Organic agricultural systems are often assumed to be more sustainable than conventional farming, yet there has been little work comparing surface water quality from organic and conventional production, especially under the same cropping sequence. Our objective was to compare nutrient and sediment losses, as well as sweet corn ( L. var. ) yield, from organic and conventional production with conv...

Fresh basil (Ocimum basilicum) leaves contain chicoric acid, which is the principal phenolic compound in Echinacea purpurea and purportedly an active ingredient in dietary supplements derived from E. purpurea. Here the concentrations of chicoric acid in dried and fresh basil products available to consumers, and how these concentrations compare to those from E. purpurea are reported. A wide rang...

Evolutionary theory can be applied to improve agricultural yields and/or sustainability, an approach we call Evolutionary Agroecology. The basic idea is that plant breeding is unlikely to improve attributes already favored by millions of years of natural selection, whereas there may be unutilized potential in selecting for attributes that increase total crop yield but reduce plants' individual ...

Agriculture plays one of the most important role in economy and therefore lowering the costs and improving the quality of agricultural products is highly demanded. A weed is a plant which grows in wrong place at the wrong time and doing more harm than good. Weed competes with the crops for water, light, nutrients and space, and therefore it reduces crop yields. In olden method, the weeds can be...

Intercropping is a sustainable practice to achieve higher production with the aim to limit external inputs. A field experiment was conducted at the research farm of the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Maragheh, Maragheh, Iran, during 2016 growing seasons with ten treatments to evaluate the yield, analyze the competition and insect’s assemblages in sunflower (as main plant)/soybean (as com...

On-farm production of protein is limited in most dairy farm operations in arid and semi-arid environments. Cereal-legume intercropping could be a viable option to obtain forage with higher protein content. A two-year experiment was conducted during 2009 and 2010 growing seasons in a loamy soil to determine whether intercropping pattern of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) and annual medic (Medica...

Low-external-input (LEI) cropping systems that include forage legumes and small grains in addition to corn (Zea mays L.) and soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] can achieve similar or higher crop productivity and economic return than conventional corn-soybean rotations. We hypothesized that this rotation effect occurs regardless of the crop genotype planted and the herbicide and cultivation regime...

Bioreduction of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) from silver ions (Ag) using water extract of Thai basil leaf was successfully carried out. The basil leaf extract provided a reducing agent and stabilizing agent for a synthesis of metal nanoparticles. Silver nanoparticles received from cut and uncut basil leaf was compared. The resulting silver nanoparticles are characterized by UV-Vis spectroscopy....

Cropping intensity is one of the major factors in crop production and agricultural intensification. A new double-cropping croplands mapping methodology using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) time series datasets through continuous wavelet transform was proposed in this study. This methodology involved four steps. First, daily continuous MODIS Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)...

Botanical insecticides are increasingly attracting research attention as they offer novel modes of action that may provide effective control of pests that have already developed resistance to conventional insecticides. They potentially offer cost-effective pest control to smallholder farmers in developing countries if highly active extracts can be prepared simply from readily available plants. ...