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The use of biological control agents has been increasing worldwide and there are now many companies mass-producing such organisms, particularly for the control of insect pests. However, there is a great need for quality control in the production and use of these natural enemies, which include insect parasitoids and predators, fungi and viruses. This book has been written by leading scientists from Europe and North America to provide both background theory and practical guidance on this subject. ... Read more

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Irrigation is one of the most important human activities sustaining civilization. On average, irrigated crop yields are double those from unirrigated land. It has been estimated that to meet the needs of the 8 billion population by 2025, the irrigated area must expand more than 20% and irrigated crop yields must improve by 40% above current yields. The issues and the newest technologies are compiled in comprehensive chapters to facilitate efficient, sustainable, economical, and environmentally responsible irrigation. Contributors are scientists at the forefront of this important multifaceted area. Their diverse backgrounds in irrigation cover the broad spectrum of the science of irrigating crop plants. Subjects discussed include the latest information on monitoring technology, efficiency, and specific information tailored to individual crops.

Also available:

Dryland Agriculture, Second Edition - ISBN 0891181601
Soybeans: Improvement, Production, and Uses, Third Edition - ISBN 0891181547

The American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America are prominent international scientific societies headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin. The Societies specialize in peer-reviewed, high-quality science titles for a wide variety of audiences.
Some of the many areas we publish in include:

-Soils Methods and Management
-Crop Development and Improvement
-Agrosystem Management and the Global Food Crisis
-Environmental Conservation and Climatology ... Read more

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In common with other titles in this series, this volume describes the scientific principles that are the bases of crop production practices. This volume focuses on the leafy salad vegetables lettuce, endive and chicory. It opens with a review of world production data, crop uses, botany, taxonomy and evolution. It then describes the genetics and breeding of the crop, including cultivar development and germplasm resources. Physiological aspects, such as germination, growth and development, are then discussed. Production methods worldwide, including growing under cover in protected environments, are reviewed, before consideration of harvesting and seeds, pests and diseases, and economics and marketing. The book is written by one of the worlds leading authorities on the subject and will be indispensable for advanced students and growers in horticulture. ... Read more

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Pesticide Interactions in Crop Production: Beneficial and Deleterious Effects evaluates the effects of pesticides on plants by exploring the physical, chemical, biological, and ecological interactions of pesticides that influence a crop. The effects of pesticides on the environment and on the crop pests themselves are considered as well. Specific topics addressed include iatrogenic responses, the fate of pesticides applied to cereals under field conditions, the persistance of pesticides on target crops, the effect of pesticides on soil symbionts, and the role of ecological agriculture on conventional and organic cropping systems.

Pesticide Interactions in Crop Production: Beneficial and Deleterious Effects will be an important volume for agriculturalists, phytologists, mycologists, soil biologists, plant pathologists, tropical ecologists, arboriculturalists, and other researchers interested in the effects of pesticides on crops and soil. ... Read more

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A handy guide on crops of international importance

The Handbook of Industrial Crops is a comprehensive exploration of 12 important agricultural components of economy and export trade. The book examines the aspects of cultivation and trade in addition to the available information on the evolution and adaptation of each agricultural crop. With this extensive resource, you get detailed, up-to-date information on each species’ origin and botany, cultivation and harvest, and prospective future of available production and demand to set you up for higher production and sales.

The Handbook of Industrial Crops focuses on such commercial crops as:

arecanut

cashew

cocoa

coconut

coffee

palm oil

palmyrah

rubber

tea

wattle

In the Handbook of Industrial Crops, you will gain a better understanding of the industries these cash crops are grown for, including:

food—such as edible oils, nuts, beverages, or flavorings

latex

resins and lubricants

drugs and nutraceuticals

timber

With the Handbook of Industrial Crops, you will gain extensive knowledge from the world’s leading experts in plantation crops and individual species. The book supplies the most recent statistics in world production, yields, and income potential. In this manual, you’ll find numerous references, tables, and figures, along with contact information for research centers, organizations, and government entities to help you further. ... Read more

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Many different mathematical and statistical methods are essential in crop modeling. They are necessary in the development, analysis and application of crop models. Up to now, however, there has been no single source where crop modelers could learn about these methods. Furthermore, these methods are often described in other contexts and their application to crop modeling is not always straightforward.

This book aims at making a large range of relevant mathematical and statistical methods accessible to crop modelers. Each methodology chapter starts from basic principles and simple applications and builds gradually to state-of-the-art methods. Crop models are used as examples, and practical advice on applying the methods to crop models is given.

Working with Dynamic Crop Models is an essential learning and reference resource for students and researchers who want to understand and apply rigorous methods to crop models. This book will also be of value for other fields which use dynamic models of complex systems.

Topics covered include:
* Parameter estimation- including Bayesian methods
* Model evaluation- including prediction quality and decision quality
* Sensitivity analysis- including global analysis and interactions
* Data assimilation- the Kalman filter and extensions
* Management optimization- including stochastic optimization
* Models for multiple fields- emphasizing how to obtain input values
* Crop models and crop breeding - recent advances in using crop
models





Topics covered include:
* Parameter estimation- including Bayesian methods
* Model evaluation- including prediction quality and decision quality
* Sensitivity analysis- including global analysis and interactions
* Data assimilation- the Kalman filter and extensions
* Management optimization- including stochastic optimization
* Models for multiple fields- emphasizing how to obtain input values
* Crop models and crop breeding - recent advances in using crop models ... Read more

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The fast-growing sugarcane plant is a major source of sugar (sucrose) in tropical and sub-tropical regions. The high productivity of the plant also makes it a key target for use as an energy crop. The fiber of the plant is used to generate electricity and produce ethanol as a fuel.

Sugarcane is a hybrid of two species, each of which is genetically complex. The high level of genetic complexity in sugarcane creates challenges in the application of both conventional and molecular breeding to the genetic improvement of sugarcane as a sugar and energy crop.

This book describes technologies that support the continued use and improvement of sugarcane as source of food and energy. Recent technology developments indicate the potential to greatly increase our understanding of the sugarcane plant by application of emerging genomic technologies. This should result in an increased rate of improvement of sugarcane for human uses.

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This book covers oats in depth, including coverage of thecrop's history, botany, breeding, processing and food uses. The editorhasdrawn together an impressive list of international contributors,providing a book which is the definitive work on the subject, ofinterest to all those involved with the crop. ... Read more

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The sweet cherry is one of the most popular of temperate fruit crops with consumers and is grown commercially in more than 40 countries of the world, in temperate, Mediterranean, subtropical and arid regions of all continents. The sour cherry is cultivated in fewer countries, mainly in Europe and the USA, and is used mainly in processed cherry products. Until recently, horticultural improvement of cherries as a commercial crop has been slow, and major production problems such as bird damage, rain-induced cracking, and bacterial diseases, have remained. However, in the last 25 years, major developments have occurred. New improved varieties of sweet cherry have been bred which have larger fruit, are more disease resistant and set fruit more reliably. Improved sour cherry varieties have also been bred and mechanised systems of harvesting introduced. New dwarfing rootstocks are now being released. This book provides a comprehensive review of all of these topics, and many more. It covers all aspects of the botany, production and uses of sweet and sour cherries, and represents a definitive reference work for students and research workers in horticulture as well as professional fruit growers. ... Read more

Product Description
Soil is a complex body that exists as many types, each with diverse propertiesthat may vary widely across time and space as a function of many factors. This complexity makes the evaluation of soil quality much more challenging than that of water or air quality. Evaluation of soil quality now considers environmental implications as well as economic productivity, seeking to be more holistic in its approach.

Thus, soil quality research draws from a wide range of disciplines, blending the approaches of biologists, physicists, chemists, ecologists, economists and agronomists, among others.

This book presents a broad perspective of soil quality that includes these various perspectives and gives a strong theoretical basis for the assessment of soil quality.

A short glossary provides definitions for terms used throughout the book. ... Read more

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An effective food quality assurance system is essentialthroughout during harvest and retail display to provide a consistentlygood quality supply of fresh food crops to the consumers and toprotect the reputation of a given marketing label. This book coversvarious aspects of quality handling and assessment, including handlingparameters, quality evaluation, CA and MAP storage conditions in abroad sense. It emphasises on developing better methods of monitoringquality and safety attributes of fresh produce as part of a qualityassurance system and quality assessment and maintenance. To meet thechanging demands for quality, availability, cost, appearance andservice the actors in the supply chain need to cooperate. We haveincluded eighteen chapters. They are: Enzymes and Quality Factors ofFruits and Vegetables; Volatile Flavours in Strawberries: ADescription of The Components, and How to Analyse Them; Methods toEvaluate the Antioxidant Activity; Essential Oil Drugs-TerpeneComposition of Aromatic Herbs; Fruit and Vegetables HarvestingSystems; Integral Handling of Banana; Economics and Organisation ofHorticultural Postharvest; Production; Handling Machinery and Damageinflicted to the Product; Mechanical Damage During Fruit Post-HarvestHandling: Technical and Physiological Implications; Harvest andPostharvest Conditions for apples and Pears; Rapid quality evaluationtechniques of horticultural crops; Table Grape Postharvest Managementand Safety Issues; Fruit Postharvest Technology: InstrumentalMeasurement of Ripeness and Quality; Developmental Changes DuringStrawberry Fruit Ripening and Physico-Chemical Changes DuringPostharvest Storage; Processing of horticultural Crops in the Tropics;Quality Dynamics and Quality Assurance of Fresh Fruits and Vegetablesin Pre- and Postharvest; Modification of Fruit Ripening by GeneticTransformation; Quality of Equilibrium Modified Atmosphere Packaged(EMAP) Fresh-Cut Vegetables. This book will be especially useful toresearchers engaged in post harvest research, graduate andpost-graduate students majoring in food sciences and researchers. ... Read more

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Agri Info provides an essential reference guide to a vast quantity of summarised data on the broad subjects of field crop and livestock production. Based on over 25 years of agricultural research, development and international consultancy, the author has compiled a wide range of fully referenced information, presenting it in easily accessible tabular form. The book contains a broad coverage of agricultures component subjects, including soils, fertilisers, irrigation, livestock nutrition, machinery and buildings, plus supporting appendices on accounting, physical constants, conversion tables and key texts for further reading. Ideal for a wide range of professionals involved in agriculture, including consultants, economists, environmentalists and engineers, the book will also be of enormous importance to students and researchers, due to the wealth of information it provides. ... Read more

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Originally published in 1902.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more