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A textbook for the upper grades introducing soil science, soil management, and soil and water conservation, including both laboratory and field exercises. ... Read more

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This volume has been designed to impart an understanding of the factors regulating the dynamics of soil organic matter in tropical soils. It is hoped that this will promote research into better means of managing fertility in these soils. ... Read more

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This volume comprises the proceedings of the First International Rehovot Conference on Modern Agriculture and the Environment. It is a unique book, covering the broad spectrum of environmental problems related to agriculture, from chemical pesticides, means to reduce their utilization and some of the main alternatives to their overuse and misuse, through pollution caused by chemical fertilizers, aquaculture and heavy metals, treatment of wastewater, recycling of municipal and agricultural wastes, to modelling and bioremediation of agricultural pollution, as well as economic and policy aspects of natural resources. Illustrated with numerous international case studies, it is intended for agriculturists, researchers, students, policy-makers and environmentalists. ... Read more

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This book is the most up-to-date and comprehensive review ofour knowledge of the management of mycorrhizas in agriculture,horticulture and forestry. It contains twenty-four reviews written byleading international scientists from eight countries. The reviewsconsider the ecology, biology and taxonomy of arbuscular andectomycorrhizal fungi, the information and functioning of mycorrhizasand opportunities for managing these symbioses.
The book will be essential reading for scientists and advisorsresponsible for ensuring that the maximum benefit is obtained frommycorrhizal symbioses in agriculture, horticulture and forestry and inthe reclamation of degraded lands.
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Farmers today are faced with an array of products that they can use to improve the fertility of their lands.Organic soil amendments such as biosolids, manures and, to a lesser extent, Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) composts are products that can be used to supplement or replace mineral fertilizers.Many farmers are aware of the benefits that organic products offer, especially in terms of improved crop yields, increased soil fertility, reduced fertilizer costs, and their overall contribution to sustainable agriculture. Concerns have been raised, however, regarding the safety of organic soil amendments.Depending on the type of product, these can include (but are not limited to) the accumulation of phosphorus and metals in soils, plant uptake of land-applied metals, the contamination of groundwater and soil with organic compounds, and potential health impacts from pathogens and viruses. Although many of these issues have been rigorously researched, data is often published in academic journals and textbooks, and is not necessarily accessible to the public.For all soil amendments, comparative information regarding risks, benefits, advantages, and disadvantages is not always readily available. Equally critical is the lack of accessible comparative data on soil amendment and mineral fertilizer characteristics and use. Recognizing the need to provide a comparison of these products, the Water Environment Research Foundation (WERF) commissioned this multi-year study of soil amendments, fertilizers and their uses.For the study, the project team performed a comprehensive literature survey, reviewing and compiling the results from nearly 500 documents (primarily from academic journals and texts). The study generally found that the relative risk to the environment from amendments and fertilizers varies by parameter and shows that known risks from each of the materials studied can be managed. Moreover, these manageable risks must be carefully weighed against the considerable benefits provided by the land application of amendments and fertilizers. ... Read more

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Phenolic compounds are known to be released into the soil by root exudates and litter inputs thus alterations in foliar and root chemistry have important implications for plant-litter-soil interactions and ecosystem function. The general pathways of phenol biosynthesis are known, but the regulation and controlling factors determining the quality and quantity of phenols in plant tissue remain active and controversial areas of research. Much of the controversy arises because regulating factors at several levels, ranging from intrinsic species- and genotype - specific factors - to various extrinsic environmental factors, may interact with each other resulting in a wide variation of plant polyphenol production among and within species through time and space. Production of secondary compounds in plants may be induced at the level of the phenotype in response to abiotic factors which might additionally affect genotype selection in the long term. Both short-term phenotypic variations and genotype selection at larger time-scale have implication for litter quality input and soil phenol contents.The multitude of intrinsic and extrinsic factors involved in the regulation of plant phenol production is comprehensively discussed here. In this book the authors focus on specific issues and the causes that affect the biosynthesis of plant phenols and, in turn, the composition and concentration of soil phenolic compounds. ... Read more

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This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more