An integrated environmental and economic assessment of land use for food, energy and timber in the UK has been performed using environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and economic Life Cycle Costing (LCC), to explore complementary sustainability aspects of alternative land uses. The environmental assessment includes impacts on climate change, ecosystem services and biodiversity, all of which ...

This article examines the opportunities for using several forms of modern biotechnology to improve orphan crops in developing countries. These crops, including tef, millets, cowpea, and indigenous vegetables, fruits, roots, and tubers, tend to be locally important, but receive little public or private investment. Recent advances in the fields of genetics and genomics provide a more unified unde...

In the relatively short time since their commercial introduction in 1996, genetically modified (GM) crops have been rapidly adopted in the United States GM crops are regulated through a coordinated framework developed in 1992 and administered by three agencies-the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) that ensures the products are safe to grow, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that ensur...

PREMISE OF THE STUDY Archaeological and genetic analyses of seed-propagated annual crops have greatly advanced our understanding of plant domestication and evolution. Comparatively little is known about perennial plant domestication, a relevant topic for understanding how genes and genomes evolve in long-lived species, and how perennials respond to selection pressures operating on a relatively ...

Cover crops (CC) provide important ecosystem services that are demanded to achieve more sustainable agrosystems. However, the legacy effects of CC on microbial community structure and its interactions with subsequent cash (CaC) still poorly understood, especially when mixtures involved. In this work, five (3 monocultures 2 mixtures) were selected in an experiment under semi-controlled condition...

Coexistence between genetically modified (GM) and non-GM plants is a field of rapid development and considerable controversy. In crops, it is increasingly important to understand and predict the GM volunteer emergence in subsequent non-GM crops. Theoretical models suggest recruitment from the seedbank over extended periods, but empirical evidence matching these predictions has been scarce. Here...

[1] Accurate estimation of spatially distributed chlorophyll content (Chl) in crops is of great importance for regional and global studies of carbon balance and responses to fertilizer (e.g., nitrogen) application. In this paper a recently developed conceptual model was applied for remotely estimating Chl in maize and soybean canopies. We tuned the spectral regions to be included in the model, ...

World population has already exceeded 6.5 billion, out of which about 850 million (13 percent) are undernourished. With the current growth rate, the world community faces even a greater challenge of hunger and food security as the estimated the population will catch 9 billion by the year 2050 with doubled needs for food. At the same time, preservation of biodiversity, stopping deforestation and...

European Union (EU) policies regarding genetically modified (GM) crops and food have increasingly isolated its member states from much of the rest of the world in this regard over the past decade. The discussion in European countries over whether to grow and eat GM crops and food has stalled plant research, while the rest of the world has been growing and using an increasing number of GM pestor...

The digital model of the laboratory bench parts of digging deep rootstalk crops were established through adopting the parametric model technology based on feature. The virtual assembly of the laboratory bench of digging deep rootstalk crops was done and the digital model of the laboratory bench parts of digging deep rootstalk crops was gained. The vibrospade, which is the key part of the labora...