Jan Kren, Tamara Dryslova, Lubomir Neudert and Vojtech Lukas

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter http://dx. doi. org/10.5772/54528

1. Introduction

Cereals are economically the most important group of field crops. Detailed knowledge of stand structure and its development including interrelationships among individual plants in the stand (inter — and intra-plant competition) is a significant precondition for effective cropping treatments during the growing season, including agrochemicals application.

To attain higher effectiveness of crop management practices, extensive research on cereal stand structure was conducted in the 1980s and 1990s [1-6]. The stand state and structure reflect variability in soil conditions as well as cropping treatments. Results of individual methods used for modification of cropping treatments depend on a level of stand organization which is observed — a stand (plant population), plant, plant part (leaf, tiller) [7].

Stems and spikes are the most often assessed units of stand structure as for final and resulting expression of all factors affecting stand development. However, they are also reproductive units and basic units of an important cereal adaptation system — tillering [8]. Therefore, their appropriate assessment allows obtaining information of great biological and economic importance.

The chapter gives a review of evolution of approaches used for the assessment of cereal stand structure. Weaknesses and strengths of these approaches are discussed.