Soil erosion, due to intensive agricultural practices, has been and continues to be of significant concern in the Whitewater Watershed, a coldwater tributary of the Mississippi River, in southeastern Minnesota. Conservation efforts, in the form of best management practices (BMPs) have been underway for many years and a number of residents have enrolled in various government programs designed to...

Detection of bacterial gene expression in soil emerged in the early 1990s and provided information on bacterial responses in their original soil environments. As a key procedure in the detection, extraction of bacterial RNA from soil has attracted much interest, and many methods of soil RNA extraction have been reported in the past 20 years. In addition to various RT-PCR-based technologies, new...

Abstract: Ridge culture is a special conservation tillage method, but the long-term influence of this tillage system on soil aggregate-size stability in paddy fields is largely unknown in southwest of china. The objectives of this paper are to evaluate soil aggregates stability and to determine the relationship between SOC and soil aggregate stability.Soil samples at 0-20 cm layer were adopted ...

Terracing is one of the oldest means of saving soil and water. The objective of this paper is to provide information on the different types of terraces and their functioning, and to describe advantages and disadvantages of terraces regarding their efficacy to stop or reduce soil erosion. Existing literature and information shows that terraces can considerably reduce soil loss due to water erosi...

Conservation tillage is an extensively used agricultural practice in northern China that alters soil texture and nutrient conditions, causing changes in the soil microbial community. However, how conservation tillage affects rhizosphere and bulk soil fungal communities during plant growth remains unclear. The present study investigated the effect of long-term (6 years) conservation (chisel plow...

Literature reporting the development of conservation tillage and the research that has been conducted on nematode control in crops grown in conservation tillage systems is reviewed. Effects of different types of conservation tillage on population densities of various nematode species in monocropping and multicropping systems, effects of tillage on nematode distribution in the soil profile, effe...

tion, conservation of soil water may result in greater soil evaporation, especially if the top soil layers remain wetter, and the full benefit of sustained plant physiological activity will be lost. Therefore, the relative benefit of the two traits depends on temporal pattern in the rainfall and severity of the drying event. Experimental and simulation studies are presented in the book to indic...