Iron availability in calcareous soils, and Fe uptake and translocation in plants are major factors limiting the agricultural use of land. The nutritional value of crops as Fe sources for humans is often reduced due to Fe-deficiency in plants. Agronomic approaches to overcome these shortcomings include: (i) methods aimed at increasing the availability of indigenous soil-Fe; (ii) soil and/or foli...

This paper suggests a simple explanation for the cross-section Kuznets curve: endowments of crops and germs that resulted in a permanent European minority settlement are associated with high inequality and intermediate income. Where there was no European settlement, both inequality and income were low. Where Europeans came to constitute the overwhelming majority of the population, income was hi...

Many factors have, of course, contributed to the expansion of this industry to its present day proportions but one of the most significant is undoubtedly the adaptability of the crop to such a wide range of growing conditions and also the simplicity of its culture. Sugarcane is truly a "pioneering" crop for its expansion has been not so much at the expense of other crops but rather by the openi...

A survey conducted from May 1995 through August 1998 revealed diverse nematode communities in Louisiana sugarcane fields. High populations of Mesocriconema, Paratrichodorus, Pratylenchus, and Tylenchorhynchus were widespread in nine sugarcane production parishes. Comparisons of plant cane and ratoon sugarcane crops indicated that nematode community levels increase significantly in successive ra...

The ship, roof, or black rat Rattus rattus (L.) was introduced into New Zealand last century, and is now a widespread pest in indigenous forests. Ship rats eat seeds and invertebrates (Beveridge, 1964; Best, 1969; Daniel, 1973; Innes, 1979; Gales, 1982; Meads, Walker and Elliott, 1984), lizards (Whitaker, 1978), and birds and their eggs (Atkinson, 1973, 1985; Innes, 1990), and perhaps compete w...

BACKGROUND Although termites are considered as agricultural pests, they play an important role in maintaining the ecosystem. Therefore, it matters to investigate the farmers' perception of the impacts of the termites on the agriculture and their indigenous utilization. METHODS A semi-structured questionnaire was used to interview 94 farmers through 10 villages of Atacora department, in the no...

OBJECTIVES To describe levels of risky sexual behaviour, HIV testing and HIV knowledge among men and women in Guatemala by ethnic group and to identify adjusted associations between ethnicity and these outcomes. DESIGN Data on 16,205 women aged 15-49 and 6822 men aged 15-59 from the 2008-2009 Encuesta Nacional de Salud Materno Infantil were used to describe ethnic group differences in sexual ...