The corn and soybean markets have been bidding for acreage due to a bullish final crop report for 2006. With biofuels creating new markets for corn and soybeans, this demand-driven market may continue to provide marketing opportunities. Currently, the major decision facing producers is determining the enterprise mix for 2007. This memo compares the Returns over Variable Costs for soybeans and c...

Groups of six to nine Merino Summary lambs were weaned in September (May drop) and December (September drop) on to three types of irrigated perennial pastureperennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne), Ladino white clover (Trifolium repens) and lucerne (Medicago sativa), and one irrigated annual pasture-subterranean clover ( Trifolium subterraneum) . The weight gain of the weaners on white clover was s...

The corn and soybean markets have been bidding for acreage due to a bullish final crop report for 2006. With bio-fuels creating new markets for corn and soybeans, this demand-driven market may continue to provide marketing opportunities. Currently, the major decision facing producers is determining the enterprise mix for 2007. This memo compares the Returns over Variable Costs for soybeans and ...

In many crop producing areas of the world there are reports of yield decline and loss of productive potential in soils. Little is known about the long term effects of sugarcane monocropping on changes in physical, chemical and biological properties of soils. The aim of this study was to quantify the physical and chemical condition of soils under sugarcane production in northern Kwazulu-Natal, a...

− The identification of irrigated cropland is essential for crop monitoring, yield estimation and water management assessment in drylands. The standard approach is to use supervised classification on multispectral bands, vegetation indices or the Principal Components or, more recently, the combination of optical images with radar data. More complex methods, such as time-series analysis, sub-pix...

Fresh water scarcity has led to increased use of reclaimed wastewater as an alternative and reliable source for crop irrigation. Beyond microbiological safety, concerns have been raised regarding contamination of reclaimed wastewater by xenobiotics including pharmaceuticals. This study focuses on carbamazepine, an anticonvulsant drug which is ubiquitously detected in reclaimed wastewater, highl...

Bulb yield and storability of onions (cv. BARI Piaj-1) was studied against five levels of irrigation viz., no irrigation, irrigation at 10, 15, 20, and 30 days interval. Yield and storage losses were increased gradually with increasing number of irrigation. The highest yield of onion was obtained with a total of six irrigations at 10 days interval and it was at par with treatment that received ...

Anophelism without malaria has long been recognized. In large irrigation projects, such as that around Niono, Mali, villages in irrigated areas sometimes have more anopheline vectors of malaria than adjacent nonirrigated villages, but overall malaria prevalence is substantially less. One hypothesized explanation for this is high anopheline densities lead to smaller adults, who do not live so lo...

Nutrient dynamics in the Bela watershed, Nepal were examined using a range of GIS budget modelling and field analysis techniques. The fertility status analysis showed that soil acidity, phosphorus availability, and lack of base cations were the key soil fertility issues. Nutrient budget calculations revealed significant annual phosphorus deficits for maize rota­ tions, but only minor deficits i...

1. Agriculture is the predominant user (75-80%) of the available freshwater resource in many parts of the world. At present most of the water used to grow crops is derived from rainfed soil moisture, with non-irrigated agriculture accounting for some 60% of production in developing countries. Although irrigation provides only 10% of agricultural water use and covers just around 20% of the cropl...