The adoption of genetically modified (GM) crops has increased dramatically during the last 3 years, and currently over 52 million hectares of GM crops are planted world-wide. Approximately 41 million hectares of GM crops planted are herbicide-resistant crops, which includes an estimated 33.3 million hectares of herbicide-resistant soybean. Herbicide-resistant maize, canola, cotton and soybean a...

Widespread planting of transgenic insecticidal (TI) crops for pest control has raised concerns about potential harm to nontarget arthropods. Because the first generation of TI crops produce single Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxins causing little or no harm to most nontarget arthropods, they are not likely to cause such negative effects. However, varieties of transgenic crops with multiple Bt t...

Two experiments were conducted in north-central Florida to examine the effects of various winter cover crops on plant-parasitic nematode populations through time. In the first experiment, six winter cover crops were rotated with summer corn (Zea mays), arranged in a randomized complete block design. The cover crops evaluated were wheat (Triticum aestivum), rye (Secale cereale), oat (Avena sativ...

Rodents cause serious losses to crops in many different parts of the world. The house mouse (Mus domesticus, Schwarz and Schwarz 1943) is a serious pest to agriculture in Australia. The impacts of house mouse damage to crops in Australia were examined. Plagues of mice (>1,000 mice/ha) cause enormous economic and social stress to rural communities in Australia. The mouse plague in 1993/94 caused...

Aflatoxins are potent poisons that contaminate crops in warm regions worldwide and reduce health and economic welfare in several portions of Africa. Crops are contaminated in two phases: First, Aspergillus species infect crops during development; and second, after maturation contamination builds during exposure to warm humid conditions. Identification of the exact fungi causing contamination ca...

Contamination of crops with aflatoxin, a naturally occurring toxin produced by Aspergillus flavus and A. parasiticus, frequently reduces the value and marketability of crops. The selection of resistant germplasm has great potential to reduce this problem, but highly quantitative nature of the trait makes this a difficult endeavor. However, to derive commercial benefit from these resistance mark...

Does economic development depend on geographic endowments like temperate instead of tropical location, the ecological conditions shaping diseases, or an environment good for grains or certain cash crops? Or do these endowments of tropics, germs, and crops affect economic development only through institutions or policies? We test the endowment, institution, and policy views against each other us...

Regional crops distribution is an import subject for developing modern agriculture now. Based on existing distribution of 7 grain and oil crops in Sichuan province, this paper chose 5 economic evaluation indexes to discuss the regional distribution of grain and oil corps in Sichuan with the method of grey situation decision. According to the row decision and column decision, this paper shows th...

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