BACKGROUND This paper discusses U.S. agricultural pesticide use trends from 1964 to 2010 based on estimates developed from USDA surveys, and the influence of economic factors, agricultural policy, and pesticide regulation on aggregate quantities and mix of pesticides used. RESULTS Synthetic organic pesticide use grew dramatically from the 1960s to the early 1980s, as farmers treated more and ...

Estimation of specific crop and acreage plays a vital role in the field of crop planning, monitoring, crop condition, yield forecasting and acreage estimation. There have been several studies conducted to classify the crops at continental to the regional level, but still, work is needed to map small area covered by different crops using Remote Sensing technology. The main objective of the prese...

Rice is one of the most important crops in the world; meanwhile, the rice field is also an important contributor to greenhouse gas methane emission. Therefore, it is important to get an accurate estimation of rice acreage for both food production and climate change related studies. The eastern plain region is one of the major single-cropped rice (SCR) growing areas in China. Subjected to the to...

This paper explores the impacts of a water right's allocative priority-as an indicator of farmers' risk-bearing ability-on land irrigation under water supply uncertainty. We develop and use an economic model to simulate farmers' land irrigation decision and associated economic returns in eastern Idaho. Results indicate that the optimal acreage of land irrigated increases with water right priori...

Multispectral satellite images have been utilized in the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) for crop cover classification and crop acreage estimation since the 1970's. Though ancillary data is utilized to enhance the classification accuracy, there are few applications that maximize the utilization of the feature information of the given multispectral images. Every multispectral ima...

The acreage planted in corn and soybean crops is vast, and these crops contribute substantially to the world economy. The agricultural practices employed for farming these crops have major effects on ecosystem health at a worldwide scale. The microbial communities living in agricultural soils significantly contribute to nutrient uptake and cycling and can have both positive and negative impacts...

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...

The European corn borer completes two to three generations per year in Illinois. Fourth and fifth instars tunnel in stalks, causing disruption in the flow of water and nutrients in the plants. The cavities created by the borers may weaken stalks and ear shanks, resulting in lodging or dropped ears. Before the advent of Bt corn, producers attempted to control European corn borers, if the need ar...

Based upon market behavior since the mid-1990s, the track record of producer adoption of biotechnologyenhanced soybeans is clear and consistent. Where regulations allow, producers will plant soybean seeds that have been enhanced through biotechnology. Introduced only in 1996, herbicide-tolerant soybeans were planted on 81% of US soybean acres in 2003 (United States Department of Agriculture [US...