Bioenergy land use is expanding today as biofuel is consuming higher amount of agricultural production. In 2007, a widespread expansion of corn planting areas was recorded in the United States Department of Agriculture crop census. To better document the corn-related land use change, this study mapped the spatial distributions of four major annual crops (corn, soybean, winter wheat, and spring ...

Biomass crops grown on marginal soils are expected to fuel an emerging bioenergy industry in the United States. Bioenergy crop choice and position in the landscape could have important impacts on a range of ecosystem services, including natural pest-suppression (biocontrol services) provided by predatory arthropods. In this study we use predation rates of three sentinel crop pests to develop a ...

Biotech crops have now been grown commercially on a substantial global scale since 1996. This paper examines the production effects of the technology and impacts on cereal and oilseed markets through the use of agricultural commodity models. It analyses the impacts on global production, consumption, trade and prices in the soybean, canola and corn sectors. The analysis suggests that world price...

The influence of concurrent introduction of three transgenic vegetable cultivars on seasonal dynamics of coccinellids and their food, aphids and pollen, was examined within diversified farm systems practicing insect pest management in northeastern US agroecosystems. The transgenic cultivars used included sweet corn, potato, and winter squash, expressing Cry1(A)b, Cry3A, and plant viral coat pro...

ALLEN VAN DEYNZE, Biotechnology Specialist, Seed Biotechnology Center, University of California, Davis; KENT J. BRADFORD, Professor of Vegetable Crops and Director, Seed Biotechnology Center, UC Davis; and ALISON VAN EENENNAAM, Cooperative Extension Specialist, Department of Animal Science, UC Davis. Most crops developed through biotechnology that are on the market today provide farmers with in...

We assess the comparative advantage and protection of China’s major agricultural crops using a modified Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) and 1996 to 1998 data. We consider the following commodities: early indica rice, late indica rice, japonica rice, south wheat, north wheat, south corn, north corn, sorghum, soybean, rapeseed, cotton, tobacco, sugarcane, and a subset of fruits and vegetables. Consi...

The influence of concurrent introduction of three transgenic vegetable cultivars on seasonal dynamics of coccinellids and their food, aphids and pollen, was examined within diversified farm systems practicing insect pest management in northeastern US agroecosystems. The transgenic cultivars used included sweet corn, potato, and winter squash, expressing Cry1(A)b, Cry3A, and plant viral coat pro...

We assessed the ability of Trichogramma ostriniae (Peng & Chen) to locate and parasitize Ostrinia nubilalis (Hübner) eggs in crops other than corn, and we evaluated the efficacy of inundative releases of the parasitoid in two solanaceous crops, pepper and potato. Despite a greater plant surface area to search, parasitism of O. nubilalis eggs was consistently higher in sweet corn than dicotyledo...

many of precision farming studies have shown a high plant-to-plant variability for many crops. this study was conducted to evaluate the plant-to-plant variability of three medicinal crops in comparison with corn as a long term commercial species. thus a field experiment was performed in 2009-2010 in ferdowsi university of mashhad, research farm. in this experiment plant morphological characters...

We expanded a simulation model of the population dynamics and genetics of the western corn rootworm for a landscape of corn, soybean, and other crops to study the simultaneous development of resistance to both crop rotation and transgenic corn. Transgenic corn effective against corn rootwormwas recently approved in 2003 andmay be a very effective new technology for control ofwesterncorn rootwor...