Sustainability of maize-based cropping systems is a major challenge for southern Africa, yet the demand for maize as staple food and animal feed in the region continues to increase. A study was conducted on a sandy clay loam (220 g clay kg-1 soil) at Domboshawa in Zimbabwe to investigate the long-term effects of organic resource quality and application rate, and nitrogen (N) fertilization on so...

Impacts of felling, mulching, and burning on budgets of C, N, S, P, K, Ca, and Mg; rates of CO2 evolution from the soil; soil seed storage; and plant growth were evaluated. The felled tropical evergreen forest was 8-9 yr old, interspersed with patches of 70-yr-old forest and had a leaf area index of 6 and aboveground biomass of 5.2 kg/M2. Harvest of the largest trees removed 18% of the S, and >...

Carbon (C) occluded in phytolith (PhytOC) is a stable form of C; when PhytOC is returned to the soil through litterfall it is stored in the soil which can be an effective way for long-term C sequestration. However, few estimates on the rate of PhytOC input to the soil are available. To better understand the seasonal dynamics of PhytOC production and the annual rate of stable C sequestration thr...

Background & Aim: Aloe vera is used in the food and pharmaceutical as an aid to effective treatment. The purpose of this study is to improve growth, increase production of valuable metabolites and increase the sugars in Aloe vera gel with low cost and high efficiency under water stress conditions. Experimental: In this study, Aloe vera potted in greenhouse conditions...

The aim of the study was to compare the effects of stress (contamination trials) on the microorganisms in zinc-polluted soil (5,018 mg Zn kg(-1) soil dry weight) and unpolluted soil (141 mg Zn kg(-1) soil dw), measured as soil respiration rate. In the laboratory, soils were subjected to copper contamination (0, 500, 1,500 and 4,500 mg kg(-1) soil dw), and then a bactericide (oxytetracycline) co...

Twenty eight polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were determined for a total of 203 top soil samples collected from eight different land categories in Shenzhen, China during the winter of 2007. The concentrations, compositional profile, and the potential sources of PAHs in soil were discussed. Overall, PAH pollution in the soil of Shenzhen is still in the low-end of the world after 30 years...

The potential excessive nutrient and/or microbial loading from mismanaged land application of organic fertilizers is forcing changes in animal waste management. Currently, it is not clear to what extent different rates of poultry litter impact soil microbial communities, which control nutrient availability, organic matter quality and quantity, and soil degradation potential. From 2002 to 2004, ...

Nitrogen fertilizer applications, for maximum fertilizer efficiencies and crop yields, should be based on the N required by the crop during its various growth stages. The objectives of this paper were to identify the N requirements of the potato plant (Solarium tuberosurn L.) during growth and to evaluate selected soil and plant tissue tests as indicators of the plant's N status. Growth analysi...