The economics of tea plantations in South India

Thc tea industry in lndia is going through a period of crisis. The crisis in brought about mainly by cost caculation and declining or stagnant prices. The impact of the present crisis is felt most by the owners of tea plantations in Kcrala . The present study assumes significance due to the fact that the critic which already affected Keralas tea industry is now threatening to extend to other tea-growing areas in south India. Today, ensuring a favourablc price to the producers via-a-via possibilities or reducing the cost of production through increase in productivity of land and labour are the main considerations. The main purpose of the study is to analyse the factors behind the crisis as well as exploring immediate and long-term measures for the sustained growth of the industry.

Persistência de palhada de plantas de cobertura em função de doses de silício e resposta do feijoeiro em sucessão

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Irrigação por gotejamento superficial e subsuperficial na cultura de batata (Solanum tuberosum L.) com dois sistemas de plantio

Pós-graduação em Agronomia (Irrigação e Drenagem) - FCA

Variação genética para caracteres silviculturais em banco ativo de germoplasma de espécies arbóreas do cerrado e da floresta estacional semidecidual

Pós-graduação em Agronomia - FEIS

Uso e conservação de plantas medicinais nativas por comunidades quilombolas no município de Alcântara, Maranhão

Pós-graduação em Agronomia (Horticultura) - FCA

Novas técnicas de arranjos de semeadura na cultura da soja

Several factors induce soybean growers to seek new alternatives to increase productivity, in order to always surpass the previous harvest. In an attempt to meet this need in order to become more competitive, new technologies emerge. Currently, for example, the plantation system crossover, double row and dense, gaining media coverage and among researchers, aroused interest in research institutions. To date, there are still few studies with a scientific concrete, quantifies the real benefit of these cropping systems. The technique consists of sowing planting crossed the same area twice at right angles, forming checkerboard. In the planting row and the denser planting increases the number of plants per hectare, but the way they are arranged is what differentiates. Apparently these systems imply some issues, such as the use of inputs that the principle would double, as the plant population in the area will be changed, so possibly the incidence of insect pests and pathogens increase in these cropping systems. The purpose of this literature review is to provide updated information on technology, benefit from it, as it is being used and the research being conducted to provide scientific basis for soybean producer.

Desempenho operacional de transplante manual e mecanizado da cultura da alface

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Hutchison Family Papers - Accession 19

The Hutchison Family Papers consist of diaries, journals, speeches, correspondence, genealogical material and financial papers, concerning the personal and business affairs of a Rock Hill family. Subjects include post-colonial life in the Carolinas, the antebellum plantation system in South Carolina, post-Civil War cotton farming, especially the Rock Hill Cotton Mill, and Rock Hill during World War I. There is also material concerning relations and negotiations with the Catawba Indians by David Hutchison who was one of several commissioners designated by the South Carolina legislature to investigate Catawba land claims and leasing practices; and historical sketches of Glencairn Garden, the White House and the Oakland Avenue Presbyterian Church, all located in Rock Hill, South Carolina. There are also included in the “General Correspondence and Related Papers” series such records as: last will and testament, inventory lists, certificates of indentured servants, legislative acts, (eg. 1840 Treaty with the Catawba Indians) and other similar documents. Correspondents include Jude Grimke, A.E. Hutchison, David Hutchison, Hiram Hutchison, James Moore, John N. Morehead and Thomas Spratt.

Natural regeneration and ecological succession in Pinus kesiya watershed plantations in northern Thailand : Implications on plantation management

Establishment of Pinus kesiya Roy. ex Gord. plantations in Thailand began in the 1960s by the Royal Forest Department. The aim was to reforest abandoned swidden areas and grasslands in order to reduce erosion and to produce timber and fuel wood. Today there are about 150, 000 ha of P. kesiya plantations in northern Thailand. Most of these plantations cannot be harvested due to a national logging ban. Previous studies have suggested that Pinus kesiya plantations posses a capability as a foster environment for native broadleaved tree species, but little is known about the extent of regeneration in these plantations. The general aim of the study was to clarify the extent of forest regeneration and interactions behind it in Pinus kesiya plantations of the Ping River basin, northern Thailand. Based on the results of this study and previous literature, forest management proposals were produced for the area studied. In four different pine plantation areas, a total of seven plantations were assessed using systematic data collection with clustered circular sample plots. Vegetation and environmental data were statistically analysed, so as to recognise the key factors affecting regeneration. Regeneration had occurred in all plantations studied. Regeneration of broadleaved trees was negatively affected by forest fire and canopy coverage. A high basal area of mature broadleaved trees affected the regeneration process positively. Forest fire disturbance had a strong effect also on plantation structure and species composition. Because of an unclear future forest management setting as regards forest laws in Thailand, a management system that enables various future utilisation possibilities and emphasises local participation is recommended for P. kesiya watershed platations of northern Thailand.

A decision support system for managing irrigation in agriculture

In this paper, an automatic Smart Irrigation Decision Support System, SIDSS, is proposed to manage irrigation in agriculture. Our system estimates the weekly irrigations needs of a plantation, on the basis of both soil measurements and climatic variables gathered by several autonomous nodes deployed in field. This enables a closed loop control scheme to adapt the decision support system to local perturbations and estimation errors. Two machine learning techniques, PLSR and ANFIS, are proposed as reasoning engine of our SIDSS. Our approach is validated on three commercial plantations of citrus trees located in the South-East of Spain. Performance is tested against decisions taken by a human expert.

An assessment of the benefits and limitations of the shamba agroforestry system in Kenya and of management and policy requirements for its successful and sustainable reintroduction

The shamba system involves farmers tending tree saplings on state-owned forest land in return for being permitted to intercrop perennial food crops until canopy closure. At one time the system was used throughout all state-owned forest lands in Kenya, accounting for a large proportion of some 160,000 ha. The system should theoretically be mutually beneficial to both local people and the government. However the system has had a chequered past in Kenya due to widespread malpractice and associated environmental degradation. It was last banned in 2003 but in early 2008 field trials were initiated for its reintroduction. This study aimed to: assess the benefits and limitations of the shamba system in Kenya; assess the main influences on the extent to which the limitations and benefits are realised and; consider the management and policy requirements for the system's successful and sustainable operation. Information was obtained from 133 questionnaires using mainly open ended questions and six participatory workshops carried out in forest-adjacent communities on the western slopes of Mount Kenya in Nyeri district. In addition interviews were conducted with key informants from communities and organisations. There was strong desire amongst local people for the system's reintroduction given that it had provided significant food, income and employment. Local perceptions of the failings of the system included firstly mismanagement by government or forest authorities and secondly abuse of the system by shamba farmers and outsiders. Improvements local people considered necessary for the shamba system to work included more accountability and transparency in administration and better rules with respect to plot allocation and stewardship. Ninety-seven percent of respondents said they would like to be more involved in management of the forest and 80% that they were willing to pay for the use of a plot. The study concludes that the structural framework laid down by the 2005 Forests Act, which includes provision for the reimplementation of the shamba system under the new plantation establishment and livelihood improvement scheme (PELIS) [It should be noted that whilst the shamba system was re-branded in 2008 under the acronym PELIS, for the sake of simplicity the authors continue to refer to the 'shamba system' and 'shamba farmers' throughout this paper.], is weakened because insufficient power is likely to be devolved to local people, casting them merely as 'forest users' and the shamba system as a 'forest user right'. In so doing the system's potential to both facilitate and embody the participation of local people in forest management is limited and the long-term sustainability of the new system is questionable. Suggested instruments to address this include some degree of sharing of profits from forest timber, performance related guarantees for farmers to gain a new plot and use of joint committees consisting of local people and the forest authorities for long term management of forests.

Studies on weed infestation and tea growth under various weed management methods in a young Tea (Camellia sinensis [L.] kuntze) plantation

A field experiment was conducted in the low country of Sri Lanka, during the period 1994–1995 to investigate the severity of weed infestation and tea growth in relation to weed management methods in newly established tea (Camellia sinensis[L.] Kuntze). Manual weeding (hand and slash weeding) at various intervals was compared with various herbicides, with or without mulching. Weed control with herbicides was superior to that of hand weeding at 6-week intervals or more. Weed control with oxyfluorfen at 0.29 kg ai ha−1 + paraquat at 0.17 kg ai ha−1 or glyphosate at 0.99 kg ai ha−1 + kaolin at 3.42 kg ha−1 were superior. Plots unweeded for 12 weeks or more produced significantly greater (P < 0.05) weed biomass than plots unweeded for 6 weeks. Although the least weed dry weight (P < 0.05) and the greatest number of weed species were recorded with hand weeding at 2 week intervals, there was no particular benefit on tea growth when compared with hand weeding at 6 and 12 week intervals. Inter row mulching in chemically treated plots was more favorable for tea growth than no mulching, while living weed cover in unmulched slash weeded plots suppressed tea growth. A combination of mulching and herbicides, particularly oxyfluorfen and paraquat, followed by hand weeding at least every 6–8 weeks was considered the most appropriate weed management system for young tea.

Space dependency of chemical attributes in an area with sugarcane plantation in Pereira Barreto, SP

The behavior of the chemical attributes is directly influenced by superficial flow and water movement inside the soil. This work aimed to study the space dependency of chemical attributes in an area with sugarcane plantation in Pereira Barreto, SP. An area of 530.67 hectares was mapped using an equipment of Global Positioning System and obtaining a Digital Elevation Model. A set of 134 soil samples were collected every seven hectares in the depths of 0-0.25 m and 0.80-1.00 m. The pH, organic matter (OM), Ca, Mg, K, BS, CEC and base saturation (BS) were analyzed. All the chemical attributes presented similar behavior in the superficial and subsuperficial layer of the soil, which provided better visualization and definition of the homogeneous tillage zones.

Water use in a sugarcane plantation

The evapotranspiration (E) from a sugarcane plantation in the southeast Brazil was measured by the eddy-covariance method during two consecutive cycles. These represented the second (393 similar to days) and third year (374 similar to days) re-growth (ratoon). The total E in the first cycle was 829 similar to mm, accounting for 69% of rainfall, whereas in the second cycle, it was 690 similar to mm, despite the total rainfall (1353 similar to mm) being 13% greater. The ratio of E to available energy, the evaporative fraction, exhibited a smaller variation between the first and second cycles: 0.58 and 0.51, respectively. The estimated interception losses were 88 and 90 similar to mm, respectively, accounting for approximately 7% of the total rainfall. The sugarcane yield in the second cycle (61.5 similar to +/-similar to 4.0 similar to t similar to ha-1) was 26% lower than the first cycle, as well as lower than the regional average for the third ratoon (76 similar to t similar to ha-1). The below average yield was associated with less available soil water at the beginning of the cycle, with the amount of rainfall recorded during the first 120 similar to days of re-growth in the second cycle being 16% of that recorded in the first (203 similar to mm).

Stand-level patterns of carbon fluxes and partitioning in a Eucalyptus grandis plantation across a gradient of productivity, in Sao Paulo State, Brazil

Wood production represents a large but variable fraction of gross primary production (GPP) in highly productive Eucalyptus plantations. Assessing patterns of carbon (C) partitioning (C flux as a fraction of GPP) between above- and belowground components is essential to understand mechanisms driving the C budget of these plantations. Better knowledge of fluxes and partitioning to woody and non-woody tissues in response to site characteristics and resource availability could provide opportunities to increase forest productivity. Our study aimed at investigating how C allocation varied within one apparently homogeneous 90 ha stand of Eucalyptus grandis (W. Hill ex Maiden) in Southeastern Brazil. We assessed annual above-ground net primary production (ANPP: stem, leaf, and branch production) and total belowground C flux (TBCF: the sum of root production and respiration and mycorrhizal production and respiration), GPP (computed as the sum of ANPP, TBCF and estimated aboveground respiration) on 12 plots representing the gradient of productivity found within the stand. The spatial heterogeneity of topography and associated soil attributes across the stand likely explained this fertility gradient. Component fluxes of GPP and C partitioning were found to vary among plots. Stem NPP ranged from 554 g C m(-2) year(-1) on the plot with lowest GPP to 923 g C m(-2) year(-1) on the plot with highest GPP. Total belowground carbon flux ranged from 497 to 1235 g C m(-2) year(-1) and showed no relationship with ANPP or GPP. Carbon partitioning to stem NPP increased from 0.19 to 0.23, showing a positive trend of increase with GPP (R-2 = 0.29, P = 0.07). Variations in stem wood production across the gradient of productivity observed at our experimental site were a result of the variability in C partitioning to different forest system components.