Tropical Crop-livestock Systems in Conservation Agriculture: The Brazilian Experience

Conservation agriculture in the Brazilian tropics; Background; The Cerrado biome; The Amazon biome; History of zero tillage in the tropical zones of Brazil; Conservation agriculture; How does conservation agriculture work?; Integrated crop-livestock systems with zero tillage; Dissemination of ICLZT technology; Livestock and annual crop production in wet-dry and humid-tropical Brazil; Livestock type; Herd size and performance; Background for ICLZT; The process of pasture degradation; Principal integrated zero tillage crop-livestock systems; General considerations; Systems typology; Common rotations; Crop successions used as building blocks for rotations; Summaries of the ten main ICLZT technologies; Crop establishment in degraded pastures; Establishing pasture in annual crops; Sowing pasture after early harvest; Grass oversown in soybeans or maize; Grass regenerating during the first crop after ZT planting of a crop in old pasture; Planting forages on crop land for silage, green chop, dry season grazing or as a cover crop; Pasture renovation with forages sown jointly with grasses, for early grazing;Pigeon pea sown into existing pasture to improve winter grazing quality; Sowing perenniallegumes into maize; Sowing soybeans in a permanent grass sward; Opportunistic grazing of stubble in the dry season; Pigeon pea undersown in maize for stubble grazing; Grazing stubble in the dry season; Pasture grasses; Cover crops for grazing; Cut forage and silage CTOpS; Pasture and grazing management; Legumes in pastures; Mechanized operations in zero tillage and soil fertility management 49 Residue management; Spraying desiccants and other chemicals; Planting and drilling; Soil fertility considerations; Technical and financial analysis of integrated crop-livestock zero tillage rotations; Case Study 1 - A farm history of the adoption of CA with Z; Wihout project;With ICLZT; lrrigated crop management - with and without project; Analysis of the Model Results; Case studies of other ICLZT technologies; Sustainable agriculture and policy considerations; Farm-based economic benefits of CA, ZT and ICLZT; Farm-based environmental benefits of CA, ZT and ICLZT; Social benefits of ICLZT and increased land use intensity; Social support for conversion investments in ICLZT; Addressing the conversion needs of small farmers.