This paper presents some results from a survey carried out in 2004 among 223 olive tree farmers from mountainous areas in the Spanish Southern provinces of Granada and Jaén regarding the adoption of soil conservation and management practices. Olive tree groves in mountainous areas are subject to a high risk of soil erosion and incur a higher cost of soil conservation. This results in greater di...

Arizona is the first state in the nation to regulate agricultural practices in order to reduce dust emissions near urbanizing areas. This BMP program requires dust mitigation actions in some combination of tillage and harvest, crop land, and non-crop land activities. Contingent valuation methods were used to estimate the willingness-to-adopt reduced tillage equipment. At $10-26 per acre in long...

Agricultural and soil management practices have been reported to affect alachlor sorption–desorption and degradation rates. Though alachlor has been banned in the E.U. since 2006, it is still used in U.S. corn and soybean production. The objectives of this study were to: (a) assess differences in alachlor sorption due to tillage treatments (chisel plow and ridge tillage) on soils from three mid...

Quantifying carbon (C) sequestration in paddy soils is necessary to help better understand the effect of agricultural practices on the C cycle. The objective of the present study was to assess the effects of tillage practices [conventional tillage (CT) and no-tillage (NT)] and the application of nitrogen (N) fertilizer (0 and 210 kg N ha(-1)) on fluxes of CH(4) and CO(2), and soil organic C (SO...

Tillage selection is just one of the issues that farmers must address when making crop production decisions. Among the factors that will influence the choice of tillage for a given field is the condition of the residue and soil in the field; the residue management practices needed to meet conservation plan specifications; the tools, time, and money that are available; the need to incorporate am...

There is a global concern about the increase in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. One method being discussed to encourage greenhouse gas mitigation efforts is based on a trading system whereby carbon emitters can buy effective mitigation efforts from farmers implementing conservation tillage practices. These practices sequester carbon from the atmosphere, and such a trading system...

consequence in the plots each year, and no supplemental inoculum of P. herABSTRACT Herrman, T., and Wiese, M. V. 1985. Influence of cultural practices on incidence of foot rot in potrichoides was added. winter wheat. Plant Disease 69:948-950. The three preplant tillage systems evaluated in this study were 1) conCrop rotation, preplant tillage, cultivar selection, nitrogen fertilization, and ben...

Grain legumes convert atmospheric N2 to reactive N through symbiosis with N2-fixing rhizobia. Biological N2 fixation associated with legumes and the subsequent decomposition of legume residues are the primary processes that replenish N removed by harvest in agroecosystems without the addition of fertilizer N (Galloway et al., 1995, Peoples et al., 1995). Therefore, legumes are often included in...

Reducing tillage and growing cover crops, widely recommended practices for boosting soil health, have major impacts on soil communities. Surprisingly little is known about their impacts on soil microbial functional diversity, and especially so in irrigated Mediterranean ecosystems. In long-term experimental plots at the West Side Research and Extension Center in California's Central Valley, we ...

a major concern of farmers is deterioration of the soil and water resources. soil management is the most direct way for mankind to interfere with natural processes that may either intensify or hinder soil degradation. fractal geometry has been widely used to describe heterogeneity in a wide range of natural processes, including physical systems of soil. in this study, the effects of different m...