ABSTRACT Apple replant disease typically is managed through pre-plant application of broad-spectrum soil fumigants including methyl bromide. The impending loss or restricted use of soil fumigants and the needs of an expanding organic tree fruit industry necessitate the development of alternative control measures. The microbial community resident in a wheat field soil was shown to suppress compo...

Many sustainable agronomical practices can be adopted to contain environmental risks of crop production and, at the same time, sustain yield and quality. In this framework, the aim of this research was to study the effects of continuous cropping (CC) and crop rotation, tillage and fertilization strategies on durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) production. The responses of soil properties we...

This study investigated the optimum mixture ratio of greenhouse tomato plant residues, wheat straw, and separated dairy manures for composting. Five 127-L laboratory-scale bioreactors were used to investigate the effect of separated dairy manure addition on the composting process of a tomato plant residues-wheat straw mixture. The wastes were mixed at 5 different ratios during the trials and we...

Wheat straw was fermented by Crinipellis sp. RCK-1, a lignin degrading fungus, under solid state fermentation conditions. The fungus degraded 18.38% lignin at the expense of 10.37% cellulose within 9 days. However, when wheat straw fermented for different duration was evaluated in vitro, the 5 day fungal fermented wheat straw called here "Biotech Feed" was found to possess 36.74% organic matter...

Conservation agriculture in its version of permanent raised bed planting with crop residue retention has been proposed as an alternative wheat production system of western Uttar Pradesh.Therefore the present work was undertaken during 2008-2011 to compare permanent and tilled raised beds with different residue management under irrigated conditions. Permanent beds with residue retention resulted...

A study was designed to evaluate the micronutrients status of soils of district Palandri, Azad Kashmir and to correlate the micronutrients with Physico-chemical characteristics of soil as well as to categorize the soils as high, medium and low in Cu, Zn, Fe, Mn and HWS B. Soil samples were collected from thirty wheat fields and thirty apple orchard soils during 2003. None of the soil sample was...

Geostatistical tools were used to estimate spatial relations between wheat yield and soil parameters under organic farming field conditions. Thematic maps of each factor were created as raster images in R software using kriging. The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS) calculated the principal component analysis raster images for soil parameters and yield. The correlation betwee...

The high degree to which plant roots compete with soil microbes for organic forms of nitrogen (N) is becoming increasingly apparent. This has culminated in the finding that plants may consume soil microbes as a source of N, but the functional significance of this process remains unknown. We used (15) N- and (14) C-labelled cultures of soil bacteria to measure rates of acquisition of microbes by...

Eastern Washington is compromised by various pollution sources, of which agricultural burning is a particular burden. Smoke from field burning is a nuisance to nearby communities and is a concern for health. This study evaluates levoglucosan (LG) and methoxyphenols (MPs) as potential tracers for apportioning field burning smoke. PM2.5 (particulate matter < 2.5 microM m in aerodynamic diameter) ...

Cropping systems like organic farming, selling products at a higher price and promoting environmental sustainability by reducing fertilizer and pesticides, can be more profitable than conventional systems. An economic evaluation of three cropping systems in a seven year period experiment was performed, using a common rotation (fallow-barley-vetch-durum wheat) in a semi-arid rainfed field of Spa...