introduction energy analysis of agricultural ecosystem is essential for sustainable production. the relation between agriculture and energy is very close. agriculture is an energy consumer and the energy supplier. agriculture’s use of energy is recognized in three external inputs: labor, machines, and fertilizers (connor et al., 2011). significant gains in energy efficiency were arisen in agric...

Three 2.4-ha wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) fields were used to test the effects of maturity at harvest (boot vs. dough) and preservation method (hay vs. silage) on forage yield, chemical composition, and animal performance when fed in mixed diets. Forages were incorporated into 4 diets in a 2 x 2 factorial arrangement of treatments with hominy feed, soybean hulls, and cottonseed meal as the prim...

In many cases health and welfare problems are observed in organic egg production systems, as are high environmental risks related to nutrient leaching. These disadvantages might be reduced if the layers are allowed to utilise their ability to forage to a higher degree thereby reducing the import of nutrients into the system and stimulating the hens to perform a natural behaviour. However, very ...

Rice paddies in central Thailand are flooded either by irrigation (irrigated rice) or by rain (rain-fed rice). The paddy soils and their microbial communities thus experience permanent or arbitrary submergence, respectively. Since methane production depends on anaerobic conditions, we hypothesized that structure and function of the methanogenic microbial communities are different in irrigated a...

Supplemental irrigation under prolonged drought conditions has a key role in providing water for transpiration of rain-fed fig trees. The effect of different times and amounts of supplemental irrigation at different distances from the tree trunk on quantity and quality of Estahban rain-fed fig production was evaluated during two years. A randomized complete block design with four replications o...

Water shortage is a serious threat to agriculture production in the North China Plain. Sustainable management practices can improve water use efficiency of winter wheat, but currently no academic consensus has been reached. Therefore, we performed meta-analysis that included 2194 observations from 209 articles assess wheat this area. The groundwater provides for 34%–37% evapotranspiration, whic...

A study was conducted to evaluate feed intake, ADG, carcass quality, eating behavior, and blood metabolites in feedlot beef steers fed diets that varied in proportion of wheat dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS) replacing barley grain or barley silage. Two hundred crossbred steers (BW = 489 ± 30 kg) were blocked by BW and randomly allotted to 20 pens (5 pens per treatment). Steers were...