A literature study was undertaken on the weeding of maize on smallholder farms in Ciskei, South Africa. Most weeding under these conditions is carried out by hand pulling or hand hoeing. Only limited use is made of animal traction, and large-scale development of this method will not be possible until the conventional broadcast method of planting maize has been replaced by row planting.

Wood quality attributes were examined in six stands of slash pine (Pinus elliottii Engelm. var. elliottii) and loblolly pine (P. taeda L.) in the lower Coastal Plain of Georgia and Florida. Several plots comprised each stand, and each plot was divided so that it received three fertilizer treatments: a control treatment with herbaceous weed control at planting and brush control at mid-rotation o...

In China, the ridge-furrow water conservation planting (RC) system is advantageous for improving crop yields and rainwater use efficiency. In RC planting system, plastic film-mulched ridges are employed for water harvesting while the furrows serve as infiltration and planting belts. To optimize the RC system and to overcome problems due to the lack of water in semi-humid areas at risk of drough...

A study was conducted to investigate the influence of planting methods and tuber weight on growth and yield of local yam cultivars obtained by the minisett technique from white yam (D. rotundata) in Gabon. Trials were carried out in 2014 and 2015 at the experimental ground of the Higher National Institute of Agronomy and Biotechnology, under natural conditions of lightness, temperature and rela...

Ceratocystis wilt, caused by Ceratocystis fimbriata, has become the most important disease in eucalyptus (Eucalyptus spp. and hybrids) plantations in Brazil. To further our understanding of the epidemiology of this disease, we surveyed eucalyptus plantations in the states of Minas Gerais and Bahia that were known to have Ceratocystis wilt or were thought to have been planted with infected roote...

If climate change outpaces the rate of adaptive evolution within a site, populations previously well adapted to local conditions may decline or disappear, and banked seeds from those populations will be unsuitable for restoring them. However, if such adaptational lag has occurred, immigrants from historically warmer climates will outperform natives and may provide genetic potential for evolutio...

Conservation tillage and even no tillage as a practice is not new. However, there appears to exist evidence that in some cases no-tillage is successfully incorporated into a new concept of truly sustainable agriculture, gaining popularity as “conservation agriculture” all over the world. Conservation Agriculture is, besides no-tillage and direct planting, based on very old concepts such as gree...

The assisted regeneration of oaks can be achieved through seeding or planting. Whereas direct seeding of acorns has several advantages over planting nursery-grown seedlings, the problem of seed predation by mammals precludes its widespread application. We investigated the potential of diesel as a mammal repellent to prevent the consumption of Holm oak acorns. We tested the effect of submerging ...

Ruscus aculeatus L. is a perennial semi-shrub with distinctive leaf-like branches (cladodes). Rhizomes and roots contain steroidal saponins (ruscogenins) that are used in medicine and cosmetics for their anti-inflammatory, venotonic and antihaemorroidal activity. Problematic cultivation of the species causes in many countries unsustainable over-collection from the wild. Tissue culture propagati...