TY - THES ID - 135239594 TI - Sustainability and resilience of cropping systems under conservation agriculture with rainfed maize and irrigated wheat in Mexico. AU - Verhulst, Nele AU - Deckers, Seppe. AU - Raes, Dirk. AU - K.U.Leuven. Faculteit Bio-ingenieurswetenschappen. Departement Aard- en Omgevingswetenschappen PY - 2011 SN - 9789088261930 PB - Leuven K.U.Leuven. Faculteit Bio-ingenieurswetenschappen DB - UniCat UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:135239594 AB - Today's global cultivated area has been strongly degraded. Agriculture should therefore not only be high yielding, but also sustainable. Conservation agriculture (CA) systems are based on three principles: (1) minimal soil movement, (2) the retention of rational amounts of residue cover, (3) economically viable crop rotations, which together should lead to reductions in management costs and increased sustainability and profitability. The techniques to apply the principles of CA will vary with biophysical and system management conditions and farmer circumstances. In this research, soil quality and crop performance in CA systems are evaluated and compared to farmer practice in two different cropping systems: a furrow-irrigated wheat-based system in arid conditions (northwestern Mexico) and a rainfed maize-based system in the subtropical, semi-arid highlands (Central Mexico). In both cropping systems, the CA-based practices, i.e. permanent raised beds or zero tillage with at least partial retention of crop residues, resulted in increased soil quality and crop performance compared to the farmer practice involving tillage and permanent raised beds with straw burned or zero tillage with residue removal. Tillage reduced physical soil quality, whereas the removal or burning of residues reduced physical, chemical and biological soil quality compared to the CA-based practices. In both systems, tillage increased initial growth but there was no difference with CA-based practices later in the season. Grain yield was higher and more stable in CA-based practices. The CA-based practices were more resilient to drought or a reduction in irrigation water. As projected climatic scenarios forecast higher evapotranspiration, erratic rainfall, reduced allocation of existing water resources to irrigation and increased drought, our results indicate that CA can contribute to maintaining and increasing maize and wheat yields in a sustainable way in both studied cropping systems ER -