Early blight of tomato caused by Alternaria solani, is responsible for severe yield losses in tomato. The conidia survive on soil surface and old dry lower leaves of the plant and spread when suitable climatic conditions are available. Macroclimatic study reveals that highest inoculum concentration of Alternaria spores appeared in May 2012 to 2013 and lowest concentration during January 2012 to...

Pot-test experiments were conducted to study the influences of mulching and fertilizing on the migration of heavy metals from soil to Vicia faba (broad bean). Semi-transparent film was used to mulch soil. Swine manure compost was mixed with soil at a rate of 50 mg kg(-1) to fertilize the soil. Broad bean was grown for several months until fruits were formed. Soils and bean parts were sampled to...

There is a continual drive to conserve water and improve irrigation efficiency in agriculture, especially in regions where water resources are limited and regulated. Mulching is one cultural practice which can be used to reduce water needs. Using certain agricultural byproducts as mulch is a sustainable practice which can provide other benefits as well such as improving soil. Wheat straw, grass...

0378-1127/$ see front matter Published by Elsevier http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2012.03.028 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 970 498 1250; fax E-mail address: [email protected] (C.C. Rhoades). Mechanical fuel reduction treatments have been implemented on millions of hectares of western North American forests. The redistribution of standing forest biomass to the soil surface by mulching t...

11 Organic tree fruit producers often rely on tillage in the tree row to control weeds and disrupt 12 rodent pest habitat. This inexpensive practice can potentially damage the trees’ trunk and roots, 13 thereby reducing yield and fruit quality. In contrast, mulching under the trees to suppress weeds 14 often improves tree performance but at a high initial installation cost, whereas flame weedin...

Argentine ant, Linepithema humile (Mayr), management is constrained, in large part, by polydomy where nestmates are distributed extensively across urban landscapes, particularly within mulch. Management with trap-mulching is a novel approach derived from trap-cropping where ants are repelled from a broad domain of nest sites to smaller defined areas, which are subsequently treated with insectic...

Soil and water conservation measures can impact hydrological cycle, but quantitative analysis of this impact is still difficult in a watershed scale. To assess the effect quantitatively, a three-dimensional finite-difference groundwater flow model (MODFLOW) with a surface runoff model-the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) were calibrated and applied based on the artificial rainfall experiments. T...

Field experiments were conducted on-farm in the forest zone of Ghana to determine the effects of stubble mulch (in-situ residues from Mucuna pruriens var utilis or natural grass fallow) and method of land preparation on the yield of dry season tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum). Land preparation methods studied were slash burn and ridge; ridge and mulching with the existing residue; and zero till...

There is much interest in the role that agricultural practices might play in sequestering carbon to help offset rising atmospheric CO₂ concentrations. However, limited information exists regarding the potential for increased carbon sequestration of different management strategies. The objective of this study was to quantify and contrast carbon dioxide exchange in traditional non-mulching with f...

The ridge and furrow farming system for rainfall concentration (RC) has gradually been popularized to improve the water availability for crops and to increase the water use efficiency (WUE), thereby stabilizing high yields. In the RC system, plastic-covered ridges are rainfall harvesting zones and furrows are planting zones. In this study, we optimized the mulching patterns for RC planting to m...