The impact of multiple-year (0–5 years) cultivation of transgenic Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton on the functional bacterial populations in rhizosphere soil was investigated. The transgenic Bt ? CpTI cotton line SGK321 and a non-Bt cotton line Shiyuan321 were planted in four fields in which Bt cotton had been continuously cultivated for 0, 1, 3, and 5 years. Rhizosphere soil samples were co...

We conducted a glasshouse mesocosm study that combined (13)C isotope techniques with wild-type and transgenic aspen (Populus tremuloides) in order to examine how altered lignin biosynthesis affects plant production and soil carbon formation. Our transgenic aspen lines expressed low stem lignin concentration but normal cellulose concentration, low lignin stem concentration with high cellulose co...

A numerical study was conducted using the discrete element method (DEM) to investigate the performance and mobility impacts of rough terrain operation for small unmanned ground vehicles. The DEM simulation was validated using experimental data from two types of single-wheel tests previously published in the literature: straight-line locomotion over flat, level soil, and wheel-digging. Results f...

High-frequency electromagnetic (HF-EM) measurement techniques, e.g. dielectric spectroscopy, give inside into soil physical properties which are related to soil/water interactions such as the soil water characteristics. The open-ended coaxial line technique offers a non destructive determination of dielectric spectra of fine grained soil. In this study, a commercially available Agilent high tem...

Host suitability of commercial sunflower hybrids to Pratylenchus zeae was studied in the field and greenhouse. For comparison, one maize and one grain sorghum inbred line, both susceptible to P. zeae, were included in the greenhouse experiments. Pratylenchus zeae densities extracted from the roots of sunflower hybrids grown in naturally infested soil were low. In the first greenhouse experiment...

Uranium oxide particles were dispersed into the environment from a factory in Colonie (NY, USA) by prevailing winds during the 1960s and '70s. Uranium concentrations and isotope ratios from bulk soil samples have been accurately measured using inductively coupled plasma quadrupole mass spectrometry (ICP-QMS) without the need for analyte separation chemistry. The natural range of uranium concent...

The Archaeorhizomycetes are recently discovered fungi with poorly resolved ecology. Even their abundance in soil fungal communities is currently disputed. Here we applied a PCR-independent, RNA-based metatranscriptomic approach to determine their abundance among fungi in eleven different soils across Europe. Using small subunit (SSU) ribosomal RNA transcripts as marker, we detected Archaeorhizo...

The incorporation of biosolids to soil is a strategy aiming at the re-location of these materials in the environment with a useful end: soil fertilization. In this work, the response of two Argiudoll soils (one with more than 100 years of agriculture and the other, a virgin one) to biosolid incorporation was studied under laboratory conditions. To measure this response, soil enzymatic biodescri...

One of the most common methods to measure soil mechanical properties (namely cohesion and internal friction angle) is direct shear box test. In this paper the development of a three-dimensional (3D) discrete element soil model for simulation of a cohesive soil’s direct shear test is presented. The aim was to calibrate the properties of the Hertz-Mindlin with bonding contact model available in E...