture production. Improving soil quality and soil health has been advocated as the goal of soil management toward sustainable agricultural intensification. There have been renewed efforts to define and quantify soil quality and soil health but establishing a consensus on the key indicators remains difficult. It is argued that such difficulties are due to the former ways of thinking in soil management which largely focus on soil properties alone. A systems approach that treats soils as a key component of agricultural production systems is promoted. It is argued that soil quality must be quantified in terms of crop productivity and impacts on ecosystems services that are also strongly driven by climate and management interventions. A systems modeling approach captures the interactions among climate, soil, crops and management, and their impacts on system performance, thus helping to quantify the value and quality of soils. Here, three examples are presented to demonstrate this. In this systems context, soil management must be an integral part of systems management practices that also include managing the crops and cropping systems under specific climatic conditions, with cognizance of future climate change.

Keywords APSIM available water capacity nitrogen management soil functional properties soil health soil-plant modeling

Corresponding Author(s): Enli WANG

Just Accepted Date: 14 May 2020 Online First Date: 02 June 2020 Issue Date: 28 July 2020

Cite this article:

Enli WANG,Di HE,Zhigan ZHAO, et al. Using a systems modeling approach to improve soil management and soil quality[J]. Front. Agr. Sci. Eng. , 2020, 7(3): 289-295.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/fase/EN/10.15302/J-FASE-2020337
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fase/EN/Y2020/V7/I3/289

Tab.1 Key soil functional properties in crop production systems and their key functions

Fig.1 Agricultural system simulation model APSIM as a tool to integrate knowledge and data for evaluating the performance of crop-soil-climate-management systems to assist in management decision-making.

Fig.2 Impact of plant available water holding capacity (PAWC) of soil on the average APSIM simulated 120-year wheat yield potential under rainfed conditions across contrasting climatic regions of Australia. (a) Sites along the north-south (N-S) rainfall transect roughly following the 650 mm annual rainfall isohyet where rainfall pattern changes from summer dominant to winter dominant rainfall; (b) sites along the west-east (W-E) rainfall transect with similar rainfall pattern where annual rainfall increases from west to east. The first number in the legend shows the 120-year average in-crop season (May–October) rainfall (mm) and the second number is the average annual rainfall (mm) at each site. Adapted from He and Wang et al.^[⁷^], with permission from Elsevier.

Fig.3 Simulated ranges of (a) aboveground biomass, (b) grain yield, (c) N loss from leaching, and (d) N loss from denitrification in response to fertilizer N input rates to continuous maize at Wuqiao (1970–2012). The box boundaries indicate the 25th and 75th percentiles and the solid lines indicate the median, and the whiskers extend to the 5th and 95th percentiles, with the average shown by a black circle. The red crosses are the outliers. Adapted from Zhao et al.^[⁹^], with permission from Elsevier.

Fig.4 The effect of maintaining a N bank of mineral N (kg·ha⁻¹ N) in the surface 0.4 cm of the soil profile at mid-July (near crop tillering) on (a) yield, (b) N leached, (c) return ratio to the N applied to satisfy the N bank criteria, and (d) the changes in the humus pool of a Red Chromosol at Young, NSW, Australia. Horizontal bars and upper and lower edges of boxes indicate 10th, 25th, 75th and 90th percentiles, median (solid lines) and mean (dotted line) in the box. The solid circles represent the 5th and 95th percentiles. Adapted from Smith et al.^[²⁵^], with permission from Elsevier.

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