The present study was conducted to examine photosynthetic characteristics of three dominant grass species (Agropyron cristatum, Leymus chinensis, and Cleistogenes squarrosa) and their responses to burning and nitrogen fertilization in a semiarid grassland in northern China. Photosynthetic rate (P(n)), stomatal conductance (g(s)), and water use efficiency (WUE) showed strong temporal variability...

The effect of fertilization in the first growing season on early survival and growth of narrow-leaved ash (NLA) (Fraxinus angustifolia ssp. oxycarpa) was evaluated throughout the first 3 years of growth in Adapazari, Turkey. A randomized complete block design with four replications was established to investigate fertilization effects. Granular N urea [46%, (NH2)2CO, NH2-N] and NPK (15/15/15%; N...

Nitrogen (N) addition enhances primary productivity of terrestrial ecosystems. However, the effects of N fertilization and/or deposition on net ecosystem CO2 exchange (NEE) are not fully understood. The effects of N on NEE were investigated in two experimental cheatgrass ecosystems in Ecologically Controlled Enclosed Lysimeter Laboratories (EcoCELLs), Reno, Nevada. In this experiment, no N fert...

In order to discover the advantages and disadvantages of different fertilization regimes and identify the best management practice of fertilization in greenhouse fields, soil enzyme activities involved in carbon (C) transformations, soil chemical characteristics, and crop yields were monitored after long-term (20-year) fertilization regimes, including no fertilizer (CK), 300 kg N ha-1 and 600 k...

The effect of different systems of N fertilization on nitrogen balance and N transformation in the soil was studied in long-term stationary experiments (1991–2002) with successive growing of maize. Average dry matter yield for the control without fertilization in the period 1991–2002 was 11.67 t of dry matter per ha, which was by 2–2.9 t less than for fertilization treatments. Statistically sig...

BACKGROUND Failed fertilization post-ICSI has been mainly attributed to the sperm's inability to induce oocyte activation. Phospholipase C zeta (PLCζ) is considered to be one of the factors for the induction of oocyte activation. The aim of this study was to quantitatively assess the expression of PLCζ in globozoospermic men or those with previously low or failed fertilization in comparison wit...

Maize crop production is constrained worldwide by nitrogen (N) availability and particularly in poor tropical and subtropical soils. The development of affordable high-throughput crop monitoring and phenotyping techniques is key to improving maize cultivation under low-N fertilization. In this study several vegetation indices (VIs) derived from Red-Green-Blue (RGB) digital images at the leaf an...

The use of sprinkler irrigation for rice (Oryza sativa L.) crop is a relatively recent practice in Brazil. Therefore, crop soil and fertilization management are still not very well defined. Another problem is the inexistence of specific cultivars adapted to this cropping system. This study aimed to evaluate sprinklerirrigated upland rice cultivars under different soil management practices and n...

With the introduction of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), couples with severe male factor infertility have achieved fertilization and clinical pregnancy rates comparable to other in-vitro fertilization (IVF) patients. However, failure of fertilization still occurs in some patients despite the utilization of microsurgical sperm injection techniques. How such fertilization failure after I...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are considered both ecologically and physiologically important to many plant communities. As a result, any alteration in AMF community structure following soil nitrogen (N) enrichment may impact plant community function and contribute to widespread changes in grassland productivity. We evaluated the responses of AMF communities to N fertilization ( 100 kg N ha...