Construction in urban areas usually results in compacted soil, which restricts plant growth and infiltration. Nutrients may be lost in storm runoff water and sediment. The purpose of this study was to determine if existing lawns benefit from aeration and surface compost additions without the negative impact of nutrient loss in runoff. Four sets of lawns were compared, with or without compost pl...

The potential for biosolids products to reduce Pb availability in soil was tested on a high Pb urban soil with biosolids from a treatment plant that used different processing technologies. High Fe biosolids compost and high Fe + lime biosolids compost from other treatment plants were also tested. Amendments were added to a Pb-contaminated soil (2000 mg kg(-1) Pb) at 100 g kg(-1) soil and incuba...

Cadmium (Cd) is a non-essential trace element that accumulates in agricultural soils through the application of Cd-rich phosphate fertiliser. Vegetables can accumulate Cd to concentrations that sometimes exceed food safety standards. We investigated the potential of low-cost soil amendments to reduce Cd uptake by spinach (Spinacia oleracea L.), lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) and onion (Allium cepa...

are enhanced. Sugarcane germination can also be promoted by increasing soil Ca (Mohandas et al., 1983). Louisiana sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) is produced mainly on For some crops, gypsum is effective in reducing the heavy-textured soils that offer less than ideal conditions for growth and function of the root system. Cultural practices that improve the incidence of soil-borne diseases (Kao and K...

In order to examine the optimal design and operating parameters, kinetics for microbiological reaction and oxygen consumption in composting of waste activated sludge were quantitatively examined. A series of experiments was conducted to discuss the optimal operating parameters for aerobic composting of waste activated sludge obtained from Kawagoe City Wastewater Treatment Plant (Saitama, Japan)...

In the management of municipal solid waste (MSW), the sorting-composting approach presents many advantages. However, since MSW contains a number of chemical and biological agents, the compost should not be necessarily a harmless product. These contaminants may expose different populations to health hazards, ranging from the composting plant workers to the consumers of vegetable products grown i...

Phytophthora root rot caused by Phytophthora nicotianae is an economically important disease in pepper crops. The use of suppressive composts is a low environmental impact method for its control. Although attempts have been made to reveal the relationship between microbiota and compost suppressiveness, little is known about the microorganisms associated with disease suppression. Here, an Ion To...

To develop an active microbial activity quickly developing stabilizing thermophilic temperatures during the composting of wastewater sludge, the bulking agent (BA) plays a major role in establishing the recipe structure, exposed particle surface area and porosity. To optimize the biodegradation of a sludge compost recipe, the objective of this paper was to study the effect and interaction of in...

Khoshsokhan, M., Kazempour Osaloo, S., Saadatmand, S. & Attar, F. 2010 06 30: Molecular phylogeny of Rochelia (Boraginaceae) based on nrDNA ITS and cpDNA trnL-F sequences. -Iran. J. Bot. 16 (1): 22-29. Tehran. We here present molecular phylogeny of the genus Rochelia (Boraginaceae-Eritrichieae). A total of 8 species of Rochelia and 2 species of Lappula as outgroups were included in analyses usi...