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A communist in the family : searching for Rewi Alley
\"Part-biography, part-travel journal, part-literary commentary, 'A communist in the family' brings together Alley's story and that of his author cousin, Elspeth Sandys. In 2017, Sandys travelled to China with other family members to mark the ninetieth anniversary of Rewi's arrival in Shanghai in 1927. One strand of this book follows that journey and charts Sandys' impressions of modern China. Another tells the story of Rewi's early life, in an insightful meditation on the complex and always elusive relationship between memory and writing. By placing the man, Rewi, and his work in the context of his time, Sandys is able to illuminate the life of this extraordinary New Zealander in a way that is both historically vivid and relevant to the world of today. Her focus on the role poetry played in his life, both his own and that of the Chinese poets he translated so prolifically, provides moving glimpses of the man behind the myth. Threaded through 'A communist in the family' are Sandys' evolving insights into a nation that looms ever larger in the day-to-day realities of New Zealand and the world\"--Back cover.
Book
Toxic Space and Time: Slow Violence, Necropolitics, and Petrochemical Pollution
This article explores how time interacts forcefully with the experience of living within toxic spaces. Through ethnographic research and interviews with residents of a contaminated town in Louisiana, the article unpacks the uncertain temporalities of industrial pollution and potential means of resistance. Putting Mbembe's (2003) postcolonial treatise on necropolitics in conversation with Nixon's (2011) work on slow violence, the article examines the racialized, uneven, and attritional experience of petrochemical pollution in a former plantation landscape. By exploring the necropolitics of place, the article reveals how unjust exposure to toxic chemicals creates contemporary \"death-worlds\" that are experienced in temporally uncertain and constricting ways. The oppressive nature of uncertain temporality makes the material assemblages of petrochemical infrastructure daily environmental concerns. Yet by focusing on the lived experience of communities inhabiting this toxic geography, the article notes how witnessing gradual changes to the local environment has become a barometer for perceiving chronic pollution. The idea of \"slow observation\" is posited as a useful counterpoint to slow violence and the permanent wounding of toxic pollution. Slow observation is an important aspect of living with sustained environmental brutality and offers a potential means of political resistance and doing undone environmental justice.
Journal Article
Blind Alley Developments in Childrens’ Language Acquisition
A blind alley development (BAD) is a rarely occurring ephemeral development of young children that systematically deviates from parental input and is eventually abandoned due to persistent explicit and/or implicit correction by the children’s caregivers.
Journal Article
Trees shape the soil microbiome of a temperate agrosilvopastoral and syntropic agroforestry system
Agroforestry systems are multifunctional land-use systems that promote soil life. Despite their large potential spatio-temporal complexity, the majority of studies that investigated soil organisms in temperate cropland agroforestry systems focused on rather non-complex systems. Here, we investigated the topsoil and subsoil microbiome of two complex and innovative alley cropping systems: an agrosilvopastoral system combining poplar trees, crops, and livestock and a syntropic agroforestry system combining 35 tree and shrub species with forage crops. Increasing soil depth resulted in a decline of bacterial and fungal richness and a community shift towards oligotrophic taxa in both agroforestry systems, which we attribute to resource-deprived conditions in subsoil. At each soil depth, the microbiome of the tree rows was compositionally distinct from the crop rows. We detected a shift towards beneficial microorganisms as well as a decline in putative phytopathogens under the trees as compared to the crop rows. Finally, based on our results on community dissimilarity, we found that compared to an open cropland without trees, spatial heterogeneity introduced by the tree rows in the agrosilvopastoral system translated into a compositionally less homogeneous soil microbiome, highlighting the potential of agroforestry to counteract the homogenization of the soil microbiome through agriculture.
Journal Article
Digging deeper
Aims
Temperate alley-cropping agroforestry systems maintain agricultural production while offering several environmental benefits. Central benefits of agroforestry systems such as the ‘safety-net’-role of the trees for leached nutrients are mainly due to processes occurring below the soil surface: the subsoil. Microorganisms in the subsoil may play a key role in the ‘safety-net’-function as they can improve the capturing and uptake of nutrients by the trees. Systematic investigations of microbial communities in temperate agroforestry systems, however, are restricted to topsoil.
Methods
We quantified bacteria, fungi, and functional groups of microorganisms in the topsoil and subsoil of two alley-cropping systems using real-time PCR. Topsoil and subsoil samples were collected in the tree rows and at multiple distances from the trees within the crop rows of the agroforestry systems as well as at an adjacent monoculture cropland.
Results
Microbial population size decreased with soil depth likely due to limited resource availability in subsoil. Tree rows in agroforestry systems not only promote soil microbial populations in both the topsoil and subsoil but the promotion also extends gradually into the crop rows of the systems. The promotion of microorganisms through trees is stronger in subsoil than topsoil, pointing at more intense resource scarcity in the subsoil than topsoil.
Conclusions
We propose that tree root-derived resources and root litter, which are scarce in agricultural subsoils, triggered the strong positive response of the subsoil community to the trees. Finally, we provide initial evidence that subsoil microorganisms contribute to the ‘safety-net’-role of the trees in agroforestry systems.
Journal Article
Tree effects on litter mass loss at different soil depths in a young temperate alley cropping system revealed with tea bag method
Background and Aims
Litter decomposition is poorly investigated in young temperate alley cropping (AC) systems but may be an integrative indicator to explore the early effect of trees on overall biological activity throughout soil profile. We evaluated the effect of four-year-old trees on recalcitrant-rooibos and labile-green tea mass loss at different soil depths at the Ramecourt AC experimental site.
Methods
In May 2021, tea bags were inserted within aluminum ingrowth bags and incubated at three depths 1.5 m from a reference tree for 6 months. The tea mass loss variability was analyzed according to factors: type of tea, type of system (AC, sole-crop control or CC and forest plantation control or FC), soil incubation depth, tree species and was correlated with fine roots and soil parameters.
Results
At 30 cm depth, the mass loss was significantly lower for rooibos than green tea regardless of the type of system, whereas at 50 cm and 100 cm depth, this difference was observed only in AC and FC. We observed a lower rooibos mass loss in AC than in CC at 100 cm depth. At 30 cm depth, soil mineral nitrogen content explained 23% of the rooibos tea mass loss variability whereas, soil organic matter content and fine root biomass within tea bags accounted for 50% of green tea mass loss variability.
Conclusion
We highlighted the ability of AC to slow recalcitrant litter decomposition in depth, however further works are needed to elucidate the processes leading to retarded decomposition.
Journal Article
Influence of two agroforestry systems on the nitrification potential in temperate pastures in Brittany, France
Abstract Background and aims Agroforestry, whereby trees are associated with crops and/or livestock, is expected to mitigate nitrogen (N) losses from agriculture. However, little is known about how nitrification potential, an important process that drives N losses, is affected by agroforestry systems. This study aimed to investigate the effect of different silvopastoral agroforestry systems on soil nitrification potential. Methods Nitrification potential was evaluated in two agroforestry systems (hedgerow and alley cropping) associated with temporary grasslands in Brittany, France. In each system, soil was sampled along a transect spanning from the center of the tree row into the grass alley. Soil nitrification potential was determined ex situ and was explained by univariate and multivariate analysis of variables describing vegetation, physicochemical soil properties, and soil organisms. Results Nitrification potential differed between the two agroforestry systems and among the positions in relation to the trees. In the alley cropping system, nitrification potential was on average 1.5 times higher in the tree row than at 1.5 and 10 m into the grass alley, while in the hedgerow system, nitrification potential at 1.5 m into the grass alley was on average 40% lower than at 10 m into the grass alley. Nitrification potential was strongly correlated with soil pH, whereas no correlation was observed between nitrification potential and community size of soil nitrifiers. Conclusion Our results point out the diverse effects of agroforestry systems on nitrification, a key soil process that is involved in the regulation of N losses.
Journal Article
Influence of latitude on the light availability for intercrops in an agroforestry alley-cropping system
Light competition by trees is often regarded as a major limiting factor for crops in alley-cropping agroforestry. Northern latitude farmers are usually reluctant to adopt agroforestry as they fear that light competition will be fiercer in their conditions. We questioned the light availability for crops in alley-cropping at different latitudes from the tropic circle to the polar circle with a process-based 3D model of alley-cropping agroforestry. Two tree densities and two tree line orientations were considered. The effect of the latitude was evaluated with same-sized trees. The relative irradiance of the crops was computed for the whole year or at specific times of the year when crops need more light. The heterogeneity of crop irradiance across the alley was also computed. Surprisingly, crop relative irradiance of summer crops at high latitudes is high, at odds with farmers’ fears. Best designs were highlighted for improving the crop irradiance: North–South tree lines are recommended at high latitudes and East–West tree lines at low latitudes. At medium latitudes, North–South tree lines should be preferred to achieve an homogeneous irradiance of the crop in the alley. If we assume that trees at northern latitudes grow slower when compared to southern latitudes, then alley-cropping agroforestry is highly advisable even at high latitudes with summer crops.
Journal Article
Nutrient saturation of crop monocultures and agroforestry indicated by nutrient response efficiency
Efficient use of nutrients is a key requisite for a sustainable intensification of agriculture in order to meet the increasing global crop demand while minimizing deleterious environmental impacts. Agroforestry systems exhibit tree–crop interactions, which potentially contribute to nutrient-efficient agro-ecosystems. Our goal was to determine whether the conversion from cropland monocultures to alley-cropping agroforestry increases nutrient response efficiency (NRE), the ability of plants to convert available nutrients into biomass. We found that crop yield, plant-available nutrients and NRE were comparable between agroforestry and monocultures, but the trees in agroforestry had high NRE, contributing to nutrient retention of the agroforestry systems as a whole. The unimodal relationship of the crops’ NRE with plant-available nutrients suggests that NRE values were beyond optimum in both agroforestry and monoculture indicating nutrient saturation. This indicates that fertilizer inputs can be reduced (or optimized) without sacrificing crop yield or profit. Based on the NRE curves, we assessed that a reduction of plant-available N by 50% would lead to a decrease in crop yield by 17% and a concomitant increase in N response efficiency by 67%, whereas a similar reduction of plant-available P would lead to a decrease in crop yield by 8% with an increase in P response efficiency by 83%. An optimized fertilization to achieve such lower levels of plant-available nutrients will have beneficial effects on nutrient retention and redistribution. Optimizing fertilizer input will make alley-cropping agroforestry a productive and profitable agro-ecosystem that contributes to an ecologically sustainable agriculture.
Journal Article
Yield components and phenology of durum wheat in a Mediterranean alley-cropping system
It is often claimed that agroforestry could increase the total productivity per land unit compared to monocropping systems. The aim of this study was to evaluate, in a sub-humid Mediterranean climate, the behavior of the yield components, phenology, LAI and NDVI of durum wheat in an alley-cropping system. Our hypothesis was that the microclimate changes in agroforestry could change the devlelopment and yield of cereals. Two different experiments were carried out: in 2015 under 16-year old poplars in East–West lines and in 2016 under 21-year-old ash trees in North–South lines. In each experiment, 12 genotypes of durum wheat were sown. The grain yield was not significantly different in agroforestry and full sun conditions in 2015; however, both systems in this experiment had a particularly low yield (≈ 10% of the historical average yield of the plot). In 2016, the grain yield was significantly lower in agroforestry in comparison with full sun conditions. In both experiments, the most impacted yield component by agroforestry was the number of grains per spike. Similarly, in both experiments, the number of grains per spike was the only yield component impacted by the position within the alley inside agroforestry. Surprisingly, in 2016 the grain yield was higher in the West than in the center position of the alley. In both experiments, agroforestry delayed the maturity of the crop. The use of standard growing degree days was not sufficient to explain the difference in phenology between agroforestry and full sun conditions.
Journal Article