Soil aggregate stability is an important indicator for controlling soil losses and can improve soil quality, particularly in an area such as the Loess Plateau. The objective of this study was to estimate the differences in soil aggregates across six different land-use systems (grassland, apple orchard, abandoned apple orchard, cropland maize, cropland wheat, and shrub-grassland). For this purpo...

The aim of this study was to establish the fractionation of copper and zinc in a small apple orchard using the revised (four-step) Bureau Communautaire de Référence (BCR) sequential extraction procedure and assess their potential mobility in soil. Soil samples were collected at the depth of 10 cm to 25 cm, sixteen from the orchard and five control samples from a meadow located some 200 m away f...

Composting is an effective strategy to process agricultural and urban waste into forms that may be beneficial crops. The objectives of this orchard field study were characterize how a dairy manure compost food influenced: (1) soil nitrogen carbon pools, (2) bacterial nematode webs (3) tree growth leaf N. effects composts compared with fertilized unfertilized control plots over two years in newl...

Pollinators are essential to Pacific Northwest agriculture Commercially managed honey bees pol-­ linate a variety of crops in the Pacific North-­ west, including tree fruits, berries, cucurbits, and crops grown for seed. This activity is economically significant. In 2004, the value of bee-­pollinated crops in the region was approxi-­ mately $1.7 billion (Burgett, 2004). Nation-­ ally, the value...

Insect-pollinated crops provide important nutrients for human health. Pollination, water and nutrients available to crops can influence yield, but it is not known if the nutritional value of the crop is also influenced. Almonds are an important source of critical nutrients for human health such as unsaturated fat and vitamin E. We manipulated the pollination of almond trees and the resources av...

The influence that different styles of olive-orchard management (conventional, integrated, and organic) exert on the predator Chrysoperla carnea has been studied to strengthen this insect's role in the integrated management against pests. For this, the adult chrysopid populations were determined by McPhail traps, and laboratory examinations were made of certain biological characteristics of the...

Pantoea agglomerans RSO7, a rhizobacterium previously isolated from Spartina maritima grown on metal polluted saltmarshes, had demonstrated good plant growth promoting activity for its host halophyte, but was never tested in crops. The aims of this study were: (1) testing PGP model (alfalfa) vitro ; (2) bacterial consortium including RSO7 as biofertilizer pilot experiment urban orchard; and (3)...

Organic mulches are a traditional method of groundcover management in temperate commercial orchards, now largely replaced by herbicides and synthetic fertilisers. As potential contribution to improving orchard sustainability, we hypothesised that the addition organic would: (H1) improve soil fertility lead greater tree growth yields; (H2) support larger more biologically active community organi...