Multiple cropping systems provide more harvest security for farmers, allow for crop intensification and furthermore influence ground cover, soil erosion, albedo, soil chemical properties, pest infestation and the carbon sequestration potential. We identify the traditional sequential cropping systems in ten sub-Saharan African countries from a survey dataset of more than 8600 households. We find...

Phoma stem canker is a damaging disease of oilseed rape (Brassica napus) that causes annual yield losses to UK growers worth approximately £100 million, despite the use fungicides. In UK, sown in August/September and harvested following July. The epidemics are initiated by ascospores released from Leptosphaeria spp. pseudothecia (ascocarps) on stubble autumn/winter. Control this reliant cultiva...

Low soil fertility and high weed infestation are the main culprits for the declining maize production inWestern Kenya. Technology packages to address these constraints exist, but their effectiveness is likely to be influenced by variability in soil types and farm management practices in the region. Trials were conducted during the 2008/2009 cropping seasons to investigate the nutrient use e...

This paper describes research on the levels of endogenous melatonin (MLT) in the blood serum in dogs in different seasons (March, June, September, December) and at different times of day (11:00, 12:00, 23:00, 24:00 and 1:00), using immunoassay method. Blood samples were collected in the diurnal cycle, in consecutive seasons. The conducted studies show that MLT levels undergo clear changes in bo...

a two-year field experiment was carried out in semi-arid region of southern iran (shiraz), during 2007-2008 and 2009-2010 growing seasons using various mixtures of an early- (cv falat) and a middle-ripening (cv shiraz) winter wheat cultivar to evaluate the beneficial effects of inducing temporal growth heterogeneity on reduction of intra-specific competition during post-anthesis moisture stress...

For a cropping system to be sustainable, should not only the soil nitrogen (N) content be preserved but also the N runoff be minimised. Finding a simple but robust way to estimate N runoff would thus be a great advantage when evaluating cropping systems. In this study all major N flows in six different cropping systems, each covering 0.18 ha of a separately pipe drained field lysimeter, located...