water productivity index is one of the main factors in efficient use of water for agricultural products. in this study, the rate of water productivity (wp) in six irrigated tea fields and three rainfed (no irrigation) were assessed by farmer’s management for two years (2009-2010). yield of each tea field in successive harvests, soil moisture monitoring by gravimetric soil and use of water balan...

wild boar is distributed throughout iran except highly arid areas. in recent years, however, population size of wild boar has increased primarily because of reduction in population size of natural predators such as leopard. conversely, changes in land-use practices and increase in foraging of livestock in natural habitats has led to reduction of food resources and consequently, has forced the s...

Introduction: Bats are threatened by agricultural intensification, and although bat ecology in agricultural landscapes is in the focus of current research, the effects of interacting spatiotemporal factors on species-specific bat activity above farmland remain understudied. Our aim was to identify spatiotemporal factors and their interactions relevant for the activity of bat species above conve...

BACKGROUND Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) or kala-azar cases in seasonal labour migrants from highland areas are addressed to travel history to the Metema-Humera lowlands, northwestern Ethiopia. Factors that affect the incidence of VL in extra-domestic habitats were not evaluated. The aim of this study was to evaluate sero-prevalence of Leishmania donovani infection in randomly selected labour mig...

the main objective of present paper was to study the validity of agricultural extension indices for ranking iranian provinces in terms of extension and education activities. the study was carried out in two phases. in phase one through review of literature, 137 extension-education indices were identified. the indices were classified in seven fields as following: 1) indices of extension workers,...

Weed seed predation by invertebrates and vertebrates was compared between a simple (large crop fields embedded in a matrix of widely scattered woodlots and hedgerows) and a complex (small crop fields embedded in a matrix of numerous hedgerows and woodlots) agricultural landscape in southern Michigan. The structural differences between landscapes were evaluated by analysis of aerial photographs ...

Agricultural soil is the largest source of nitrous oxide (N2O), a greenhouse gas. Soybean is an important leguminous crop worldwide. Soybean hosts symbiotic nitrogen-fixing soil bacteria (rhizobia) in root nodules. In soybean ecosystems, N2O emissions often increase during decomposition of the root nodules. Our previous study showed that N2O reductase can be used to mitigate N2O emission from s...

Abstract The phenylurea herbicides are an important group of pesticides used extensively for pre- or post-emergence weed control in cotton, fruit and cereal crops worldwide. The detection of phenylurea herbicides and their metabolites in surface and ground waters has raised the awareness of the important role played by agricultural soils in determining water quality. The degradation of phenylur...

Constructed wetlands used to mitigate pesticide runoff from agricultural fields into receiving systems (e.g., lakes, rivers, streams) have been successful in reducing concentrations of non-point source pollutants such as agricultural insecticides (Moore et al., 2002; Leistra et al., 2003; Bouldin et al., 2005). Such wetlands also have important functions in enhancing the water quality and ecolo...

Short-rotation hardwood plantations generally require repeated applications of nitrogen (N) fertilizer to maintain desired growth and are being installed on two previous land uses: agricultural fields and cutover forest lands. Because the soil organic matter chemistry is different between agricultural field and cutover soils, indices of N availability developed for one land use or the other may...