稻鳅共生种养模式试验研究

[目的]稻鳅共生是典型的稻田综合利用模式,符合生态农业发展方向。通过对稻鳅共生生态系统的生理生态学机制开展试验研究,为进一步推广稻鳅共生种养模式提供科学依据。[方法]采用田间试验方法,以水稻单作为对照,研究了不同泥鳅养殖密度下的稻鳅共生对水稻农艺性状、土壤理化性质、水稻产量构成的影响,并对稻鳅共生种养模式进行了经济效益分析。[结果]与对照处理相比,水稻长势在株高、有效分蘖率、根长等方面有一定提高。养殖田水稻株高增高了3%,有效分蘖率提高了8%~11%,根长提高了8.8%~31.3%。在土壤理化性质方面,与对照相比,土壤容重降低了7.1%~21.2%,孔隙度增加了4.1%~14.7%。实验前后养殖田内土壤有机质增加了3.5%~26.5%,对照田降低了2.5%~5.8%。土壤肥力(氮、磷、钾)减少,但减少幅度小于对照处理。稻鳅共生种养模式下水稻产量提高了5%~25%,同时稻田增收泥鳅1 725~3 375kg/hm2,净收入为1.836 0万~2.307 0万元/hm2,经济效益提高了3.65~4.84倍。稻鳅共生种养模式中泥鳅的养殖密度为30万尾/hm2时稻田的生态效益和经济效益最佳。[结论]稻鳅共生有效改善了土壤理化性质,促进了水稻的生长,提高了稻田产量和产值。     

Influence of livelihoods on climate change adaptation for smallholder farmers in the Mekong Delta Vietnam

Farmers in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta face a wide range of climate-related and hydrological factors which threaten rice production. Smallholder farmers must adapt to climate change to sustain rice production as their central and most important livelihood activity. A sample was stratified across agro-ecological areas in the Delta affected by flooding, alluvial soils, acid sulphate soils, and saline water intrusion and by derived farmer typologies. A rural livelihoods approach was used in focus group discussions and in-depth interviews to identify and enumerate enabling and constraining adaptation factors. Smallholders experienced diverse natural hazards such as floods, abnormal rains, high temperatures, water scarcity, and salinity intrusion specific to the agro-ecological areas. Adaptation was constrained by labour shortages, water quality, topography, access to combine harvesters, transportation infrastructure, dryers and household savings. Adaptation was enabled by farming techniques and experience, cooperative groups, water quantity, access to information, and ability to purchase agro-chemicals through credit. Small farmers (< 1?ha) were more constrained than large farmers (> 1?ha) who had an expanded livelihood asset base. A range of policy implications are discussed, but adaptation is not just about technological fixes but requires overall improvements in a range of human, social and financial components.     

Panel LM unit root tests with level and trend shifts

This paper considers a Lagrange multiplier (LM) based panel unit root test that allows for heterogeneous structural breaks in both the intercepts and slopes of a series. We note that many popular time series variables are likely to exhibit changing means and/or trends over time. Given that the usual tests will depend on the nuisance parameters indicating the locations of the trend breaks, we adopt a transformation procedure that makes our new panel unit root tests invariant to the nuisance parameters. To illustrate the importance of the power gain provided by our test, we examine the convergence hypothesis using relative ratios of per capita health care expenditures in 20 OECD countries. Our results provide evidence that the convergence hypothesis is supported.     

The impact of conservation tillage on maize yield and input demand: the case of smallholder farmers in north‐west Ethiopia

This study analyses the economics of conservation tillage (CT) with respect to its effect on maize yield and chemical fertiliser, herbicide, and female and male labour demand. We estimate production and input demand functions using seemingly unrelated regressions on plot‐level cross‐sectional farm household data collected in the north‐west of Ethiopia. A two‐step control function is applied to address potential endogeneity bias due to the inclusion of the CT adoption decision as an explanatory variable. Our results show that CT increases maize yield and chemical fertiliser demand. Additionally, the results show that the adoption of CT reduces female and male labour required for crop production. However, this is achieved through the increased use of herbicides, which might have an undesirable health and environmental effects.     

Estimating yield curves of the U.S. Treasury securities: An interpolation approach

Following the approach of interpolation, this paper proposes the multiple exponential decay model to fit yield curves for both the U.S. TIPS market and the conventional Treasury security market. Several estimation methods, including the unconstrained/constrained nonlinear minimization, quadratic programming, and the iterative linear least squares, are applied to estimate the unknown parameters according to different curve‐fitting purposes. Comparisons between the proposed model and the alternatives show that the multiple exponential decay successfully (1) adapts to a variety of shapes associated with yield curves, (2) (partially) keeps in line with the economic interpretations of Nelson–Siegel summarized by Diebold and Li ( 2006 ), and (3) dominates the competing models in curve‐fitting performance measured by mean fitted‐price errors over the sample period. In addition, the exact specification of a nonparametric interpolation model is pinned down by applying three statistical tools, which enable us to jointly take into account validity, optimality, and parsimoniousness of the proposed model.     

Return and volatility spillovers between currency and bond markets in India

This paper examines the return and volatility spillovers between the foreign exchange and bond markets of India using a bivariate asymmetric BEKK-GARCH (1,1) model for the period 4 April 2005 to 31 March 2017. We find the evidence of bidirectional return and volatility spillovers with asymmetric effects between these two markets. The spillovers are evidenced even during the periods when foreign portfolio investments in the Indian bond markets were relatively low suggests the existence of strong inter-linkages between both the markets.     

基于冠层光谱和BP神经网络的水稻叶片氮素浓度估算模型

[目的]快速、准确地诊断水稻叶片氮素营养状况,为水稻氮肥精准管理提供依据。[方法]以江西省农科院8种不同施肥处理的晚稻为研究对象,于主要生育期同步测定了水稻冠层光谱反射率及叶片全氮浓度(Leaf Nitrogen Concentration,LNC),系统分析了原始光谱反射率、一阶微分光谱、"三边"参数以及由350～1 350nm两两波段组合的差值(SD (Rλ1,Rλ2))、比值(SR (Rλ1,Rλ2))及归一化(ND(Rλ1,Rλ2))光谱指数与水稻LNC的相关关系,筛选出敏感参数,并以之为自变量构建了水稻LNC的传统预测模型,另外构建不同指标个数的多元线性与BP神经网络模型,并对模型进行验证。[结果](1)水稻LNC与一阶微分光谱在751nm处的相关性最高(r=0. 822);(2)"三边"参数中的红边面积SDr与LNC的相关性较高(r=0. 687);(3) 750nm附近的红边波段与近红外波段差值组合、550nm附近的绿光波段与近红外波段的比值及归一化差值组合与水稻LNC的相关性较高,以SD (R752,R751)、SR (R534,R1 350)和ND (R534,R1 349)表现最好,相关系数分别为0. 827、-0. 790和0. 788;(4)传统回归模型中以SD(R752,R751)构建的一元线性模型最佳(RC2=0. 665、RV2=0. 750、RMSEV=0. 4%、RPD=2. 034);(5)利用5个指标((R'751、SDr、SD (R752,R751)、SR (R534,R1 350)、ND (R534,R1 349))经逐步回归筛选出的2个指标SD ((R752,R751)和SR (R534,R1 350))构建预测水稻氮素的BP神经网络模型,预测效果最佳,其验证参数值分别为R2=0. 859、RMSEV=0. 302%和RPD=2. 669。[结论]基于单指标构建的传统线性模型计算过程简单但精度略低,而基于2个指标(SD (R752,R751)、SR (R534,R1 350))构建的BP神经网络模型预测精度高于该2指标构建的多元线性模型,表明在指标适合的情况下,BP神经网络对氮素具有较好的预测能力,是一种快速准确估算水稻叶片全氮浓度的方法。     

Accounting for the Gender Technology Gap Amongst Smallholder Rice Farmers in Northern Ghana

Narrowing the gender technology gap in agricultural production has become a critical policy issue in sub‐Saharan Africa. A better understanding of the gender technology gap is essential for policy formulation and programme planning to ensure equity in resource allocation, and household‐level food security in low and middle income countries, such as Ghana. We employ a metafrontier approach to analyse the differences in the efficiency of male and female farmers, recognising the endogeneity of some of the variables in the inefficiency effects model, in particular the credit constraints of the rice farmers under study. Our findings show that while the rice farms themselves are very similar, average yields for male managed farms tend to be significantly higher than female managed farms reflecting higher seeding and fertiliser application rates on male managed farms. However, there is no significant difference between the genders in either land used for rice or total output per farm household. We find some evidence that relative to the metafrontier, male managed farms are less efficient than female managed farms. The results further show gender technology gap amongst the smallholder rice farmers with females’ technology gap ratio being significantly greater than that of males, with females operating on a production frontier closer to the metafrontier. Policies that provide females more access to productive resources and other agricultural services could assist in the generation of relatively higher output.     

Cost Analysis of Calcium in Store Brand versus National Brand Grocery Products

Objective: This study was to determine if calcium fortification yields a higher price per serving in grocery store products. Researchers compared store brand to national brand grocery products in relation to cost in order to examine if calcium values were similar between store brand and national brand products. Methods: A total of 112 store brand and 211 national brand grocery products were collected from three low (national chain store), middle and high priced (Virginia and North Carolina regional store) grocery venues. Products were compared using price and calcium percentage per serving. ANOVA was used to determine between store brand and national brand for price per serving and calcium content, and between grocery venues. Results: National brand fortified products had a significantly lower mean price per serving when compared to national brand non-fortified products (p = 0.0002). There was no statistical difference between store brand fortified and non-fortified products (p = 0.9256). Low priced store brand products had the lowest mean price per serving ($0.34 ±0.24). Conclusions: This study found store brand products have similar calcium content as national brand products. Product cost was lower at low priced store compared to middle and high priced stores.