With the purpose of isolating and characterizing free nitrogen fixing bacteria (FNFB) of the genus Azotobacter, soil samples were collected randomly from different vegetable organic cultures with neutral pH in different zones of Boyacá-Colombia. Isolations were done in selective free nitrogen Ashby-Sucrose agar obtaining a recovery of 40%. Twenty four isolates were evaluated for colony and cell...

One of the main factors limiting agricultural production in tropical climate regions is mainly related to the presence of exchangeable aluminum (Al) in highly weathered acid soils. Four methods of Al determination extracted with neutral 1 mol L KCl solution were evaluated: three colorimetric methods (aluminon plus ascorbic acid, and eriochrome cyanine R by FIA) and the usual titrimetric method ...

Approximately 30% of the world's total land area and over 50% of the world's potential arable lands are acidic. Furthermore, the acidity of the soils is gradually increasing as a result of the environmental problems including some farming practices and acid rain. At mildly acidic or neutral soils, aluminium (Al) occurs primarily as insoluble deposits and is essentially biologically inactive. Ho...

Watson is a fully developed suburb of some 30 years in Canberra (the capital city of Australia). A plunge dip using arsenical pesticides for tick control was operated there between 1946 and 1960. Chemical investigations revealed that many soil samples obtained from the study area contained levels of arsenic exceeding the current health-based investigation levels of 100 mg kg-1 set by the Nation...

Recent studies have shown that nitrification inhibitor (NI) impairs the efficacy of urease inhibitor, N-(n-butyl) thiophosphoric triamide (NBPT), in reducing ammonia volatilization and urea hydrolysis rate. A laboratory study was conducted to evaluate influence NI (specifically 3,4-dimethyl pyrazole phosphate) on degradation NBPT six soils. Soils were amended with either (10 mg kg−1 soil) or pl...

Mine drainage is an important environmental disturbance that affects the chemical and biological components in natural resources. However, little is known about the effects of neutral mine drainage on the soil bacteria community. Here, a high-throughput 16S rDNA pyrosequencing approach was used to evaluate differences in composition, structure, and diversity of bacteria communities in samples f...

BACKGROUND This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of different amounts of fertilizers on the polysaccharides of Aloe vera plant. There were four different treatments, viz. T1 = 150% N, T2 = 150% P, T3 = 150% K, and T4 = 150% NPK (50% N + 50% P + 50% K) soil. Crude water-soluble polysaccharides were isolated from the gel juice, skin juice, and flowers of A. vera planted in these so...

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are often modified for different intended potential applications to enhance their aqueous stability or change properties such as surface charge. Such changes may also profoundly impact their environmental behaviors. Herein, we report the effects of modifying (14)C-labeled multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) with polyetheyleneimine (PEI) surface coatings to render them ...

Soil samples from the Jakara irrigation project site were evaluated with respect to possible degradation caused by irrigation. Most of the soils were neutral to alkaline with pH values ranging between 6.58 + 0.04 and 10.45 + 0.03. The electrical conductivity ranged from 0.3 + 0.01 to 75.2 + 0.06 dSm-1 which implies low to very high salinity. The concentrations of the exchangeable cations in the...

Introduction Research at CLIMA has indicated that Lathyrus cicera and L. sativus (grasspea) have potential as grain legumes on 100 000 to 300 000 ha of neutral to alkaline soils in low-to-medium rainfall areas of southern Australia. They do not have serious disease problems and are envisaged as low maintenance/low cost crops for the purposes of green manure, managing herbicide resistant weeds, ...