Agriculture Insurance Articles
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Fungal diseases are on the rise. Is environmental change to blame?
Scientists and physicians are looking for clues to a worrying increase in fungal infections and exploring ways to reduce the threat. Fungi are everywhere — from the mushrooms that decompose fallen logs in the forest, to the mold that grows in your bathtub, to the microscopic fungal cells that reside naturally on your skin. Scientists estimate there are 1.5 million species of fungi on the ...
By Ensia
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Glasshouse hygiene - the importance of staying clean
The nature of ornamental crops will mean plants are often in production for a long time, which can result in pest and disease carry over; so, it’s crucial that growers employ a rigorous hygiene and disinfection routine between crops. Start clean Starting the season with remnants of inoculum in the glasshouse, means growers are already on the backfoot, as the growing environment will always ...
By Certis UK
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Different Banana Drying Processes
Bananas are highly perishable due to their high moisture content and therefore very susceptible to postharvest losses during handling, transportation and storage. Thus, it is of great importance to use an appropriate process method to reduce the losses. Drying process is one of alternative ways to preserve the food quality and increase its value. The objective is the removal of water to a level ...
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Higher grape yield, lower costs and better wine - Case Study
Company: Summerhill Road Vineyard Location: Bungendore, Australia Product: Agrilaser Autonomic Reason: Grape damage due to birds In use since: March 2016 Situation before The Summerhill Road vineyard, located within the Canberra Wine District of Australia, grows grapes for the purpose of producing premium quality, cool-climate wines. Birds, such as Starlings, Cockatoos, Currawong, Crows, ...
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Seasonal slug pressure warning – crops at greater risk
Crops face a greater risk of slug damage and if left untreated, this can become extremely expensive for farmers, and is estimated to cost the potato industry up to £53 million per year*, as any slug damage reduces saleability and ultimately profitability of a crop. Slugs are most damaging to potatoes during the early stages of tuber bulking, which is starting to happen now. So make sure ...
By Certis UK
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Birds are not the only carriers of Avian Influenza
Global poultry production has more than quadrupled since 1970, with the United States leading the flock. However, due to the rising demand for chicken and other poultry, avian influenza, or ‘bird flu,’ outbreaks have occurred at an accelerated rate, causing concern across the agricultural industry. Most alarmingly is the fact that the 2014 bird flu virus killed nearly 50 million ...
By Bird-X Inc.
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Benefits of ethylene removal in the conservation of peaches and nectarines - Case Study
A recently-published scientific article has shown the benefits of ethylene removal with Bioconservacion technology for the quality and shelf life of peaches and nectarines. The main causes of post-harvest losses of peaches and nectarines include metabolic changes, reduced firmness of the flesh, mechanical damage and physiological disorders (internal browning). Peaches and nectarines are ...
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Benefits of Ethylene Removal in the Conservation of Peaches and Nectarines.
A recently-published scientific article has shown the benefits of ethylene removal with Bioconservacion technology for the quality and shelf life of peaches and nectarines. The main causes of post-harvest losses of peaches and nectarines include metabolic changes, reduced firmness of the flesh, mechanical damage and physiological disorders (internal browning). Peaches and nectarines are ...
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Effect of ethylene on fruits and vegetables rotting
In the latest edition of Bioconservacion's Partner Meeting with all its partners from the post-harvest sector, we had the good fortune to have Professor Emeritus Ron Wills from the University of Newcastle in Australia. Dr Wills, with over 50 years experience researching agronomy, agriculture and post-harvest techniques is undoubtedly a leader in the sector and one of the great experts on ...
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African grey parrots and their discovered decline
Amongst parrots, the African Grey ranks pretty high in popularity. From its obvious-colored coat to its intellectual capacity, these beautiful birds generate large demand around the world. Throughout the lands of West and Central Africa (especially in Ghana), the African Greys had once appeared by hundreds. That can no longer be said today as the parrots have almost completely disappeared from ...
By Bird-X Inc.
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Can bats reduce nut farmers’ pesticide use?
Ecologist Katherine Ingram is on a quest to quantify the economic value of insect-eating bats in walnut groves. For the past three years, Katherine Ingram has had a most unusual summer job: catching bats and studying their droppings to see what they eat. A doctoral student in ecology at the University of California, Davis, Ingram is exploring the role bats can play as winged soldiers in the ...
By Ensia
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Can Latin America do palm oil right?
As western hemisphere oil palm plantations boom, environmentalists eye ways to avoid repeating the devastation in Southeast Asia. What do soap, Ben & Jerry’s and Kit Kat bars have in common? They all contain palm oil — produced by the oil palm tree. Native to West Africa, oil palm has been planted throughout the tropics to provide a source of this increasingly in-demand ...
By Ensia
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Crop gene banks are preserving the future of agriculture. But who’s preserving them?
As climate change makes crop diversity even more important, gene banks struggle to stay afloat. During the past few years of civil war in Syria, rebel fighters have destroyed Shia mosques and Christian graves, and burned and looted Christian churches while the Islamic State group has demolished priceless artifacts in the region. Nothing seemed sacred to the disparate groups vying for control of ...
By Ensia
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Could traditional plants hold the secret to saving crops from pests?
Researchers build on age-old practices to reduce food loss in Africa Without any effort at all, Hawa Saidi Ibura crushes dried beans, one at a time, between her fingers outside her home in Endagaw, a village in northern Tanzania. She’s holding a basket of a type of red bean eaten all over East Africa, but these beans are skeletons of what they once were. She harvested them from her farm ...
By Ensia
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The wealth of forests
The day I first set foot in a tropical rainforest, in Malaysia in the early 1980s, I experienced something profound. From the echoes of gibbons calling from the canopy in the early morning mist to the iridescent flash of a bird in a beam of sunlight, rainforests are a sensory delight as well as a marvel to anyone’s scientific curiosity. As I subsequently watched these forests dwindle and, ...
By SciDev.Net
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First attempt to measure rainfall canopy interception loss, throughfall, and stemflow in Juglans regia Linn and Cup. Sempervirens L. Var. fastigiata in the north of Iran
Each individual tree significantly alters the growth of surrounding vegetation by partitioning of rainfall and nutrients to the rooting zone. The Iranian Hyrcanian forests are among one of the most fragile ecosystems of the country owing to large industrial activities for logging and extensive urbanisation. These may accelerate disturbing of this unique type of forest. Of concern currently is an ...
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Developing a forest naturalness indicator for Europe - Concept and methodology for a high nature value (HNV) forest indicator
Background In Europe, forests cover around 40 % of the land area (190 million ha), making Europe one of the most forest-rich regions in the world. Forests are important habitats for many species of wildlife. Yet, forestry can also have negative impacts on biodiversity as unsustainable forest operations can lead to forest degradation and loss of biodiversity. In more recent times increased land ...
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Risk considerations in the economic assessment of low–input crop production techniques: an example from Swiss wheat production
The role of risks in the adoption of low–input wheat production in Switzerland is investigated using farm–level panel data. Due to governmental support with environmental payments, low–input wheat production is found to be on average more profitable. However, low–input production is also more risky, in particular due to higher yield variability. The here presented analysis reveals that these ...
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Cheap chemicals entice caterpillar-eating wasps to crops
It may be a win-win situation: treating seeds with commercially available growth promoters before planting could have the added benefit of attracting parasitic wasps that feed on caterpillar pests, suggests a study. The protective effect of these cheap, commercially available chemicals, known as ‘plant strengtheners’, can help protect young crops when they are particularly vulnerable ...
By SciDev.Net
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FORMA: A Near-Real Time Alert System for Tropical Forest Loss
If you were the administrator of a protected forest, you would ideally have a staff of rangers on patrol, backed up by law enforcement and high-resolution satellite images to keep you up-to-date on the forest’s condition. In this ideal world, illegal activity would quickly be halted. Yet the reality is that many protected areas lack these resources. Updated maps of forest damage can take ...
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