Agricultural ecosystems have been viewed with the potential to sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) by increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) through reduced tillage and cover cropping practices. There remains considerable uncertainty, however, regarding the carbon (C) sink/source potential of these systems and few studies have examined C dynamics in conjunction with other important greenho...

Large scale application of chemical pesticides to reduce the crop losses caused by insect pests and diseases, valued at over US$250 billion annually, has not only led to serious environmental hazards, but has also resulted in development of resistance to pesticides in pest populations. It is in this context that crop varieties capable of resisting pest damage will play a vital role in reducing ...

Climate change is projected to push the limits of cropping systems and has the potential to disrupt the agricultural sector from local to global scales. This article introduces the Coordinated Climate-Crop Modeling Project (C3MP), an initiative of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) to engage a global network of crop modelers to explore the impacts of climate ...

Executive summary: Our work addresses ex ante policy evaluation as it relates to nitrogen management in agriculture, in particular the reduction of nitrogen losses from field crops. We build a bio-economic model of crop production at the regional scale to predict the effects of nitrogen-related policies on agriculture and the environment. The model is calibrated against economic data on observe...

The availability of Haber-Bosch nitrogen (N) has permitted agricultural intensification and increased the productive capacity of agroecosystems; however, approximately 50% of this applied fertilizer N is lost from agricultural landscapes. Extensive efforts have been devoted to improving the N use efficiency of these systems. Diversified crop rotations using cover crops to provide a variety of e...

Powdery mildew disease of beans in India causes major economic losses in agriculture. For sustainable agriculture, detection and identification of diseases in plants is very important. In this review, we are trying to identify the powdery mildew disease of beans crop by using some image processing and pattern recognition techniques and comparing with molecular and spectroscopic techniques. Earl...

This paper investigates the impact of climate change on the productivity of crop production using U.S. county-level yield and weather data between 1950 and 2015. It finds that the pooled estimators used in previous studies underestimate the sensitivity of crops to high temperatures by ignoring slope heterogeneity, and underestimate the damage of future climate change on yield. Furthermore, expl...

Radiations and radioisotopes are used in agricultural research to induce genetic variability in crop plants to develop improved varieties, to manage insect pests, monitor fate and persistence of pesticides, to study fertilizer use efficiency and plant micronutrient uptake and also to preserve agricultural produce. Use of radiation and radioisotopes in agriculture is one of the most important fi...

Bt maize technology involves developing hybrid maize crops that incorporate genes developed from the soil dwelling bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). The primary benefit of Bt maize technology is the heightened crop protection from stem borers, which are maize pests that can inflict serious crop losses. Bt maize has been grown in Mexico, South Africa and several countries in the EU, with mor...

Accurate simulation of agricultural management effects on N loss in tile drainage is vitally important for understanding hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. An experimental study was initiated in 1978 at Nashua, Iowa of the USA to study long-term effects of tillage, crop rotation, and N management practices on subsurface drainage flow and associated N losses. The Root Zone Water Quality Model (RZWQM...