The practice of ecological agriculture involves building the strengths of natural ecosystems into agroecosystems, purposely disturbed to produce food and fiber. The overall strategies include using practices that (a) grow healthy plants with good defense capabilities, (b) stressing pests, and (c) enhancing populations of beneficial organisms. These are accomplished by enhanced habitat managemen...

Plants have been studied for the production of pharmaceutical compounds for more than two decades now. Ever since the plant-made poultry vaccine against Newcastle disease virus made a breakthrough and went all the way to obtain regulatory approval, research to use plants for expression and delivery of vaccine proteins for animals was intensified. Indeed, in view of the high production costs of ...

The first domestications of plants and animals, which occurred between 10 K years and 5 K years BP, and which underpinned the inception of agricultural systems, represent a major turning point in cultural and environmental history. Whilst much has been written on these topics, new archaeological discoveries and the development of new methods of data collection require that these issues should b...

One of the most important developments in the existence of human society was the successful shift from a subsistence economy based on foraging to one primarily based on food production derived from cultivated plants and domesticated animals. The shift to plant food production occurred in only a few independent centers around the world and involved a commitment to increased sedentism and social ...

Pollination of insect pollinated crops has been found to be correlated to pollinator abundance and diversity. Since organic farming has the potential to mitigate negative effects of agricultural intensification on biodiversity, it may also benefit crop pollination, but direct evidence of this is scant. We evaluated the effect of organic farming on pollination of strawberry plants focusing on (1...

The small acmaeid limpet Patelloida lat istr~gata Angas and clumps of macroalgae are found in midshore intertidal regions dominated by barnacles. Interactions between limpet and algae were investigated experimentally to determine the effect of the herbivore on microalgae (this term includes propagules of macroalgae) as well as on macroalgal plants, and also the influence of both forms of algae ...

Two main fields of interest form the background of actual demand for optimized levels of phenolic compounds in crop plants. These are human health and plant resistance to pathogens and to biotic and abiotic stress factors. A survey of agricultural technologies influencing the biosynthesis and accumulation of phenolic compounds in crop plants is presented, including observations on the effects o...

Organic farming is one of the most successful agri-environmental schemes, as humans benefit from high quality food, farmers from higher prices for their products and it often successfully protects biodiversity. However there is little knowledge if organic farming also increases ecosystem services like pest control. We assessed 30 triticale fields (15 organic vs. 15 conventional) and recorded va...

(1) Ipomoea hederacea, a common weed in cultivated fields of eastern North America, disappears quickly following abandonment of farming. (2) The effects of competition and nitrogen addition on the growth and reproduction of I . hederacea were studied during the first year of abandonment. (3) Competition and fertilization had significant absolute effects on almost all biomass variables measured ...

The ‘daily bread’ for over six billion people today is largely derived from plant sources. The history of plant use reaches back uninterrupted to our earliest hominid ancestors. There is a long tradition of regarding the origins of agriculture (Hannery, 1973) as an important stage in the development of human society. Whilst acknowledging its significance, an equally profound revolution has pass...