A long term data acquisition effort of profile soil moisture is under way in southwestern France at 13 automated weather stations. This ground network was developed in order to validate remote sensing and model soil moisture estimates. In this paper, both those in situ observations and a synthetic data set covering continental France are used to test a simple method to retrieve root zone soil m...

A large proportion of rainfall in dryland ecosystems is intercepted by plant foliage and is generally assumed to evaporate to the atmosphere or drip onto the soil surface without being absorbed. We demonstrate foliar absorption of intercepted rainfall in a widely distributed, continental dryland, woody-plant genus: Juniperus. We observed substantial improvement in plant water status, exceeding ...

The effect of soil moisture on penetration, development, and reproduction of Heterodera cajani on pigeonpea (cv. ICPL 87) was investigated in growth chambers held at 20 and 25 C, and in a greenhouse where temperature fluctuated between 25 and 32 C. Averaged across temperatures, the percentage of juveniles that penetrated roots was 34.3, 31.8, 8.8, and 3.7% at 24, 32, 16, and 40% soil moisture l...

We studied the impacts of re-vegetation on soil moisture dynamics and evapotranspiration (ET) of five land cover types in the Loess Plateau in northern China. Soil moisture and temperature variations under grass (Andropogon), subshrub (Artemisia scoparia), shrub (Spiraea pubescens), plantation forest (Robinia pseudoacacia), and crop (Zea mays) vegetation were continuously monitored during the g...

Introduced species dominate the terrestrial isopod fauna in most inland habitats of North America, including urban landscapes. These non-native species are often very abundant and thus potentially play a significant role in detritus processing. We monitored isopod assemblages in an urban forest for a year to examine the relationship between surface activity and abiotic environmental factors, an...

Seed priming is a physiological seed enhancement method. Hydroor osmotic priming can advance germination under adequate moisture conditions. During direct seeding on well-drained paddy and upland fields, rice seeds occasionally encounter low soil moisture conditions. Under these conditions, rice seeds need to undergo rapid germination and secure emergence through improved water absorption capac...

The effects of soil moisture on the survival of three diazotrophic bacteria species (Azospirillum amazonense, Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus and Azospirillum brasilense) were tested. Soil moisture had little influence on the survival of A. brasilense, which is considered a free-living species. On the other hand, increased soil moisture extended the survival of the endophytes A. amazonense and...

Soil salinization has been known as a world wide problem. It is a chemical process that causes soil degradation particularly in arid and semi-arid agriculture region. There both advantages and disadvantages of optical and microwave remote sensing in the recognition of salinization soil. In order to retrieve both soil salinity and moisture, an empirical method is presented in this paper which is...

Soil moisture is a key limiting resource in arid and semi-arid environments for woody shrub species. We assessed if three arid communities differed in their level of dry season soil moisture content and if the dominant species in these communities differed in their ability to use soil moisture. Water potential of all of the dominant woody plant species occurring in chaparral, coastal sage, and ...

Soil moisture is an important parameter that drives agriculture, climate and hydrological systems. In addition, retrieval of soil moisture is important in the analysis as well as its influence on these systems. Radar imagery is best suited for this retrieval due to its all-weather capability and independence from solar irradiation. Soil moisture retrieval was done for the Malinda Wetland, Tanza...