The effect of growth medium and incubation time were investigated by determining the number of colonies that were visible on triplicate plates of three different media on daily intervals. The viable counts were significantly different between the three different media even after the first day and this continued for seven days. Colony counts on the three media reached their maximum on the third ...

Soil is the sink and source of heavy metals (both geogenic and anthropogenic) and plants are the ecosystem regulators, balancing the chemistry of life on earth. However, roots are the only connection between soil and plants, which are the real engineers of ecosystem dynamics responsible for environmental balance and stability. The plant-soil interface termed as ‘rhizosphere’ is a typical zone o...

Surface mining in Appalachia disrupts large areas of forested land. Federal and state laws require disturbed lands be reclaimed by re-constructing the landscape and replacing soil materials to provide a rooting medium. If insufficient quantities of native topsoil are available, substitute materials derived from the overburden may be used as soil media. This study examined soil and foliar nutrie...

In this study, we evaluated the efficiency of two types of biomass residues (fermentation residues from a bioethanol process, FB; brown mill residues from a papermaking process, BM) as amendments for a sandy soil. The characteristics of these residues including specific surface areas, morphologies and nutrient sorption capacity were measured. The effects of biorefinery residues on water and nut...

runoff production process is a key hydrological component illustrating watersheds health. water infiltration in soil is also one of the determinant factors on runoff generation for which many techniques were used to improve it. however, the role of microorganisms for the improvement of water infiltration in soil has been less considered. the present study therefore tried to investigate the effe...

In order to explore the selection of the best auxiliary variables (BAVs) when using the Cokriging method for soil attribute interpolation, this paper investigated the selection of BAVs from terrain parameters, soil trace elements, and soil nutrient attributes when applying Cokriging interpolation to soil nutrients (organic matter, total N, available P, and available K). In total, 670 soil sampl...

This study was conducted to develop fundamental relationships between soil properties from three representative Florida soil orders and their spectral characteristics. The ultimate goal of this work is to develop a real–time soil property sensor for use in effective farm management. A total of 270 samples collected from the three representative soil orders (Alfisol, Entisol, and Ultisol) in Flo...

Environment and seedling community under isolated trees in pastures are different from those in the open pasture. The effect of the pasture trees on the soil nutrients and on the seedling growth were investigated. Seven isolated trees and eight plots were selected in two pastures of 12-yr and 32-yr old derived from a lowland rain forest with nutrient-rich soil at Los Tuxtlas, Mexico. The soil c...

Maintaining the soil chemical fertility is a key prerequisite to sustain crop productivity in the tropics. Several studies perceive that soil fertility decline is widely spread in tropical regions and that it is caused by inadequate nutrient replenishment and high losses as compared to natural ecosystems. Although this has been recognised for some decades, there is a need for hard data on soil ...