The experiment was carried out in 1999-2001 at the University of Agriculture in Krakow (Poland) to study the capacity of nine crops (red beet, field pumpkin, chicory, bean, barley, white cabbage, maize, alfalfa, and parsnip) to remove cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn) from different soil horizons (0-20, 20-40, 40-60 cm). The content of exchangeable Cd, Pb, and Zn decreased along with the de...

A field experiment was carried out to study the changes of soil bacteria, fungi and actinomycetes in saline-sodic soils for different numbers of cultivated years under drip irrigation. The drip irrigation had substantial effects on levels of bacteria, fungi and actinomycetes. With increased number of cultivated years under drip irrigation, the soil biological properties were greatly improved. A...

Soybean rhizobia were isolated from two soils with different cropping histories from Hubei province in central China. The first, from Honghu county, has been under soybean cultivation for decades. All of the isolates obtained from nodules on soybeans growing in this soil were fast-growing, acid-producing rhizobia. However, slow-growing, alkali-producing isolates were obtained at higher dilution...

The current study evaluates the impact of sewage sludge and urban reservoir sediment on changes in total and Toxic Equivalency (TEQ) PCDD/PCDF concentration in soil and phytotoxicity measured using three test species: Lepidium sativum, Sinapis alba, and Sorghum saccharatum, during 5 weeks of Cucurbita pepo L. cv 'Atena Polka' (zucchini) cultivation. 'Atena Polka' was found to reduce total PCDD/...

BACKGROUND The Brazilian Cerrado is one of the most important biodiversity reservoirs in the world. The sugarcane cultivation is expanding in this biome and necessitates the study of how it may impact the soil properties of the Cerrado. There is a lack of information especially about the impacts of different sugarcane management on the native bacterial communities of Cerrado soil. Therefore, ou...

the effect of 10-year continuous saffron cultivation on physical and chemical properties of a silty clay loam soil was investigated in a research farm of college of agriculture, shiraz university, shiraz (52 º 33ʹ e longitude and 29º 36ʹ n latitude), iran. this farm was irrigated with different regimes (100% of saffron's potential evapotranspiration (etp), 75%etp, 50%etp) including rain fed tre...

Poria cocos WOLF), belonging to the Polyporaceae in basidiomycetes, forms sclerotia on the roots of such trees as pine, cedar, fir and oak. The major host plant of this fungus in Japan, China and Korea is the pine and the dried sclerotium of W. cocos is called “Bukuryo” in Japanese. In the Japanese Pharmacopoeia, the external layer is usually mostly removed. It is one of the most important crud...

In many tropical regions, slash-and-burn agriculture is considered as a driver of deforestation; the forest is converted into agricultural land by cutting and burning the trees. However, the fields are abandoned after few years because of yield decrease and weed invasion. Consequently, new surfaces are regularly cleared from the primary forest. We propose a reclamation strategy for abandoned fi...

The cultivation of genetically engineered Bacillus thuringiensis toxin-expressing (Bt) maize continues to increase worldwide, yet the effects of Bt crops on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in soil are poorly understood. In this field experiment, we investigated the impact of seven different genotypes of Bt maize and five corresponding non-Bt parental cultivars on AMF and evaluated plant grow...

A mathematical model to estimate nitrogen (N) effluent from an upland field cultivated with barley, where under-drain pipes were installed 60 cm below the field surface, was developed and N effluents for several rainfall patterns during the cultivation period were analysed. The model is composed of the water drainage model and N cycle model. The water drainage model is made up of Sugawara's tan...