Biodiesel, the name popularly given to fatty acid alkyl esters, has become an attractive option for the replacement of petroleum diesel (‘petrodiesel’). While its overall impact on the greenhouse effect continues to be debated, other qualities of biodiesel are unquestioned. Biodiesel is biodegradable, generally non-toxic and has superior lubricity to petrodiesel. Overall emissions are greatly r...

Plant-based foods offer an array of nutrients that are essential for human nutrition and promote good health. However, the major staple crops of the world are often deficient in some of these nutrients. Traditional agricultural approaches can marginally enhance the nutritional value of some foods, but the advances in molecular biology are rapidly being exploited to engineer crops with enhanced ...

Modern herbicidal weed control often exploits physiological differences among plants and takes advantage of herbicide tolerance or resistance in crop plants to bring about the selective removal of susceptible weeds. The Weed Science Society of America defines herbicide tolerance as “the inherent ability of a plant to survive and reproduce after herbicide treatment” which suggests that herbicide...

The European Union has failed to quell the revolt among its member states over the union-wide acceptance of GM crops. Soon the four rebels could gain Germany as a new ally.

Europe’s wrangling over its resistance to GM crops hit another point this month when one of the endless streams of Wikileaks reported in the media last month revealed that the US’s Paris embassy had advocated a trade war over the EU’s failure to accept GM crops. The leak said that, in a response to moves by France to ban a Monsanto GM maize variety in 2007, the ambassador Craig Stapleton, who w...

Cell wall proteins play key roles in cell structure and metabolism, cell enlargement, signal transduction, responses to environmental stress, and many other physiological events. Agricultural crops are often used for investigating stress tolerance because cultivars with differing degrees of tolerance are available. Abiotic and biotic stress factors markedly influence the geographical distributi...

Phytophthora pathogens are responsible for some of the most serious diseases of cocoa including phytophthora pod rot (PPR) or black pod, stem canker, leaf and seedling blight, chupon wilt and flower cushion infections. PPR causes 10–30% annual losses in production of cocoa beans globally, and much higher losses locally in particularly wet and humid conditions. Stem canker causes further losses ...

objective: economic analysis was performed for the main horticultural crops in buin zahra (pistachio, peach, nectarine, and apple). there were dependent and independent variables in this research. methods: the independent variables were planting method (mechanized and conventional), land area used for fruit production, and land ownership. the maximum energy used, mostly in the form of fossil fu...

the main source of heavy metals in soil is the use of urban and industrial waste water, synthetic phosphate fertilizers, sludge from sewage treatment plants. most heavy metals accumulate in the top soil and in the long term, their increased concentration in the soil and accumulation in the plants. the quantity or level of absorption in plants, depends not only on the concentration levels of the...