Phenolic compounds are intermediary transformation products of many naturally occurring substances and synthetic chemicals, including crop residues, organic wastes, pesticides and industrial products. They are suitable substrates for the phenolases and peroxidases produced by the soil microflora. Although measurement of the enzymatic oxidation of phenolic compounds is an important measure of th...

Biochar addition to soil has been reported to reduce the microbial degradation of pesticides due to sorption of the active compound. This study investigated whether the addition of hardwood biochar alters the mineralization of (14)C-labeled atrazine in two atrazine-adapted soils from Belgium and Brazil at different moisture regimens. Biochar addition resulted in an equally high or even in a sig...

Soil solarization is a special mulching process which causes hydrothermal disinfestation and other physical and biological changes in soil which are beneficial to plant health and growth. Plastic film laid over moist soil during periods of high air temperature, usually for l-2 months, can greatly reduce or eradicate a number of pathogens and pests including fungi, bacteria, nematodes, arthropod...

The rhizosphere represents the thin layer of soil surrounding plant roots and the soil occupied by the roots, supports large active groups of microorganisms. The vast organic compounds (amino acids, sugars etc.) secreted by plant roots in the rhizosphere provide a food source for microorganisms increasing microbial biomass and their activity in the rhizosphere. Antibiotics are antimicrobial com...

(1) Arsenic fungi are more numerous than was previously supposed. Some saprophytic species common in the soil are active in the production of arsenical gases. (2) Arsenic tolerant forms include many species which do not decompose arsenic compounds with the evolution of gases. (3) Arsenical substances carried to the soil come in contact with decomposing agents, which tend to break them into vola...

The present study has provided a comparison between a conventional ex situ method for the treatment of contaminated soil, a soil slurry bioreactor, with a novel technology in which a contaminant is rapidly and effectively removed from the soil by means of absorptive polymer beads, which are then added to a two-phase partitioning bioreactor (TPPB) for biodegradation of the target molecule. 4-nit...

BACKGROUND Autotoxicity of cucumber root exudates or decaying residues may be the cause of the soil sickness of cucumber. However, how autotoxins affect soil microbial communities is not yet fully understood. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS The aims of this study were to study the effects of an artificially applied autotoxin of cucumber, p-coumaric acid, on cucumber seedling growth, rhizospher...

BREED, R. S., MURRAY, E. G. D., AND HITCHENS, A. P. 1948 Bergey's manual of determinative bacteriology. 6th ed. The Williams & Wilkins Co., Baltimore, Md. FRED, E. B., AND WAKSMAN, S. A. 1928 Laboratory manual of general microbiology. McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc. New York. HOOVER, MINTON E. 1952 The action of some herbicides upon the microflora of the soil. M. S. Thesis, Louisiana State Universit...

Abstract Background Soil carbon-rich organic amendments (biochar, humic substances) may improve the quality and fertility of arable soil. Their co-application can additively enhance beneficial effect on Hypothetically, pre-treatment biochar, by aging via soaking in a solution commercially available substances, could result synergism, which exceed benefit from simple both to Therefore, aim this ...

The hypothesis of the present study was that the termite mounds of Macrotermes subhyalinus (MS) (a litter-forager termite) were inhabited by a specific microflora that could enhance with the ectomycorrhizal fungal development. We tested the effect of this feeding group mound material on (i) the ectomycorrhization symbiosis between Acacia holosericea (an Australian Acacia introduced in the sahel...