Crown gall disease caused by the bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens can cause significant economic loss in both commercial walnut orchards and in nursery operations in California. This results from the fact that, Paradox, one of the most popular walnut rootstocks in California, is extremely susceptible to A. tumefaciens infection and Crown Gall formation. By combining direct soil-DNA extractio...

Soil can be a source of human infection by many zoonotic helminth species including Echinococcus multilocularis and Toxocara spp. The prevention of alveolar echinococcosis could be greatly improved through the identification of at-risk areas. Yet very few data are available about the detection of E. multilocularis in soil, while more studies have been reported for Toxocara spp. Identification o...

Trivalent Cr is one of the heavy metals that are difficult to be removed from soil using electrokinetic study because of its geochemical properties. High buffering capacity soil is expected to reduce the mobility of the trivalent Cr and subsequently reduce the remedial efficiency thereby complicating the remediation process. In this study, geochemical modeling and migration of trivalent Cr in s...

Pyroligneous acid (PA) is often used in agriculture as a plant growth and yield enhancer. However, the influence of PA application on soil microorganisms not studied. Therefore, this study, we investigated effect (0.01–5% w/w soil) microbial diversity two different soils. At end eight weeks incubation, community dynamics were determined by Illumina-MiSeq sequencing 16S rRNA gene amplicons. The ...

It has been suggested that monoterpenes emitted within the soil profile, either by roots or by decaying biomass, may enhance the biodegradation of organic pollutants. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of biogenic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) on the catabolism of 2,4-dichlorophenol in soils. Soils were collected from areas surrounding monoterpene (woodland) and nonmonoterpene...

We conducted two laboratory experiments to examine the effects of fertilisation and agitation (aeration) on crude oil degradation in two soils with differential nutrient (nitrogen, phosphorus) availability. Two soils that had been spiked with crude oil two years before were mixed with nitrogen and/or phosphorus at three different levels and subsequently incubated 28 days (Exp. 1). In experiment...

Growing rice on arsenic (As)-contaminated paddy fields may induce high As level grain production. In order to reduce the food contamination risk, the pot experiments containing two As-spiked aging soils and four water managements were conducted to evaluate the effects of water managements on rice As content. The results indicated that As concentration of Erlin soil solution was 10 to 20 times (...

AIMS To adapt an immunomagnetic capture (IMC) technique to concentrate and cultivate Mycobacterium bovis from environmental samples including soil, faeces and urine. METHODS AND RESULTS Cells of Myco. bovis BCG and wild-type Myco. bovis were successfully isolated and cultured from seeded and naturally infected materials respectively. The IMC cell recovery estimated by colony forming units (CF...

Two major emerging bands (a 350-bp band and a 650-bp band) within the RISA (ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis) profile of a soil bacterial community spiked with Hg(II) were selected for further identification of the populations involved in the response of the community to the added metal. The bands were cut out from polyacrylamide gels, cloned, characterized by restriction analysis, and sequ...

a reliable, rapid and accurate method based on spiked calibration curves and direct sample introduction was developed for determination of 17 pesticide residues in rice by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry single quadrupole selected ion monitoring gc/ms-sq-sim. sample preparation is based on extraction with acetonitrile without clean up. the use of spiked calibration curves for constructing ...