forest harvesting operations for extracting of forest products in these trails, causing extensive damage in a wide range of soil and its productivity every year, therefore it is necessary to research about degradation of soil properties should be down. the aim of this study was investigate changes in the skid trails soil physical characteristics due to wheeled cable skidder traffic by measuring...

The short-term responses of soil microbial processes and community structure to perturbation constitute one aspect of soil quality. Such responses are often associated with an increase in the emissions of greenhouse gases (i.e., CO2, NO, or N2O) and the accumulation and potential loss of nitrate by leaching. Here we describe our recent work on responses of soil carbon and nitrogen dynamics, mic...

Tropical forests are renowned for their high diversity, yet in many sites a single tree species accounts for the majority of the individuals in a stand. An explanation for these monodominant forests remains elusive, but may be linked to mycorrhizal symbioses. We tested three hypotheses by which ectomycorrhizas might facilitate the dominance of the tree, Oreomunnea mexicana, in montane tropical ...

Organic farming avoids the use of synthetic fertilizers and promises food production with minimal environmental impact, however this farming practice does not often result in the same productivity as conventional farming. In recent years, biochar has received increasing attention as an agricultural amendment and by coating it with minerals to form biochar-mineral complex (BMC) carbon retention ...

The aim of this work was to couple a nitrogen (N) sub-model to already existent hydrological lumped (LU4N) and semi-distributed (LU4-R-N and SD4-R-N) conceptual models, to improve our understanding of the factors and processes controlling nitrogen cycling and losses in Mediterranean catchments. The N model adopted provides a simplified conceptualization of the soil nitrogen cycle considering mi...

The end-of-season corn (Zea mays L.) stalk nitrate-N test was developed as a post-mortem to determine if excessive or insufficient N was available to the corn crop during the latter part of the season. The stalk section specified for the test was very specific, the 20 cm-long section between 15 and 35 cm above the soil. Under production conditions, it may not always be possible to collect this ...

Background and Purpose: Elevated nitrate concentrations in drinking water can cause methemoglobinemia in infants, stomach cancer in adults and nitrate poisoning in animals as well. Modeling of nitrate fate and transport in groundwater to minimize nitrate concentration in groundwater has been studied by numerous researchers. Materials and Methods: In order to determine the pote...