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Optimizing crop rotations via Parrondo’s paradox for sustainable agriculture
Crop rotation, a sustainable agricultural technique, has been at humanity’s disposal since time immemorial and is practised globally. Switching between cover crops and cash crops helps avoid the adverse effects of intensive farming. Determining the optimum cash-cover rotation schedule for maximizing...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
The Royal Society
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10189593/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37206968 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.221401 |
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author | Gokhale, Chaitanya S. Sharma, Nikhil |
author_facet | Gokhale, Chaitanya S. Sharma, Nikhil |
author_sort | Gokhale, Chaitanya S. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Crop rotation, a sustainable agricultural technique, has been at humanity’s disposal since time immemorial and is practised globally. Switching between cover crops and cash crops helps avoid the adverse effects of intensive farming. Determining the optimum cash-cover rotation schedule for maximizing yield has been tackled on multiple fronts by agricultural scientists, economists, biologists and computer scientists, to name a few. However, considering the uncertainty due to diseases, pests, droughts, floods and impending effects of climate change is essential when designing rotation strategies. Analysing this time-tested technique of crop rotations with a new lens of Parrondo’s paradox allows us to optimally use the rotation technique in synchrony with uncertainty. While previous approaches are reactive to the diversity of crop types and environmental uncertainties, we make use of the said uncertainties to enhance crop rotation schedules. We calculate optimum switching probabilities in a randomized cropping sequence and suggest optimum deterministic sequences and judicious use of fertilizers. Our methods demonstrate strategies to enhance crop yield and the eventual profit margins for farmers. Conforming to translational biology, we extend Parrondo’s paradox, where two losing situations can be combined eventually into a winning scenario, to agriculture. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10189593 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | The Royal Society |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-101895932023-05-18 Optimizing crop rotations via Parrondo’s paradox for sustainable agriculture Gokhale, Chaitanya S. Sharma, Nikhil R Soc Open Sci Ecology, Conservation and Global Change Biology Crop rotation, a sustainable agricultural technique, has been at humanity’s disposal since time immemorial and is practised globally. Switching between cover crops and cash crops helps avoid the adverse effects of intensive farming. Determining the optimum cash-cover rotation schedule for maximizing yield has been tackled on multiple fronts by agricultural scientists, economists, biologists and computer scientists, to name a few. However, considering the uncertainty due to diseases, pests, droughts, floods and impending effects of climate change is essential when designing rotation strategies. Analysing this time-tested technique of crop rotations with a new lens of Parrondo’s paradox allows us to optimally use the rotation technique in synchrony with uncertainty. While previous approaches are reactive to the diversity of crop types and environmental uncertainties, we make use of the said uncertainties to enhance crop rotation schedules. We calculate optimum switching probabilities in a randomized cropping sequence and suggest optimum deterministic sequences and judicious use of fertilizers. Our methods demonstrate strategies to enhance crop yield and the eventual profit margins for farmers. Conforming to translational biology, we extend Parrondo’s paradox, where two losing situations can be combined eventually into a winning scenario, to agriculture. The Royal Society 2023-05-17 /pmc/articles/PMC10189593/ /pubmed/37206968 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.221401 Text en © 2023 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Ecology, Conservation and Global Change Biology Gokhale, Chaitanya S. Sharma, Nikhil Optimizing crop rotations via Parrondo’s paradox for sustainable agriculture |
title | Optimizing crop rotations via Parrondo’s paradox for sustainable agriculture |
title_full | Optimizing crop rotations via Parrondo’s paradox for sustainable agriculture |
title_fullStr | Optimizing crop rotations via Parrondo’s paradox for sustainable agriculture |
title_full_unstemmed | Optimizing crop rotations via Parrondo’s paradox for sustainable agriculture |
title_short | Optimizing crop rotations via Parrondo’s paradox for sustainable agriculture |
title_sort | optimizing crop rotations via parrondo’s paradox for sustainable agriculture |
topic | Ecology, Conservation and Global Change Biology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10189593/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37206968 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.221401 |
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