64 Books found
Springer-Verlag GmbH Books
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Advances in Integrated Soil Fertility Management in sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges and Opportunities
Food insecurity is a central concern and a fundamental challenge for human welfare and economic growth in Africa. Low agricultural production, results in low incomes, poor nutrition, vulnerability to risks and lack of empowerment. Land degradation and soil fertility depletion are considered the major threats to food security and natural resource conservation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Investments in technology, policy and institutional reforms ...
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Advances in Plant and Animal Boron Nutrition
Boron is one of the essential micronutrients for higher plants growth and development, and more and more studies have been conducted to establish boron as an essential element in animals and humans. This book reviews all aspects of boron research in recent years and is based on the Third International Symposium on all Aspects of Plant and Animal Boron Nutrition which was held in Wuhan, P.R. China. The following issues are discussed: boron ...
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Allelopathy in Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry
Simply put, allelopathy refers to an ecological phenomenon of plant-plant interference through release of organic chemicals (allelochemicals) in the environment. These chemicals can be directly and continuously released by the donor plants in their immediate environment as volatiles in the air or root exudates in soil or they can be the microbial degradation products of plant residues. The chemicals may interfere with survival and growth of ...
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Amazonian Dark Earths
Amazonian Dark Earths are not only a testament to the vanished civilizations of the Amazon Basin, but may provide the answer to how the large, sophisticated societies were able to sustain intensive agriculture in an environment with mostly infertile soils. Locally known as Terra Preta de Indio or Indian black earth, these anomalous soils are even today fertile and highly productive. Though clearly associated with pre-European settlements ...
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Amazonian Dark Earths: Wim Sombroek´s Vision
Amazonian soils are almost universally thought of as extremely forbidding. However, it is now clear that complex societies with large, sedentary populations were present for over a millennium before European contact. Associated with these are tracts of anomalously fertile, dark soils termed ‘terra preta’ or dark earths. These soils are presently an important agricultural resource within Amazonia and provide a model for developing long-term ...
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Biological Nitrogen Fixation: Towards Poverty Alleviation through Sustainable Agriculture
This volume covers recent developments in both fundamental and applied research in biological nitrogen fixation. It emphasizes the application of biological nitrogen fixation for sustainable agriculture, which should lead to poverty alleviation, environmental protection, and good agricultural practices generally. The roles of, and advances in, plant breeding, plant molecular biology, nodule physiology, and symbiotic and associative interactions ...
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Boron in Plant and Animal Nutrition
This book comprises the contributions of the international workshop Boron 2001 which was aimed at gathering all relevant information on recent developments in boron research in soils, plants, animal and men over the past years. Review articles and original contributions deal with both applied and basic aspects in this area, comprising topics such as methods for B determination, the physiological functions of boron in plant and animal ...
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Cash Crop Halophytes Recent Studies
The last decade has witnessed a sharp increase in losses of arable land from salinisation. In Europe this is especially hard for the farmers in the Mediterranean countries where irrigation farming is very common and many fields have reached a soil salinity level which prevents farmers from raising common crops. This is a world wide problem in dry and semi-dry tropical regions. The losses in soil fertility in certain regions is so severe that ...
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Cities between Competitiveness and Cohesion
The central aim of many analyses in population studies and demography is to explain cause-effect relationships among variables or events. For decades, population scientists have concentrated their efforts on estimating the “causes of effects” (e.g. “What accounts for the decline of fertility rates?”) by applying standard cross-sectional and dynamic regression techniques, with regression coefficients routinely being understood as estimates of ...
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Double Fertilization
"Double Fertilization" provides a comprehensive overview of all aspects of this central event in the reproduction and development of flowering plants. Written by Val Raghavan, The Ohio State University, an acknowledged expert in plant developmental biology, the book vividly describes the molecular and cellular steps of the unique and complex fertilization process that culminates in the formation of embryo and endosperm, focusing on the latest ...
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Endosperm
The nutritive endosperm of angiosperms is mankind’s most important source of food, livestock feed and industrial raw material. This book is the first comprehensive overview of the developmental and molecular biology of endosperm. The text covers cereal endosperm development from fertilization to maturity, including molecular and cell biology of the syncytial phase, the cellularization process and cell fate specification of the embryo ...
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Genetic Engineering, Biofertilisation, Soil Quality and Organic Farming
Sustainable agriculture is a rapidly growing field aiming at producing food and energy in a sustainable way for humans and their children. Sustainable agriculture is a discipline that addresses current issues such as climate change, increasing food and fuel prices, poor-nation starvation, rich-nation obesity, water pollution, soil erosion, fertility loss, pest control, and biodiversity depletion. Novel, environmentally-friendly solutions are ...
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Microbes at Work
Among the goals of environmentally sound waste treatment is the recycling of organic wastes. The most practiced options are composting and anaerobic digestion, both processes being carried out by microorganisms. This book provides an overview of the various ways microbes are doing their job and gives the reader an impression of their potential. The sixteen chapters of this book summarize the advantages and disadvantages of treatment processes, ...
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Molecular Biology and Biotechnology of Plant Organelles
Plant organelles have intrigued biologists since the discovery of their endosymbiontic origin and maternal inheritance. The first application of organelle biotechnology was the role of cytoplasmic male sterility in hybrid seed production and "Green Revolution". In modern times, plant organelles are again leading the way for the creation of genetically modified crops. On a global scale, 75% of GM crops are engineered for herbicide resistance and ...
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Nitrogen Cycling in the Americas: Natural and Anthropogenic Influences and Controls
The rate of creation of reactive nitrogen (NR) on the earth has dramatically increased in the last half century mainly due to the production of N-fertilizer through the Haber-Bosch process, fossil fuel combustion, and the cultivation of plants that fix N from the atmosphere. The anthropogenic production of NR has been especially high in developed countries of the temperate zone, such as the USA and Canada, where severe eutrophication of ...
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Physiology of Cotton
Cotton production today is not to be undertaken frivolously if one expects to profit by its production. If cotton production is to be sustainable and produced profitably, it is essential to be knowledgeable about the growth and development of the cotton plant and in the adaptation of cultivars to the region as well as the technology available. In addition, those individuals involved in growing cotton should be familiar with the use of management ...
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Plant Developmental Biology - Biotechnological Perspectives
Understanding the mechanisms whereby plant development is regulated is crucial for crop improvement using genetic engineering. This work, comprising two volumes, reviews recent advances in plant developmental biology and explores the possibility of their practical applications from biotechnological perspectives. Volume 1 deals with the plant model and its life cycle. Topics include the formation of shoots, roots, flowers and gametes, pollen ...
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Plant Nitrogen
Jointly published with INRA, Paris.This book covers all aspects of the transfer of nitrogen from the soil and air to a final resting place in the seed protein of a crop plant. It describes the physiological and molecular mechanisms of ammonium and nitrate transport and assimilation, including symbiotic nitrogen fixation by the Rhizobiacea. Amino acid metabolism and nitrogen traffic during plant growth and development and details of protein ...
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Plant Nutrition of Greenhouse Crops
Plant nutrition in greenhouse cultivation differs in many essential aspects from field crops and justified the development of a special publication on this subject. The high productions realised and the specific produce quality requirements ensure high uptakes of nutrients and a careful tuning of the application. The covering with glass or plastic is responsible for specific climatic conditions, which in modern greenhouse can be fully adjusted ...
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Principles of Plant Nutrition
This is the 5th edition of a well-established book Principles of Plant Nutrition which was first published in 1978. The same format is maintained as in previous editions with the primary aim of the authors to consider major processes in soils and plants that are of relevance to plant nutrition.This new edition gives an up-to-date account of the scientific advances of the subject by making reference to about 2000 publications. An ...