The interference of manganese with the availability of iron to pineapple plants has been explained by JOHNSON (7) and KELLEY (9, 10) as due to the oxidation of the latter by the former in soil and leaf tissues. Additional studies by SIDERIS, YOUNG and KRAUSS (14) and SIDERIs and YOUNG (17, 20) revealed that iron may be made unavailable in ample amounts to the leaf tissues after its precipitatio...

Present study assessed the effect of heavy metals on soil enzyme activities like amylase, invertase, dehydrogenase and urease of open shrub lands present at 1 km, 1.5 km, 2 km and 2.5 km distance away from Bhushan sponge iron industry, in Rengali block of Sambalpur district, Odisha. The heavy metals studied were Cd, Ni, and Cr, whose concentrations in the above sites were much more than the saf...

This study investigates the dissolution, sorption, leachability, and plant uptake of tungsten and alloying metals from canister round munitions in the presence of model, well characterized soils. The source of tungsten was canister round munitions, composed mainly of tungsten (95%) with iron and nickel making up the remaining fraction. Three soils were chosen for the lysimeter studies while fou...

BACKGROUND Pregnant women in Malawi consume soil, but the nutritive potential of these soils is uncertain. METHODS We collected 'edible' Malawian soil samples from Ndirande, Mpingwe and Soche hills and bought an Indian soil sample from a shop in Limbe and tested them for iron, calcium, zinc, magnesium, lead, pH, Bacillus and Clostridium, using standard methods of analyses. FINDINGS Based on...

Melioidosis is highly prevalent in Northeast Thailand which is associated with high incidence of Burkholderia pseudomallei present in the soil of this region. B. pseudomallei when present in biofilm becomes resistant to numerous environmental factors and also to certain antibiotics. In this study, we examined the effects of several environmentally relevant factors (salinity, iron, manganese and...

At the peak of the Vietnam War, the network of tunnels in the Iron Triangle and Cu Chi linked Viet Cong (VC) support bases over a distance of some 250 km, from the Ho Chi Minh Trail and Cambodian border to the outskirts Saigon. In the early 1960s, the United States escalated its military presence in Vietnam in support of a non-Communist regime in South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese and VC troop...