The population of Earth exceed eight billion in 2022 and it is growing even faster [...]

Actinomycetes are involved in important environmental processes such as the decomposition of organic matter. In this study, we examined the impact of crop rotation on the actinomycetes community colonizing rice straw residues in soil over 3 field seasons by means of Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (DGGE) fingerprinting analysis of actinomycetes 16S rRNA gene fragments amplified from fie...

An off-the-shelf low cost laser sensor was tested and evaluated both in laboratory and field conditions. The sensor identified the angular and straight edges of the laboratory test surface and replicated the straight edge profile with an error of 4%. In field conditions, the sensor identified three types of cut crop edges (wheat, alfalfa and corn) and replicated distinct shapes (triangle, curve...

The integration of local agricultural knowledge deepens the understanding of complex phenomena such as the association between climate variability, crop yields and undernutrition. Participatory Sensing (PS) is a concept which enables laymen to easily gather geodata with standard low-cost mobile devices, offering new and efficient opportunities for agricultural monitoring. This study presents a ...

The challenge of converting global agricultural food, fiber and energy crop cultivation into an ecologically and economically sustainable production process requires the most efficient agricultural management strategies. Development, control and maintenance of these strategies are highly dependent on temporally and spatially continuous information on crop status at the field scale. This paper i...

Crop rows oriented at a right angle to sunlight direction (i.e., east–west within the winter cropping system in Western Australia) may suppress weed growth through greater shading of weeds in the interrow spaces. This was investigated in the districts of Merredin and Beverley, Western Australian (latitudes of 31u and 32uS) from 2002 to 2005 (four trials). Winter grain crops (wheat, barley, cano...

Harrowing is often used to reduce weed competition, generally using a constant intensity across a whole field. The efficacy of weed harrowing in wheat and barley can be optimized, if site-specific conditions of soil, weed infestation and crop growth stage are taken into account. This study aimed to develop and test an algorithm to automatically adjust the harrowing intensity by varying the tine...

Onion thrips, Thrips tabaci Lindeman, colonization of onion fields may be influenced by bordering crop and non-crop habitats. Identifying habitats adjacent to onion fields associated with high T. tabaci infestations would be valuable for improving scouting efforts and management decisions. A 3-year study examined adult T. tabaci colonization patterns within onion fields early (June through earl...