The effects of reduced tillage and lime on crop yield and soil physical and microbial properties were studied in a weakly-structured silty clay loam soil. Two autumn primary tillage practices were compared, mouldboard ploughing to 20–25 cm and cultivation to 12 cm. Seedbed preparation was carried out by several harrowing operations in the mouldboard ploughed treatment, and with a PTO-driven har...

Vertisols are important agricultural soils in the region. These soils are under various vegetables, sunflower and wheat cultivation. Fifteen soil sites were selected in this research. This research was carried out to determine background levels of total and DTPA extractable Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, Ni, Cr, Pb, Co, and Cd with some important soil properties.

Although fertility capability classification (FCC) has high performance in land evaluation and soil maps interpretation, so far it has been less attended in land evaluation studies. Therefore, qualitative (FCC method) and quantitative (Riquer index) land fertility capability evaluation for Wheat and Rice cultivation and comparison of Soil Taxonomy and WRB classification with FCC were chosen as ...

Cultivation machinery applies large amounts of mechanical energy to the soil and often brings about a decrease in soil organic carbon (SOC). New experiments on the effects of mechanical energy inputs on soil respiration are reported and the results discussed. In the laboratory, a speci®c energy, K, of 150 J kgÿ1, similar to that experienced during typical cultivation operations, was applied to ...

Human population pressures upon land resources have increased the need to assess impacts of land use change on soil quality. In order to assess effects of land use changes on soil quality properties in a tropical forest ecosystem of Bangladesh, soil samples were collected from adjacent well-stocked Shorea robusta natural forest, land reforested with Acacia, grassland and cultivated land. Land u...

The effect of draining crop fields during the wheat season on the soil CH4 andN2O emissions during the rice season in this article. There were four treatments:traditional cultivation during the wheat season + cultivation without fertilizationduring the rice season (CK1 field), traditional cultivation during the wheat season +traditional cultivation during the rice season (CK2 field), draining t...

Soil seed banks were sampled in undisturbed soil and after soil had been disturbed by tillage (tine, harrow or plough). Seeds were sorted by size and shape, and counted. Size-number distributions were fitted by power law equations that allowed the identification of self-similarity and self-affinity. Self-affinity and thus non-random size-number distribution prevailed in undisturbed soil. Self-s...

The microbial diversity in soil ecosystems is higher than in any other microbial ecosystem. The majority of soil microorganisms has not been characterized, because the dominant members have not been readily culturable on standard cultivation media; therefore, the soil ecosystem is a great reservoir for the discovery of novel microbial enzymes and bioactivities. The soil metagenome, the collecti...

Karlsson. A. 1996. Site vrevaration of abandoned fields and earlv establishment of naturallv and direct-seeded birch in Sweden. Studia Forestalia Suecica 199, 25 pp. ISSN 0039-3150, ~ S B N 91-576-5152-3. Field experiments were carried out at four sites in Sweden to investigate the possibility of establishing downy birch (Betula pubescens Ehrh.) and silver birch (Betula pendula Roth) on abandon...