Since nitrogen (N) is the most essential nutrient for plants and a major limiting factor in plant productivity, doubling agricultural food production worldwide over the past four decades is associated with a 20-fold increase in N fertilizer use. As a consequence, use of N fertilizers in agriculture has already shown a number of detrimental environmental impacts. Therefore, the need to reduce N ...

Reducing the use of pesticides represents a major challenge of modern agriculture. Plants synthesize secondary metabolites such as polyphenols that participate in the resistance to parasites. The aim of this study was to test: (1) the impact of nitrogen deficiency on tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) leaf composition and more particularly on two phenolic molecules (chlorogenic acid and rutin) as we...

The paper presents a new mathematical model of anaerobic digestion based on mass balances of organic dry matter (oDM) and nitrogen. The model was used for simulation of two agriculture biogas plants. The results of simulation in respect of biogas and methane yield, concentrations of ammonium nitrogen and dry matter (DM) in digested sludge, showed a satisfying compliance with measurements. Based...

The majority of terrestrial plants live in association with symbiotic fungi that facilitate mineral nutrient uptake. The oldest and most prevalent of these associations are the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbioses that first evolved approximately 400 million years ago, coinciding with the appearance of the first land plants. Crop domestication, in comparison, is a relatively recent event, begi...

Policy makers within the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) complement the role of meat and poultry plant managers in food recalls. The increasing frequency and scale of recalls raise questions whether sufficient attention is placed on these events. Three measures of recall effectiveness are introduced to evaluate this public-private crisis management process. Managerial and technical variable...

Susceptibility to infectious diseases caused by pathogens affects most plants in their natural habitat and leads to yield losses in agriculture. However, plants are not helpless because their immune system can deal with the vast majority of attackers. Nevertheless, adapted pathogens are able to circumvent or avert host immunity making plants susceptible to these uninvited guests. In addition to...

Prevention of virus infections is a major objective in agriculture and human health. One attractive approach to the prevention is inhibition of virus replication. To demonstrate this concept in vivo, an artificial zinc finger protein (AZP) targeting the replication origin of the Beet severe curly top virus (BSCTV), a model DNA virus, was created. In vitro DNA binding assays indicated that the A...

Soil salinity is a major abiotic stress in plant agriculture worldwide. This has led to research into salt tolerance with the aim of improving crop plants. However, salt tolerance might have much wider implications because transgenic salt-tolerant plants often also tolerate other stresses including chilling, freezing, heat and drought. Unfortunately, suitable genetic model systems have been har...

The presence of calcium in the agriculture soils is very important for the proper growth of the crop plants. However, due to various factors the calcium in the soil is leaching out and causes various types of diseases to plants and its yield gets reduced. In the present study calcium in the soil of Gwalior city has been assessed by following the standard methods. It was observed that the calciu...

Ethylene (C2H4), the chemically simplest plant hormone, is among the best-characterized plant growth regulators. It participates in a variety of stress responses and developmental processes. Genetic studies in Arabidopsis have defined a number of genes in the ethylene signal transduction pathway. Isolation of two of these genes has revealed that plants sense this gas through a combination of pr...