Soil health is presented as an integrative property that reflects the capacity of soil to respond to agricultural intervention, so that it continues to support both the agricultural production and the provision of other ecosystem services. The major challenge within sustainable soil management is to conserve ecosystem service delivery while optimizing agricultural yields. It is proposed that so...

We use the Agricultural Sector Model to analyze the economic potential of soil carbon sequestration as one of several agricultural greenhouse gas emission mitigation strategies, including afforestation. For low incentives on carbon emission savings, agricultural soil carbon sequestration is the most cost-efficient strategy. As incentive levels increase above $50 per ton of carbon equivalent, af...

Matthew J. Helmers, associate professor, Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Iowa State University; Xiaobo Zhou, assistant scientist, Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Iowa State University; Heidi Asbjornsen, associate professor, Natural Resource and the Environment, University of New Hampshire; Randy Kolka, soil scientist, USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station; Mark D. Tom...

Pseudomonas aeruginosa was detected in 24% of the soil samples but in only 0.13% of the vegetable samples from various agricultural areas of California. The distribution of pyocin types of soil and vegetable isolates was similar to that of clinical strains, and three of the soil isolates were resistant to carbenicillin. Pseudomonas aeruginosa multiplied in lettuce and bean under conditions of h...

A mathematical model, simulating the transport and fate of nonionizable organic compounds in unsaturated/saturated porous media (soils) in a terrestrial microcosm has been developed. Using the principles of water mass, momentum, heat energy and chemical mass balance, the three fields: moisture, temperature, and liquid phase chemical concentration are solved for simultaneously by coupling the so...

Enhancing wetland characteristics in agricultural drainage ditches with the use of low-grade weirs, has been identified as a best management practice (BMP) to mitigate nutrient runoff from agriculture landscapes. A major objective of utilizing low-grade weirs as a BMP includes fostering environments suitable for the biogeochemical removal of nitrogen via denitrification. This study examined the...

soil quality is the most suitable index to an assessment of the stability of terrestrial ecosystems, especially agro-ecosystems. to determine the effects of agricultural practices on soil organic matter, species richness and abundance of soil invertebrates, a study was conducted in three regions of razavi and northern khorasan provinces, iran. soil were taken from in each winter wheat field of ...

An integrated Expert Geographical Information System (EXGIS) is presented and applied for the evaluation of the suitability of soil and climatic conditions of in area of southern Greece, for five crops. EXGIS is an integration of an Expert System shell, designed for the manipulation of knowledge concerning soil suitability for agricultural uses, with the commercial GIS package PC ARC/INFO. The ...

Deterministic and probabilistic risk assessments were developed for commercial LAS in agricultural soil amended with sewage sludge. The procedure done according to ILSI Europe's Conceptual Framework [Schowanek, D., Carr, R., David, H., Douben, P., Hall, J., Kirchmann, H., Patria, L., Sequi, P., Smith, S., Webb, S.F., 2004. A risk-based methodology for deriving quality standards for organic cont...