cotton (gossypium hirsutum l.)  is an important fiber crop in iran, cultivated on 150000-200000 ha of land.  in iran the estimated loss due to the insect pest is more than 30%. traditionally, pests are controlled by 10-12 times spraying per growing season of environmentally harmful chemical insecticides (e.g. endosulfan and/or methosystox). in order to produce transgenic cotton resistance to in...

Changes in soil physical and chemical properties were evaluated in several on-farm studies located in rainfed, hardsetting red Al®sols (Ferric Luvisols) and in irrigated, self-mulching Vertisols (Chromic Vertisols) of eastern Australia. The objective of the studies was to evaluate changes in soil physical and chemical properties with time under commercial farming situations where changes had be...

INTRODUCTION Chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology is occurring in various geographic areas worldwide. Cases lack typical risk factors associated with chronic kidney disease, such as diabetes and hypertension. It is epidemic in El Salvador, Central America, where it is diagnosed with increasing frequency in young, otherwise-healthy male farmworkers. Suspected causes include agrochemical us...

Smallholder farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa have undergone changes in land use, productivity and sustainability. Understanding of the drivers that have led to changes in land use in these systems and factors that influence the systems' sustainability is useful to guide appropriate targeting of intervention strategies for improvement. We studied low input Teso farming systems in eastern Ug...

Monsanto’s Bt-cotton NC 33B, planted in northern China for more than one decade, effectively controls cotton bollworms; however the understanding of its potential effects on soil microorganisms is limited. The dynamics of eubacterial, fungal and actinomycetes population sizes in rhizosphere soil of the Bt cotton were analysed by realtime PCR (qPCR) at the different growth stages under field con...

The impact of multiple-year (0–5 years) cultivation of transgenic Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton on the functional bacterial populations in rhizosphere soil was investigated. The transgenic Bt ? CpTI cotton line SGK321 and a non-Bt cotton line Shiyuan321 were planted in four fields in which Bt cotton had been continuously cultivated for 0, 1, 3, and 5 years. Rhizosphere soil samples were co...

Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) seeds are susceptible to low temperature and excess moisture in soil during seed emergence in years with high rainfall and low temperature in spring. Therefore, a two-year field experiment was carried out to evaluate effects of ridge tillage formed in autumn (RT-I), ridge tillage formed about a month before planting (RT-II) and flat conventional tillage (CT) culti...

The effect of Bt-cotton, i.e. genetically modified cotton that contain genes expressing delta-endotoxin, on aphid, whitefly, chrysopid and coccinellid populations was determined with a two-year field study at a cotton farm near Marble Hall, South Africa. Although Bt-cotton is lepidopteran specific, non-lepidopteran arthropod populations may be indirectly influenced by the endotoxin. Abundance o...

Agricultural-induced increase of nitrate (NO3) loading in groundwater is a worldwide problem. This study investigates the impacts of agricultural activities on groundwater NO3 pollution in a Yellow River irrigated region. The agricultural land use patterns are dependent on the land and water conditions. Besides wheat–maize rotation, the most popular cultivation pattern, other patterns with high...

Cotton, the king of natural fibres is mainly cultivated for its lint which is the most sought after textile fibre till date due to its inherent ecofriendly and comfort characteristics. It is also one of the important cash crops of many of the Afro-Asian countries like India, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Uzbekistan, Tanzania, etc. and plays a major role in their economic development. However, of late, co...