Cereal-forage crop rotations and irrigation treatment effect on water use efficiency and crops sustainability in Mediterranean environment.pdf.pdf

, , 44-57 (2012)Agricultural Sciences http://dx./.31007Cereal-forage crop rotations and irrigation treatment effect on water use efficiency and crops sustainability in Mediterranean environment Pasquale Martiniello Agricultural Research Council, Unit for Extensive Animal Production, Muro Lucano (Potenza), Italy; pasquale.******@,pasquale-******@ 6 September 2011; revised 17 November 2011; accepted 7 December 2011 ABSTRACTAgricultural systems based on crop rotations favour sustainability of cultivation and produc- tivity of the crops. Wheat-forage crops rotations (annual winter binary mixture and perennial al- falfa meadow) combined with irrigation are the agronomical techniques able to better exploit the weather resources in Mediterranean envi- ronments. The experiment aimed to study the effect of 18 years bined effect of irrigation and continuous durum wheat and wheat-forage rotations on productivities of crops anic matter of topsoil. The experiments were estab- lished through 1991-2008 under rainfed and ir- rigated treatments and emphasized on the effect of irrigation and continuous wheat and wheat- forage crop rotations on water use efficiency and sustainability anic matter. The effect of irrigation increased % and % the dry matter of mixture and meadow, respectively. Continuous wheat rotation reduced seed yield, stability of production, crude protein character- istics of kernel and anic matter. The yearly gain in wheat after forage crops was t (ha·yr)–1 under rainfed and t (ha·yr)–1 under irrigation treatments. The crude protein and anic matter of wheat rotations, compared to those of continuous wheat under rainfed and irrigated was increase in term of point percent- age by and in crude protein and and anic matter, respectively. The rotations of mixture and meadow under both irrigated treatments increased the point of percentage anic matter over continuous wheat (9.