Application of organic amendments has been proposed as a strategy for the management of diseases caused by soilborne pathogens. However, inconsistent results seriously hinder their practical use. In this work we use an extensive data set of 2423 studies derived from 252 papers to explore this strategy. First, we assess the capability of a specific organic amendment to control different diseases...

Soil quality decline represents a significant constraint on the productivity and sustainability of agriculture in the tropics. In this study, the influence of biochar, compost and mixtures of the two on soil fertility, maize yield and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions was investigated in a tropical Ferralsol. The treatments were: 1) control with business as usual fertilizer (F); 2) 10 t ha(-1) bio...

Fertilization has a large impact on the soil microbial communities, which play pivotal roles in soil biogeochemical cycling and ecological processes. While the effects of changes in nutrient availability due to fertilization on the soil microbial communities have received considerable attention, specific microbial taxa strongly influenced by long-term organic and inorganic fertilization, their ...

Soil microbial community structure and crop yield was investigated in field tomato production systems that compared black polyethylene mulch to hairy vetch mulch and inorganic N to organic N. The following hypotheses were tested: (1) hairy vetch cover cropping increases crop yield and significantly affects soil microbial community structure when compared to the standard plastic mulch and synthe...

The influence of two organic amendments on norflurazon sorption-desorption processes in four soils with very different physicochemical characteristics was studied in laboratory experiments to evaluate the potential leaching of this pesticide through organic fertilized soils. Sorption-desorption experiments were performed on original soils and on a mixture of these soils with urban waste compost...

On a survey during the period of 2006-2007 a number of tylenchids were found associated with Zea mays in Kashmir valley such as Pratylenchus sativus kaul, 1985, Aphelenchoides srinagrensis Kaul, 1985 and Tylenchorhynchus zeae Sethi and G. Swarp, 1968. These species were found to have morphometric variations probably due to habitat alteration from the originally described ones. As a part of the ...

The ability of the following four organic amendments to ameliorate saline soil in coastal northern China was investigated from April 2010 to October 2012 in a field experiment: green waste compost (GWC), sedge peat (SP), furfural residue (FR), and a mixture of GWC, SP and FR (1∶1∶1 by volume) (GSF). Compared to a non-amended control (CK), the amendments, which were applied at 4.5 kg organic mat...

There is increasing interest in the stabilization of heavy metals in road-derived sediments (RDS), to enable environmentally responsible reuse applications and circumvent the need for costly landfill disposal. To reduce the mobility of heavy metals (i.e. Cu, Pb and Zn) the effectiveness of amendments using phosphate, compost and fly ash addition were investigated using batch leaching experiment...

In unsaline loam soil, a laboratory experiment was undertaken studying the effect of using diluted saline water from Karoon lake at Fayoum Governorate, on transformations and subsequent nitrification of two ammoniacal fertilizers, namely (NH4)2SO4 and urea, in the presence or absence of natural organic amendments, namely clover and wheat straw. Ammonification and nitrification of both fertilize...