Reducing tillage and growing cover crops, widely recommended practices for boosting soil health, have major impacts on soil communities. Surprisingly little is known about their impacts on soil microbial functional diversity, and especially so in irrigated Mediterranean ecosystems. In long-term experimental plots at the West Side Research and Extension Center in California's Central Valley, we ...

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a class of organic compounds found ubiquitously in the environment and pose serious threat to humans. PAHs have received considerable attention due their carcinogenic properties. In this study, 16 EPA priority were determined agricultural surface soils (0–5 cm) from diverse land use systems central India. ∑16 different soil samples ranged ND–122.52 µg...

Land use change may influence many natural phenomena and ecological processes, including runoff, soil erosion, sedimentation and soil conditions. Decreasing of forest area in the North of Iran is one of the critical problems in recent years. The aims of this study are to detect land use changes between 1967 to 2002 using satellite images of Land Sat 7 ETM (2002), aerial photos and digital topog...

We developed an irrigation mapping methodology that relies on remotely sensed inputs from MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument, globally extensive ancillary sources of gridded climate and agricultural data and on an advanced image classification algorithm. In the first step, we used climate-based indices of surface moisture status and a map of cultivated lands to pro...

In recent years, agriculture has gained more and importance with the effect of climate change global economic crisis. order to increase agricultural production ensure its sustainability, it is necessary efficiency productivity factors. One most important factors in ensuring this irrigation. Irrigation one that provides continuity profitability production. It high by increasing other factors, so...

Japan's rice sector is supported by high prices paid by consumers that allow many farm households to maintain small rice farms. Japan's government controls trade within a tariff-rate quota and imposes a prohibitively high tariff on imports outside the quota. Within Japan, diversion programs pay farmers to substitute other crops for rice since, without government-mandated diversion, supply would...

Successes • Many people showed up at the public meeting. • The citizen group wants to continue beyond the MERIT project. • Increased level of knowledge on both sides of the table. • A deeper understanding of pesticide sources and precautionary actions. • Implementation of cooperative farming contracts is not only a question of money. • There are new opportunities to establish waterworks coopera...

The effects of plant species (castor bean (Ricinus communis L.) versus sunflower (Helianthus annus L.)) and irrigation regime (freshwater versus secondary treated municipal wastewater) on soil properties and on seed and biodiesel yield were studied in a three year pot trial. Plant species were irrigated at rates according to their water requirements with either freshwater or wastewater effluent...

Peanut (Arachis hypogaea) is a botanically indeterminate plant where flowering, fruit initiation, and pod maturity occurs over an extended time period during the growing season. As a result, the maturity and size of individual peanut pods vary considerably at harvest. Immature kernels that meet commercial edible size specifications negatively affect quality during processing due to their increa...