Growth and Yield of Fall-sown Cereals in the Kanto Region – In the Context of Multipurpose Production

Aims: The possibilities of running a bio-ethanol plant from rice straw in the Kanto region in Japan have been assessed in a project named “Development of Technologies for Biofuel Production Systems in Rural Areas (2012-2015)” funded by MAFF. Aims of the present study are to estimate yielding ability of fall-sown cereals especially triticale and oat on upland fields in the context of multipurpose production.

Study Design: Randomized block design of two treatments (crops and seasons) with three replicates.

Place and Duration of Study: Central Region Agricultural Research Center, NARO (Tsukuba, Japan), three years.

Methodology: (1) Sampling of planted crops, (2) Analysis of meteorological data.

Results: Significant interactions between crops by seasons were observed with height (P < 0.001), effective tillers per area (P < 0.01), percentage of effective tillers in fresh weight (P = 0.05) and above-ground dry matter yield (P < 0.001). Above-ground dry matter yield of rye did not differ between three seasons, while that of two-row barley, triticale and oat significantly differed between seasons. For example, triticale produced the greatest (1538 g m-2) and the lowest yield (394 g m-2) in 2014/2015 and 2012/2013, respectively. Similarly oat yield in Kannondai was the lowest in 2012/2013 when soil temperature at 5 cm depth recorded at or below 1°C for as many as 135 hours compared with 20 hours and 26 hours in 2013/2014 and in 2014/2015, respectively.

Conclusion: A hypothesis was suggested that fluctuations in above-ground dry matter yield observed between three seasons with two-row barley, triticale and oat produced on upland fields could be explained at least partly from the low soil temperature records observed in 2012/2013.