Alireza Koocheki

• Professor at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

Global warming and weather anomalies pose significant threats to cereal production in West Asia. Winter wheat, which requires vernalization to trigger reproductive growth, is particularly vulnerable to heat, while spring wheat faces limitations due to short and hot vegetation periods. Facultative wheat, which does not require vernalization and can...

Background & Objectives: This study was conducted to evaluate the species and genetic diversity of agricultural ecosystems in Afghanistan. Materials and Methods: In order to carryout this research, countrywide data set was collected. The required data were extracted through collected questionnaires from 388 counties in 34 provinces. For this purpos...

EXTENDED ABSTRACT Introduction: Intensive agricultural systems are mainly monocultures with low sustainability because they neglect the mutual relationships between living organisms and the environment. Intensification in spatiotemporal dimensions and uncontrolled use of external inputs have created ecosystems with less diversity and greater vulne...

Article type: Full Length Research Paper Background and Objectives: The importance of rapid, non-destructive, and accurate estimation of leaf area (LA) in agronomic and physiological studies is well known. The need for such estimates of leaf area in particular for leaves with unusual shapes has led to studies relating leaf dimensions and leaf area....

Introduction Intercropping as an approach for the development of sustainable agriculture systems pursues purposes such as creating ecological balance, further exploitation of resources, increasing the quantity and quality of yield reducing losses due to pests, diseases, and weeds, and reduceing the dependence of farmers to pesticides, to maintain p...

This study investigated drought risk, drought vulnerability, and drought hazard in Northeast Iran (North Khorasan, Razavi Khorasan, and South Khorasan provinces) during 2009-2018. Exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity together determine the agricultural drought vulnerability. Three parameters of soil water holding capacity, level of mechaniza...

پژوهشی بهمنظور ارزیابی اثر افزایش تنوع ژنتیکی درکشت مخلوط ردیفی ارقام گندم بر بهبود کارایی استفاده از منابع در قالب طرح بلوکهای كامل تصادفي با سه تكرار و 15 تیمار در دو سال زراعی 1398-1399 و1399-1400 اجرا شد. تیمارهای آزمایش شامل کشت خالص و مخلوط های دوگانه، سه گانه و چهارگانه ارقام گندم حیدری، پیشگام، پیشتاز و فلات بود. نتایج نشان داد که اثر تیم...

Introduction In conventional agriculture, crop production has gradually shifted from ecological production principles to economic approaches, which has led to the destruction of natural resources and land use change, as well as the reduction in resource consumption (Koocheki et al., 2016b). Satisfying the nutritional needs of a growing population w...

Increasing the saffron quantity and quality is essential and should be considered to achieve the desired performance. In this regard, to study the effect of nutrient and irrigation management on the quality and yield of saffron, an experiment was carried out at the research station, the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran, in 2013–2015. The study...

Recognizing the climate change (CC) can have vast impacts on agricultural production has generated a desire to create resilience into cropping systems. Crop management is the most important strategy to improve crop yield and resilience under CC. This study investigated the adaptation (changing planting date and crop rotation) effects on rainfed whe...

Introduction1 Intercropping of cereals with legumes has been a common cropping system in arid and semi-arid areas such as Iran and Afghanistan. It is understood that competition for resources such as water, nutrients, and sunlight by the co-existing species could, however, reduce the yields of component crops. Often reductions in the yields of indi...

Introduction The nitrogen budget or balance is often evaluated by comparing various nitrogen inputs and outputs in soil– crop systems. Research on nitrogen balance can provide more detailed information on the nitrogen cycle and its losses by integrating soil nitrogen processes with the total nitrogen budgets. There are restricted researches for eva...

Introduction Predicting yield is increasingly important to optimize irrigation under limited available water to enhance sustainable production. Calibrated crop simulation models therefore increasingly are being used an alternative means for rapid assessment of water-limited crop yield over a wide range of environmental and management conditions. Aq...

Extended abstract Introduction A prerequisite to model crop growth is an appropriate quantification of crop canopy structure in response to management and environmental conditions. Under water stress, the light distributions over canopy depth are more complicated because water stress affects not only appearance and elongation of leaves, but also mo...

18«Applied Research in Field Crops» Vol 34, No 2, 2021 The Effect of cropping systems management and wheat residues on grain yield and efficiency indices of nitrogen and phosphorus in autum- nal rapeseed Houshang Nasseri Rad1, Parviz Rezvani Moghaddam2*, Alireza Kuchiki3, Ali Ashraf Jafari4 1. Ph.D. of crop ecology, Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdows...

Production and processing technologies of saffron

This study was conducted as a two-year field experiment with aim of the simulation of growth and development of tomato using AquaCrop model under different irrigation regimes at two growth stages in Mashhad climatic conditions. In this experiment, split plot design with three replicates was adopted with different amount of applied water at vegetati...

Introduction8 The nitrogen budget or balance is often evaluated by comparing various nitrogen inputs and outputs in soil– crop systems. Research on nitrogen balance can provide more detailed information on the nitrogen cycle and its losses by integrating soil nitrogen processes with the total nitrogen budgets. There are restricted researches for ev...

In order to study the effect of soil texture and irrigation management on flower and corm yield of saffron (Crocus sativus L.), an experiment was conducted at research field of Agricultural Faculty of Sarayan, University of Birjand during two growing seasons (2013–2015). The study was performed as factorial based on Randomized Complete Block Design...

Introduction: Wheat breeders have been constantly striving to develop new varieties with improved productivity and yield as well as higher resistance to pests and diseases. These varieties are being released frequently and replace the existing ones on the basis of their performance under open-field conditions. Intercropping has been widely applied...

Evaluation of the relationships between nutritional patterns and farms’ age with the behavior of saffron (Crocus sativus L.) daughter corms based on farmers’ management (on-farm) can be crucial in improving saffron sustainable yield. Furthermore, in commercial saffron production, especially in small farms, the purchased water and fertilizers are th...

Appropriate water supply in terms of quantity, quality, and timing is a key strategy for reducing saffron yield gap. This plant has high water productivity and drought tolerance, and its rainfed production is common in areas like many parts of Europe. However, it must be irrigated to achieve satisfactory yield in dry regions such as Iran, but much...

Increasing resources use efficiency in intensive cultivation systems of maize (Zea mays L.) can play an important role in increasing the production and sustainability of agricultural systems. The objectives of the present study were to evaluate DM yield and the efficiency of inputs uses under different levels of water, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (...

Saffron (Crocus sativus L.), a member of the Iridaceae family, is a sterile triploid geophyte plant. Saffron is adapted to arid and semiarid regions and naturally has an annual life cycle, but it is cultivated as a perennial crop by controlling its corm growth. It is important to study the crucial factors affecting mother corm formation and growth...

Nitrogen is one of the most important nutrients and plays a major role in crop yield improvement. Currently,under the global pressure to increase grain yield while simultaneously minimizing environmental risks, the nitrogen use efficiency has become a challenging issue. Corn (Zea mays L.) nitrogen use is of continued interest due to agronomic perfo...

Wheat breeders have been constantly striving to develop new varieties with improved productivity and yield as well as higher resistance to pests and diseases. These varieties are being released frequently and replace the existing ones on the basis of their performance under open-field conditions.Intercropping has been widely applied to reduce soil...

Nowadays, excessive use of agricultural inputs not only imposes extra costs to production systems but also has been led to environmental pollution. In order to determine the optimal application rates of nitrogen and water in wheat cultivation, a field experiment was conducted based on central composite design in research field of Ferdowsi Universit...

Introduction Recently self-sustaining, diversified, low-input, and energy-efficient agricultural systems like intercropping have been considered as the efficient way to achieve the sustainability in agriculture. Intercropping as an old agricultural practice, have been followed especially at the small scale and subsistence farming. It can be defined...

Yield increase in the second half of the last century was attributed to breeding new high yielding cultivars and use of chemical inputs, particularly nitrogenous fertilizer, where contribution of fertilizers in yield improvement has been reported in the range of 30 to 50 percent. In fact, genetic potential of high yielding cultivars is achieved usi...

Potential production condition is defined as situation where water and nutrients are supplied in ample with no damage from weeds, pests and diseases. Under this situation potential yield (Yp) which is defined by solar radiation, temperature, CO2 concentration and genotypic characteristics of the crop species could be achieved. Closing the gap betwe...

To realize global food demand by 2050 world cereal production should be increased up to 49% compared to 2006. This level of production could be achieved by annual yield increment of 1.16%. However, the current rates are much lower. At the same time, there is a very restricted area to increase cultivated lands because of resource limitation, provide...

Introduction Carbon sequestration is defined as the permanent gain of carbon by soil, plant or water. Soil as the largest terrestrial carbon pool plays an important role in the global carbon cycle. Due to the role of agricultural systems in CO2 emission, attention to the carbon cycle in agricultural systems is of prime importance. So, the interest...

Introduction Most historians and archaeologist have known Iran as one of the main origins of human settlement and agriculture. Persians were the first human groups attempted to domesticate wild plants and animals. In this article we have tried to investigate the development of agriculture from ancient to nowadays with discussed and examined differe...

In this study the best corm weight (4–6 g as small-sized and 6–8 g as medium-sized corms) and density (50, 75 and 100 corm m⁻²) was determined for saffron fields in different ages (1, 2 and 3 years-old). For this purpose, a factorial experiment based on a randomized complete block design with 3 replications was performed during 3 growing seasons fr...

Introduction Nitrogen is one of the most important nutrients and plays a major role in crop yield improvement. Currently, under the global pressure to increase grain yield while simultaneously minimizing environmental risks, the nitrogen use efficiency has become a challenging issue. Corn (Zea mays L.) nitrogen use is of continued interest due to a...

Increasing species diversity through intercropping can be effective in improving the ecosystem functions and services. In this experiment, three different functional groups, soybean (Glycine max) as a C3 and fixing nitrogen plant, corn (Zea mays) as a C4 and nitrogen-demanding crop and marshmallow (Althaea officinalis) as a perennial medicinal plan...

Introduction Nitrogen fertilizers, plays an essential role in crop production and additionally its application has environmental drawbacks. So, nitrogen dynamics between cropping systems and environment is one of the most important agronomic management practices. Improving nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) is an important target in wheat cropping syste...

This study was aimed to investigate radiation absorption and use efficiency in substitution intercropping of milk thistle (Silybum marianum L.) and fennel (Foenicolum vulgar L.). The experiment was set up with five treatments in a randomized complete block design with three replications at the farm of the faculty of agriculture, Ferdowsi University...

At global level nitrogen (N) fertilizers had drastic effects on crop yields increment during the last century. However, high application rates of this input have resulted to environmental pollution all around the world in addition decreased yields per unit of applied N is also reported in some countries. To fulfill increasing demands for agricultur...

In conventional crop management systems fields are considered as a homogenous environment however, because of high within field spatial variability such management is economically inefficient and provides drastic environmental consequences. Crop yield at any point of a field is a function of factors including planting density, weather conditions, m...

Sustainable agricultural development is an important goal in economic planning and human development worldwide. A range of processes and relationships are transformed, beginning with aspects of basic soil structure, organic matter content, and diversity and activity of soil biota. Eventually, major changes also occur in the relationships among weed...

Climate change (CC) is one of the most important issues of concern for mankind in the current century. Increasing CO2 concentration and the proof of the greenhouse effect theory in which the type and composition of atmospheric gases influence on earth temperature, are among undeniable facts makes the future climate change more possible (23, 25). Im...

In order to evaluate different methods of seed dormancy breaking for Chinese lantern (Physalis alkekengi L.), two experiments were conducted at laboratory and greenhouse conditions. The laboratory treatments were 22 different physical and chemical methods such as washing, stratification, scarification (sandy paper), sulfuric acid, gibberellic acid,...

Corm size is the most important factor in production of replacement corms and flower yield of saffron. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of nutrition and irrigation managements on saffron corms characteristics in the experimental field of Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran, in 2013–2015. The experiment wa...

Introduction Soil organic matter is one of the main sources of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur and the agronomic value of organic materials depends on their nitrogen release. Nitrogen dynamics varies considerably depending on soil properties (e.g. soil texture and moisture content), residue location (incorporation or surface placement resid...

Due to climate change it seems that the suitable area for production of saffron is shifting towards the Northern area of Khorasan. On the other hand, corm density and nutrient management are important factors in saffron production. To find out the credibility of this assumption, an experiment was conducted based on a randomized complete blocks desi...

Introduction1 Nowadays, increasing world population, destruction of natural resources followed by the confirmed need to increase food production are the basic challenges of the world. The appropriate solution for this challenge is sustainable agriculture based on consuming different kinds of biological and organic fertilizers, with the purpose of e...

In order to study the potential of maize-cotton intercropping for improving radiation use efficiency (RUE), an experiment was conducted as a factorial arrangement based on completely randomized block design with three replications at experimental filed of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. The experimental treatments were nitrogen in four levels (0, 5...

Saffron, Crocus sativus L., belongs to the iris plant family, characterized for having a purple flower with red stigmas and yellow stamens. Saffron long scarlet stigmas are highly valued for flavouring food and adding a golden-yellow color. Saffron, as dried stigmas, is the most expensive spice in the world, well known for its aromatic and colourin...

The corm size, nutrient management and corm type are the most important factors that may affect the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of saffron (Crocus sativus L.). In order to study the effect of mother corm size and nutrient foliar application on flower and corm yield of Spanish and Iranian Saffron landrace, an experiment was conducte...

Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) is a perennial plant which grows basically in arid and semi-arid regions of Iran. Despite saffron’s adaptation to these regions, the assessment of changes in cultivation area over the last 30 years reveals that cultivation of this crop has sharply increased. According to the available statistics, there are 21 provinces w...

Introduction The deterioration of genetic resources of many field crops due to monoculture and other agricultural activities has been well documented. Estimates indicate that the introduction of new varieties has contributed at least 80% of the increase in crop production, yet, these gains have been offset by the loss of 90% of landraces. The impor...

Essential oil content and concentration of anise plant planted in different times under various sources of nitrogen was evaluated in this study. The experiment was conducted in a split plot based on a randomized complete block (RCB) design (different sources of fertilizer as the main plot and planting dates as subplots) with three replications in t...

A greenhouse research experiment was conducted. The experiment was arranged in factorial layout based on a completely randomized design. The mother corm size (0.1 vermicompost 10 t levels (foliar application and no application) were assigned as the first Based on the results, with increasing mother corm size, formation of small corms (0.1 medium (4...

In saffron (Crocus sativus L.) production, whether corms or stigma, irrigation management and mothercorms size play a key role in nutrients uptake, daughter corms formation and stigma yield. Herein theeffects of irrigation rounds and mother corm size on daughter corms behavior, phosphorus uptake, stigmayield and quality were evaluated as a two-year...

The objective of this study was to determine the influence of tillage methods (conventional tillage (CT) and minimum tillage (MT)) and N rates (0, 50, 150, 250 kg N ha⁻¹) on crop yield, N uptake and soil organic carbon (SOC), bulk density (BD), total N (TN), EC, pH and soil nutrient contents on a clay-loam near Hashtgerd, Iran. A successive corn-ba...

Saffron is mainly produced in southern parts of Khorasan in Iran based on the proper temperature profile available for production that is warm summer and mild fall. The production is used to be intended from Torbate heydariah to Birjand, further south of the province. Due to climate change this trend seems to be reversing and the area of production...

Saffron is a plant specific to warm summer and mild temperature during flowering emergence in the fall. This has been the reason for southern Khorasan to be the most suitable area for saffron production. However, during the recent years due to climate change the temperature profile has changed and the suitable area for production of saffron seems t...

Rangelands are natural ecosystems containing a range of resources of genetic reserves and numerous plant species and its evaluation has always been essential. However, biodiversity is one of the most important components of Habitat assessment and the identification and introduction of the flora of an area is one of the significant operations that c...

In order to evaluate the effects of tillage and wheat residue management on nitrogen uptake and distribution, nitrogen uptake efficiency, nitrogen use efficiency and nitrogen harvest index in wheat, a two-year field experiment was implemented as a split block experiment in a randomized complete block design with twenty treatments and three replicat...

Weed infestation causes an extremely reduction in crops yield. On the other hand, increasing the diversity of crops in agroecosystems will change the biomass distribution of weeds community, thereby reducing the number and density of different weed species. This research was carried out to investigate the ecological aspects of substitution intercro...

Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) is an annual plant from a biological aspect, but it has a perennial cycle in the field conditions. Cytological impairments such as triploid and self-incompatibility mechanisms are considered as the most important reasons for male-sterility in saffron. Therefore, saffron reproduction is made by meristems tissues and estab...

Saffron?s color, taste and odor result from the chemicals crocin, picrocrocin and safranal, respectively. Hence, in addition to quantitative yield, secondary metabolites content are known as crucial factors for a successful saffron production. Moreover, enhancing resources efficiency, especially water and nitrogen, is becoming increasingly importan...

Saffron’s color, taste and odor result from the chemicals crocin, picrocrocin and safranal, respectively. Hence, in addition to quantitative yield, secondary metabolites content are known as crucial factors for a successful saffron production. Moreover, enhancing resources efficiency, especially water and nitrogen, is becoming increasingly importan...

Water scarcity is one of the main challenging issues for supplying sufficient food in most part of the world. Moreover, water supply is under pressure from climate change. Therefore, it is essential to identify drivers for improving agro-ecosystem water use efficiency (WUE). This paper aims to estimate WUE for wheat, alfalfa, sugar beet and tomato...

Introduction: Consistency and transparency in climate data and methods facilitate comparisons across regions or between models in each of these assessments, particularly when market linkages between regions are emphasized (14 and 15). However, the density and quality of stationary climate data varies widely through space and time, with the best cov...

The effect of irrigation rounds and mother corm size on phosphorus uptake efficiency of saffron (Crocus sativus L.) were explored as a two-year field experiment based on a randomized complete blocks design arranged in factorial-split with three replicates. The experiment was carried out at the experimental station, Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi...

The widespread transition into intensive agroecosystems has led to a considerable decline in plant biodiversity especially for organisms in the field boundaries. The aim of this study was to survey the vegetation of fields and field boundary types located in an agricultural landscape. We provided the structural map of the landscape and classified i...

The purposes of this study were evaluate the effects of biofertilizers inoculation on growth indices, yield and radiation use efficiency (RUE) in black cumin under Mashhad climatic conditions. This field experiment was carried out based on a randomized complete block design with three replications. This experiment was performed at Agricultural Rese...

An experiment was carried out as a split plot based on a randomized complete block design with three replications in 2013-2014 growing season. The main plots were five cropping systems, including: sole sesame, sole mung bean, intercropping (75% sesame-25% mung bean), intercropping (50% sesame-50% mung bean), intercropping (25% sesame-75% mung bean)...

To evaluate nitrogen uptake, nitrogen uptake efficiency, nitrogen use efficiency and nitrogen harvest index of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) affected by different tillage systems and wheat residue application, an experiment was conducted as a split block experiment in a randomized complete block design with three replications at Ferdowsi University...

Future climate change may affect agricultural production through changes in both mean and variability of climatic conditions which in turn could affect crop growth and development. Results of many studies have shown that crop production systems of dry regions are more vulnerable to the predicted climate changes (5) and these impacts are mainly due...

Food production, consumption, ecological footprint of foodstuffs (foodprint), biocapacity and ecological deficit of Iran for the period of 1991–2013 were evaluated and the trend towards the year 2025 was estimated. Total food production and consumption for the year 2012–2013 were 89.5 and 94.5 million tons with a self sufficiency coefficient of 0.8...

To increase wheat productivity from current levels, the yield gap, the difference between actual andpotential yield, should be analyzed. A crop model was calibrated for three winter wheat cultivars andvalidated for a major wheat growing area to evaluate yield gaps in Khorasan province in northeasternIran. The validated model was used to simulate lo...

Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) is a perennial and triploid- geophyte crop which can be maintained up to 8–10 years. During each season, saffron propagates exclusively by replacement corms produced from the mother corm after blooming. The new corms are formed above the old ones, so the crop density increases more and more. Therefore, the flower number...

Ecology of sustainable food production systems

Crop growth models could stimulate growth and development based on science principles and mathematical equations. They also able to evaluate effects of climate, soil, water and agronomic management practices on crop yield. In the present study, an eco-physiological simulation model developed to assess wild oat damage to winter wheat growth and yiel...