Soya bean establishment strategies to reduce bird damage - Italy

Two different strategies to establish soybean in Italian cropping systems in order to reduce seed and plantlet predation by birds.

Bird damage is a problem dramatically increasing in Central Italy, where in recent years the increasing number of wild pigeons, crows and magpies started to cause huge crop losses, especially around sowing time.

Birds damage both seeds and cotyledons or young leaves resulting in very poor crop establishment. This is one of the main practical barriers for a wider adoption of certain legumes by farmers.

We are testing different solutions to cope with this problem.

The first part of the video refers to sod-seeding of soybean directly into a barley preceding crop. The barley is close to harvest and will be mulched by the combine a few weeks later once the soybean is fully emerged.

The trial will be evaluated for any reduction in bird damage due to protection  created by the upright barley stems .

The second solution refers to the combination of dead mulch or rye and sod-seeding of soybean. Rye was seeded in fall 2017 and terminated by a special kind of roller used in the H2020 project (IWMPRAISE). The day after, soybean was directly seeded within the  mulch of rye, aiming to present an abstacle to birds and reduce damage.

LegValue partner involved:

University of Pisa, Scuola Superiore di Studi Universitari e di Perfezionamento Sant'Anna

Contact person:

Daniele Antichi, Paolo Bàrberi

e-mail address: daniele.antichi@unipi.it

phone: +39-050-2218962

Skype ID: daniele.antichi1