The USDA established the National Organic Program (NOP) to develop national standards for organically produced agricultural products and establish an organic certification program as required by the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) passed by Congress in 1990. Organic crop production excludes conventional pesticides, petroleum – based fertilizers, and sewage sludge based fertilizers with some...

Phosphate (Pi) is an essential macronutrient that plays a central role in virtually all metabolic processes in plants, including photosynthesis and respiration. Despite its importance, Pi is one of the least available nutrients in many ecosystems, and is a frequent limiting factor for plant productivity. Although plentiful in the earth’s crust, soil Pi often exists in insoluble mineral forms th...

Organic fertilizers are generally thought to be an effective way to sustain soil fertility and plant growth. To promote the productivity of chrysanthemum, five sources of liquid organic fertilizers (L1–L5), as well as a chemical fertilizer, were applied at an early stage of the growth cycle to investigate their effects on plant growth. In the short-term pot experiment, the liquid organic fertil...

There is increasing concern over P leaching from sandy soils applied with water-soluble P fertilizers. Laboratory column leaching experiments were conducted to evaluate P leaching from a typical acidic sandy soil in Florida amended with DPR fertilizers developed from dolomite phosphate rock (DPR) and N-Viro soil. Ten leaching events were carried out at an interval of 7 days, with a total leachi...

Rapid growth in organic production in the past 20 years is due to consumer concerns about the impacts of conventional agriculture on the environment, food safety, and quality. There are considerable variations in nutrient concentration and the rate of mineralization among organic fertilizers. Some organic fertilizers and application rates are specific to soil types, which affect the nutrient po...

The use of different agricultural or industrial wastes is an important component of sustainable agriculture in order to close nutrient cycles on a global, regional and local scale. Farmyard manure or slurry are established as fertilizers in agricultural or horticultural production and substitute mineral fertilizers. Due to the lower nutrient use efficiency compared with mineral fertilizers, esp...

BACKGROUND People are exposed to ionizing radin from the radionuclides that are present in different types of natural sources, of which phosphate fertilizer is one of the most important sources. Fertilizers are commonly used in agricultural field worldwide to enhance the crop yield. MATERIALS AND METHODS In the present investigation, a control study was carried out on the lady's finger plants...

Our attitude towards mineral nitrogen (N) fertilizers is ambivalent. N fertilizers have on one hand increased our supply of food, feed and other bio-based raw materials tremendously and also improved the use efficiency of land and labor, but have on the other hand a negative impact on the quality of the environment and contributed to the depletion of fossil fuel reserves. This awareness has res...

A study was conducted to assess the impact of different nutrient combination of field tomato on post harvest storage life and organoleptic quality of fresh fruits. Fourteen different treatment combinations comprising two organic manures (Farmyard manure and vermicompost), inorganic fertilizers and biofertilizer in different levels were laid out in RBD with three replications during 2005-06 and ...

In fertilizer-drawn forward osmosis (FDFO) desalination, the final nutrient concentration (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium (NPK)) in the product water is essential for direct fertigation and to avoid over fertilization. Our study with 11 selected fertilizers indicate that blending of two or more single fertilizers as draw solution (DS) can achieve significantly lower nutrient concentration in t...