Showing results for: agriculture soil News
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Integrating animal and crop production can reduce nutrient leaching from agricultural fields
Nutrient leaching, the movement of plant nutrients from soil to water, can have negative effects on aquatic ecosystems due to eutrophication, which reduces the oxygen available in water, causing species and habitat loss. Ecological Recycling Agriculture (ERA), which is based on ecological principles and integrates crop production and animal husbandry, may limit this effect. This study ...
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Effects of chemical fertiliser and animal manure on soil health compared
Fertilising crops with cattle manure can lead to better soil quality than when synthetic fertiliser is used, recent research indicates. The use of cattle manure in the study led to greater soil fertility by encouraging higher microbial activity, and the researchers suggest that it could potentially improve soil’s ability to cope with periods of difficult growing conditions. The complex ...
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Comparing N2O emissions from organic and mineral fertilisers
A recent study compares the effects of organic, 'natural' fertilisers, such as compost, with mineral, synthetic fertilisers, such as urea, on N2O emissions from Mediterranean soil. It suggests that there is little difference between the fertilisers, but that pig slurry offers the best overall balance in terms of emissions and crop yield. Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a powerful greenhouse gas (GHG). ...
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Living mulch, organic fertilizer tested on broccoli
Cover crops provide many benefits to agricultural production systems, including soil and nutrient retention, resources and habitat for beneficial organisms, and weed suppression. In regions where short growing seasons can hinder the establishment of productive cover crops between cash crop growing periods, living mulch systems may provide vegetable crop growers with opportunities to establish ...
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World Soil Day hails symbiotic role of pulses to boost sustainable agriculture
Soil and pulses can make major contributions to the challenge of feeding the world's growing population and combating climate change, especially when deployed together, according to Soils and Pulses: Symbiosis for Life, a new report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization released on World Soil Day. "Soils and pulses embody a unique symbiosis that protects the environment, enhances ...
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Microbes play important role in soil’s nitrogen cycle
Under our feet, in the soil, is a wealth of microbial activity. Just like humans have different metabolisms and food choices, so do those microbes. In fact, microbes play an important role in making nutrients available to plants. A recent review paper from Xinda Lu and his team looks at different roles that various soil microbes have in soil’s nitrogen cycle. Lu is a researcher at ...
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Be kind to soil - TerraIndex
In the 40’s in post-war Japan an agricultural scientist turned his back on conventional practices and started an interesting experiment. Masanobu Fukuoka wanted to try agriculture the natural way; without ploughing, without herbicides and pesticides, and even without excessive weeding of his fields. The result? The crops seemed to be stronger and more resilient, and his costs to produce ...
By TerraIndex
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Soaring prices and climate change expose fertilisers as environmentally unsustainable
As oil and gas prices rise so does the price of artificial chemical fertilisers - the lynch-pin of industrial agriculture’s claims to be ‘efficient’. In the UK, the price of nitrogen fertiliser has doubled over the past year to around £330 per tonne. With oil currently at over $130 a barrel and with OPEC warning it could reach $200 by the end of the year, it has been suggested that fertilisers ...
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Maryland, Michigan Farmers Keep Soil, Environment Healthy
As farming practices increasingly attract interest from the general public, two farmers are ensuring they meet public approval. They use proven management practices that focus on improving soil quality and maintaining a quality natural environment. In fact, getting the right nutrients to where they belong and in the right amounts when they’re needed enables them to improve yields while ...
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The secret, dirty cost of Obama`s green power push
The hills of southern Iowa bear the scars of America's push for green energy: The brown gashes where rain has washed away the soil. The polluted streams that dump fertilizer into the water supply. Even the cemetery that disappeared like an apparition into a cornfield. It wasn't supposed to be this way. With the Iowa political caucuses on the horizon in 2007, presidential candidate Barack Obama ...
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