The success of seedling establishment of desert plants is determined by seedling emergence response to an unpredictable precipitation regime. Sand burial is a crucial and frequent environmental stress that impacts seedling establishment on sand dunes. However, little is known about the ecological role of seed mucilage in seedling emergence in arid sandy environments. We hypothesized that seed m...

Microsprinkler irrigation is a potential method to alleviate soil salinization. After conducting a homogeneous, highly saline, clayey, and coastal soil from the Bohai Gulf in northern China in a column experiment, the results show that the depth of the wetting front increased as the water amount applied increased, low-salinity and low-SAR enlarged after irrigation and water redistribution, and ...

The study reports the development of a model for the generation of daily volumes and hourly discharge hydrographs, withdrawn from on-demand pressurised irrigation systems. The model is based on the simulation of the water budget at the level of each single hydrant. Under the hypothesis that the initial soil moisture is at field capacity, once the soil water reserve falls down a pre-defined limi...

During October, November and December 2011 (when highest sales of Agri-Hub fresh produce are observed), irrigation water, compost, lettuce and spinach sampled from four different farmer cooperatives supplying the local Agri-Hub in uMbumbulu (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) were analyzed monthly for the presence of total and fecal coliforms and Escherichia coli using the most probable number (MPN) ...

Many water management problems have arisen in past Asian irrigation projects. They have been characterized as a vicious cycle involving the lack of maintenance, poor irrigation service, low rates of fee collection, inadequate institutional arrangements, and lack of user participation. This article argues that we have generally agreed on a strategy to address these problems and asks whether or n...

The use of biological control agents could be a non-chemical alternative for management of Meloidogyne spp. [root-knot nematodes (RKN)], the most damaging plant-parasitic nematodes for horticultural crops worldwide. Pochonia chlamydosporia is a fungal parasite of RKN eggs that can colonize endophytically roots of several cultivated plant species, but in field applications the fungus shows a low...

Water stress is a frequent and critical limit to wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) production in North China. It has been shown that photosynthetic active radiation (PAR) is closely related to crop production. An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of deficit irrigation and winter wheat varieties on the PAR capture ration, PAR utilization and grain yield. Field experiments involved J...

Use of drip, or trickle, irrigation in agriculture has increased rapidly during the past 20 years. In 1970 approximately 50,000 ha in the United States were under drip irrigation, by 1985 the area had increased to over 300,000 ha (6). Irrigation has been used to deliver fertilizers and pesticides (8,9,14,18,27,28), and there are increasing numbers of studies on the application of nematicidal co...

Nonflooded irrigation is an important water-saving rice cultivation technology, but little is known on its photosynthetic mechanism. The aims of this work were to investigate photosynthetic characteristics of rice during grain filling stage under three nonflooded irrigation treatments: furrow irrigation with plastic mulching (FIM), furrow irrigation with nonmulching (FIN), and drip irrigation w...

Various irrigation regimes were applied to NC0376 over five years of low rainfall (average 466 mm per annum). Cane yield increased, depending on amount of water applied, from 84 to 122 t/ha. There was no significant effect on quality. The lowest application of 660 mm of irrigation produced 69% of the yield produced by the standard (full) irrigation (1 520 mm) at 12 months of age. There were no ...