Soil health is presented as an integrative property that reflects the capacity of soil to respond to agricultural intervention, so that it continues to support both the agricultural production and the provision of other ecosystem services. The major challenge within sustainable soil management is to conserve ecosystem service delivery while optimizing agricultural yields. It is proposed that so...

We use the Agricultural Sector Model to analyze the economic potential of soil carbon sequestration as one of several agricultural greenhouse gas emission mitigation strategies, including afforestation. For low incentives on carbon emission savings, agricultural soil carbon sequestration is the most cost-efficient strategy. As incentive levels increase above $50 per ton of carbon equivalent, af...

Matthew J. Helmers, associate professor, Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Iowa State University; Xiaobo Zhou, assistant scientist, Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Iowa State University; Heidi Asbjornsen, associate professor, Natural Resource and the Environment, University of New Hampshire; Randy Kolka, soil scientist, USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station; Mark D. Tom...

We characterized soil cation, carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) transformations within a variety of land use types in the karst region of the northeastern Dominican Republic. We examined a range of soil pools and fluxes during the wet and dry seasons in undisturbed forest, regenerating forest and active agricultural sites within and directly adjacent to Los Haitises National Park. Soil moisture, soil...

The objective of this study was to relate earthworm assemblage structure with three different soil use intensities, and to indentify the physical, chemical, and microbiological soil variables that are associated to the observed differences. Three soil uses were evaluated: 1-Fifty year old naturalized grasslands, low use intensity; 2-Recent agricultural fields, intermediate use intensity, and 3-...

In India, agricultural soil has been deteriorated by various on-going practices involving application of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and effluents. Presently, Amritsar (Punjab), an agricultural land, is undergoing rigorous cultivation of wheat and rice crops which consequently increased the application of chemical pesticides and fertilizers for high yield. These agricultural practices are ...

The isotopic composition of methyl bromide (CH3Br) has been suggested to be a potentially useful tracer for constraining the global CH3Br budget. In order to determine the carbon isotopic composition of CH3Br emitted from the most significant anthropogenic application (pre-plant fumigation) we directly measured the δ13C of CH3Br released during commercial fumigation. We also measured the isotop...

Three techniques for treating fish ponds with agricultural limestone were evaluated in ponds with clayey soils in Brazil and in ponds with sandy soils in South Africa. Amounts of agricultural limestone equal to the lime requirement of bottom soils were applied by the following methods to each of three ponds: (1) direct application over the pond surface; (2) spread uniformly over the bottom of t...

In this Crystal Ball we describe the negative effects of the scheme of intensive agriculture of the green revolution technology. To recover the contaminated soils derived from intensive farming is necessary introduce new successful technologies to replace the use of chemical fertilizer and toxic pesticides by organic fertilizers and biological control agents. Our principal speculation is that i...

The transport characteristics of phosphorus in soil and the assessment of its environmental risk have become hot topics in the environmental and agricultural fields. The Sanjiang Plain is an important grain production base in China, and it is characterised by serious land use change caused by large-scale agricultural exploitation. Agricultural inputs and tillage management have destroyed the so...