Is Climate Change a threat to soil quality.... humus depletion induced by climate change.

The yields of many important crops in Europe have been stagnating since the 1990s. As a result, the input of organic matter into the soil -- the crucial source for humus formation -- is decreasing. Scientists suspect that the humus stocks of arable soils are declining due to the influence of climate change. Humus, however, is a key factor for soil functionality, which is why this development poses a threat to agricultural production -- and, moreover, in a worldwide context.

Soil Scientists turn oily soil into fertile ground.

Scientists are cleaning soil contaminated by oil spills in a way that saves energy and reclaims the soil's fertility, using a process known as pyrolysis, which involves heating contaminated soils in the absence of oxygen.

The Rice Immune system unlocked.

Researchers have identified a bacterial signaling molecule that triggers an immunity response in rice plants, enabling the plants to resist a devastating blight disease. A bacterial signal that when recognized by rice plants enables the plants to resist a devastating blight disease has been identified by a multi-national team of researchers led by scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) and the University of California (UC) Davis.

The actual origin of farming discovered.

Until now, researchers believed farming was "invented" some 12,000 years ago in the Cradle of Civilization -- Iraq, the Levant, parts of Turkey and Iran -- an area that was home to some of the earliest known human civilizations. A new discovery by an international collaboration of researchers from Tel Aviv University, Harvard University, Bar-Ilan University, and the University of Haifa offers the first evidence that trial plant cultivation began far earlier -- some 23,000 years ago.

Farming has been the major cause of drying soil in Northern China

An important agricultural region in China is drying out, and increased farming may be more to blame than rising temperatures and less rain, according to a study spanning 30 years of data. A research team analyzed soil moisture during the growing season in Northern China and found that it has decreased by 6 percent since 1983. 

How to sterilize the soil

Methods for Sterilizing Soil for Seeds and Plants

There are several ways to sterilize garden soil at home. They include steaming (with or without a pressure cooker) and heating the soil in the oven or microwave.

Sterilizing Soil with Steam

Steaming is considered one of the best ways to sterilize potting soil and should be done for at least 30 minutes or until the temperature reaches 180 F. (82 C.). Steaming can be done with or without a pressure cooker.
If you’re using a pressure cooker, pour several cups of water into the cooker and place shallow pans of level soil (no more than 4 inches deep) over top of the rack. Cover each pan with foil. Close the lid but leave the steam valve should be left open just enough to allow the steam to escape, at which time it can be closed and heated at ten pounds pressure for 15 to 30 minutes.
For those not using a pressure cooker, pour about an inch or so of water into the sterilizing container, placing the soil-filled pans (covered with foil) on a rack over the water. Close the lid and bring to a boil, leaving it open just enough to prevent pressure from building up. Once the steam escapes, allow it to remain boiling for 30 minutes. Allow the soil to cool and then remove (for both methods). Keep foil on until ready to use.

Sterilizing Soil with an Oven

You can also use the oven to sterilize soil. For the oven, put some soil (about 4 inches deep) in an oven-safe container, like a glass or metal baking pan, covered with foil. Place a meat (or candy) thermometer into the center and bake at 180-200 F. (82-93 C.) for at least 30 minutes, or when soil temp reaches 180 F. (82 C.). Anything higher than that can produce toxins. Remove from oven and allow to cool, leaving the foil in place until ready to use.

Sterilizing Soil with a Microwave

Another option to sterilize soil is to use the microwave. For the microwave, fill clean microwave-safe containers with moist soil — quart size with lids are preferable (no foil). Add a few ventilation holes in the lid. Heat the soil for about 90 seconds per every couple pounds on full power. Note: Larger microwaves can generally accommodate several containers. Allow these to cool, placing tape over the vent holes, and leave until ready to use.
Alternatively, you can place two pounds of moist soil in a polypropylene bag. Put this in the microwave with the top left open for ventilation. Heat the soil for 2 to 2 1/2 minutes on full power (650 watt oven). Close the bag and allow it to cool before removing.

The role of soil communities in enhancing carbon sequestration

Small soil animals can limit the effects of climate change, a team of researchers has shown through a long-term study. In the same way that Yellowstone's wolves regulate plant diversity by controlling the number of grazing elk, the researchers found that insects, worms and other small creatures can play a similar regulatory role in soil ecosystems by feeding on the microbes that can trigger increased carbon emissions.

The effects of Aluminium on Bee population

Very high amounts of aluminum contamination has been found in bees, raising the question of whether aluminum-induced cognitive dysfunction is playing a role in the decline of bumblebee populations. Aluminum is Earth's most ubiquitous ecotoxicant and is already known to be responsible for the death of fish in acid lakes, forest decline in acidified and nutrient impoverished catchments, and low crop productivity on acid sulphate soils
Aluminium is Earth's most ubiquitous ecotoxicant and is already known to be responsible for the death of fish in acid lakes, forest decline in acidified and nutrient impoverished catchments, and low crop productivity on acid sulphate soils. Now, a collaboration between Professors Chris Exley (Keele University) and Dave Goulson (University of Sussex) raises questions on the role of aluminium in the decline of the bumblebee.
Previous research had suggested that when bees forage for nectar they do not actively avoid nectar which contains aluminium. This prompted the suggestion by Exley and Goulson that bees may be accumulating aluminium within their life cycle. Researchers at University of Sussex collected pupae from colonies of naturally foraging bumblebees and sent them to Keele University where their aluminium content was determined.
The pupae were found to be heavily contaminated with aluminium, with individual contents ranging from between and 13 and nearly 200 ppm. Smaller pupae had significantly higher contents of aluminium.
To put these aluminium contents in some context, a value of 3 ppm would be considered as potentially pathological in human brain tissue. While preliminary, these data have shown the significant accumulation of aluminium in at least one stage of the bumblebee life cycle and suggest the possibility of another stressor contributing to the decline in its numbers.
Professor Exley, a leading authority on human exposure to aluminium, from Keele University said: "It is widely accepted that a number of interacting factors are likely to be involved in the decline of bees and other pollinators -- lack of flowers, attacks by parasites, and exposure to pesticide cocktails, for example.
"Aluminium is a known neurotoxin affecting behaviour in animal models of aluminium intoxication. Bees, of course, rely heavily on cognitive function in their everyday behaviour and these data raise the intriguing spectre that aluminium-induced cognitive dysfunction may play a role in their population decline -- are we looking at bees with Alzheimer's disease?"

Processes of soil degradation and its possible solution.

Sustainability and continuity of life sole depends on the natural resource called the soil. The soil is the basic unit of life sustenance. But, Human activities directly and indirectly affect the soil every day. The daily activities of living things contribute both positive and negative effects on the sustainability and growth of the soil. This effect is due to soil degradation.
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Brown Mang

Wood-waste biofuel to cut greenhouse gas, transform shipping industry

A sustainable biofuel made from Norwegian forest wood waste could help transform the shipping industry and reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

Non toxic sorghum offers respite to dry land farmers

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have launched a new type of the corn-like crop sorghum that no longer becomes toxic in prolonged drought, offering the hope that thousands of farmers may no longer need to discard the crop as a potential killer or suffer millions of shillings in livestock fatalities.

Sorghum, has traditionally been adopted by farmers in the dry areas of Eastern parts of Kenya due to its ability to withstand drought. However, when exposed to prolonged drought, the sorghum plant produces large amounts of dhurrin, which forms toxic cyanide, commonly known as Prussic acid.

Farmers thus face a big dilemma. During a period of drought when they most need food for their animals, they are often forced to discard their sorghum because they do not know how poisonous it is and how much the animals can eat without suffering from cyanide poisoning. In East Africa, for example , where the sorghum has been recording increased uptake as weather pattern changes, farmers lose hundreds of millions of shillings each year as a result:

"The fact that the sorghum plant produces large amounts of the natural cyanogenic glycoside dhurrin when exposed to drought is a serious problem for farmers in many parts of the world. Dhurrin breaks down to form toxic cyanide or Prussic acid when an animal eats the plant. So when there is a drought and most need for forage, the farmer can no longer use the crop and it goes to waste," said Professor of Plant Biochemistry at the University of Copenhagen, Birger Lindberg Møller, during the unveiling of the new crop.

The new sorghum plant is unable to produce Prussic acid. Instead of using genetic engineering, the researchers used plant breeding and advanced biochemical and molecular biological screening methods: "This is a breakthrough which, globally, can be very important for agriculture, especially in warmer areas where climate change is expected to cause longer and more frequent periods of drought in future.

Especially in Africa, where farmers cannot afford to buy new forage in periods of drought, it is a huge step forwards that they will now be able to feed their animals with sorghum they can grow themselves," says Birger Lindberg Moller. This breakthrough comes at a time when farmers have been suffering the effects of prolonged and repeated droughts, which significantly impact animal feeds by making pasture unavailable, and have seen the prices of commercial feeds hitting an all time high in the last two years.

This has seen farmers turn on drought resistant crops like sorghum, but which are then turning out to be dangerous. Last year, some 250 farmers in Eastern province and parts of Coast province lost 15million worth of livestock after feeding them with dried sorghum that had cyanide. The drought had been declared a national disaster with where over 5 million livestock died.

Brown Mang

Don't Mimic Nature on the Farm, Improve it by Andrew McGuire

Behind many efforts to make agriculture more sustainable is the idea that our farming systems need to be more like nature. According to agroecologistMiguel Alteri, "By designing farming systems that mimic nature, optimal use can be made of sunlight, soil nutrients, and rainfall." This strategy arises from a long history of thinking that there exists a "balance of nature." This idea has greatly influenced how we look at nature1 and agriculture. In the latter case, it drives much of what is done in organic farming and agroecology, but also finds its way into no-till farming. Nonetheless, it is false, and because it is false we can abandon the restrictive "nature knows best" argument in designing agricultural systems. Instead, we can improve on nature.
The "balance of nature" view and its derivations assume that ecosystems, as integrated communities, maintain themselves in an equilibrium if undisturbed by man. The equilibrium is maintained through governing rules, emergent properties, and self-organization within ecosystems. These properties act not just on the local populations, but on wider communities. Pests, predators, prey, and herbivores are kept in check by complex interactions between species and by a specific mix of species (biodiversity).
It is by these processes and properties that ecosystems have come to be thought of as analogous to organisms, with their own immune systems and other self-regulating mechanisms. In this model, every species has its function, and every interaction is essential for maintaining the overall working balance of the ecosystem.
Such thinking can be traced back to ancient Greece, and was supported by notable ecologists like Eugene P. Odum in his Fundamentals of Ecology (1953), but there have been critics. Henry A. Gleason (1882-1975) rejected the "super-organism" description of plant communities and instead suggested that the makeup of these communities was greatly influenced by chance events, which, within a locale, could result in very different communities; there was no balance, no climax state toward which all of the communities moved.
Other critics have been more forceful. Conservation biologist Michael Soulé writes "the idea that species live in integrated communities is a myth."2Ecologist William Drury, in his studies of forests, found no support for emergent properties, governing rules, or integration3. In his book, The Balance of Nature; Ecology's Enduring Myth4, ecologist John Kricher states it bluntly, "there really is no such thing as a 'balance of nature.' Nor is there purpose to nature." Evolutionarily speaking, Kricher points out, ecosystems do not evolve; they change because organisms change.
In addition to being false, the whole idea of the "balance of nature" is misleading. From it has come the view that ecosystems are a highly complex, integrated system of interactions between species, complexity that is beyond our understanding. The evidence, however, points to different conclusions. Drury reports "once seen, most of the interactions are simple and direct. Complexity seems to be a figment of our imaginations driven by taking the 'holistic' view." Similarly, because ecology (at least until recently) has maintained that "natural communities tend towards equilibrium" Soulé concludes "the science of ecology has been hoist on its own petard." In other words, ecologists have been misled by erroneously seeing what they assumed they would see.
Even as ecologists have, for the most part, abandoned the "balance of nature" thinking, it remains influential in popular thought and in agriculture. R. Ford Denison, in his book Darwinian Agriculture5, takes up this thread and asks the question, "Have ecosystem-level features, such as the mix of species and how they are distributed in space and time, been reliably improved by natural processes?" The answer is "no" according to Denison; natural communities have not been optimized and so we have no reason to mimic these communities in designing agricultural ecosystems. Because of this, Denison questions whether agroecologists, those for whom "the near-perfection of natural ecosystems is apparently the foundational hypothesis," are misguided in promoting certain practices based on this thinking. The evidence, according to Denison, does not support them.
In Darwinian Agriculture, Denison concludes that because "evolution has improved trees much more consistently than it has improved forests," we will find 'nature's wisdom' not in natural ecosystems, but in individual species, where natural selection has improved survival and reproduction. And by looking at adaptations in individual plants and animals, "we may be able to improve on nature."
I agree. If what we see in natural ecosystems is not optimized, but random (stochastic, say the ecologists), we should be able to do just as well or better. We can, with ingenuity, wisdom, and a good dose of humility, purposefully assemble systems that outperform natural ecosystems in providing both products and ecosystem services (Biology Fortified indeed). By taking advantage of individual species' properties and processes, and by managing abiotic conditions (soil physical and chemical properties and water levels, etc.) we can create designer agro-ecosystems, successful by criteria that matter in agriculture; productivity, efficiency, and stability. I propose that this is, in fact, what we have been doing all along (more on this in a followup post), and that the "balance of nature" has only been a distraction from our efforts to improve the sustainability of our agriculture, a distraction that should be decisively cast aside.
<![if !supportLists]>1.        <![endif]>Marris, E. (2013). Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.
<![if !supportLists]>2.        <![endif]>Soulé, Michael. 1995. "The Social Siege of Nature." In Reinventing Nature? Responses to postmodern deconstruction. eds. M.E. Soule and G. Lease. Washington: Island Press.
<![if !supportLists]>3.        <![endif]>Drury, W.H. 1998. Chance and Change: Ecology for Conservationists. Berkeley: University of California Press.
<![if !supportLists]>4.        <![endif]>Kricher, J. (2009). The Balance of Nature: Ecology's Enduring Myth. Princeton University Press.
<![if !supportLists]>5.        <![endif]>Denison, R. F. (2012). Darwinian Agriculture: How Understanding Evolution Can Improve Agriculture. Princeton University Press. (Denison's other main thesis in this book is that natural selection has left us few tradeoff-free opportunities for genetic improvement through genetic engineering. Full Disclosure – Denison served as my major professor in graduate school at UC-Davis.). His book blog.

http://www.biofortified.org/2014/03/dont-mimic-nature-improve-it/

Brown Mang

Invasion of the slugs; Halted by worms

Invasion of the slugs; Halted by worms

Ag Day focuses on First State farming

The free Saturday affair, which drew more than 10,000 visitors last year to the university's dairy farm, is a major annual undertaking by UD's College of Agriculture & Natural Resources.
This year marks the 37th Ag Day – a space where seven students, faculty and staff volunteers coordinate a livestock display with UD's animals, live bee demonstrations, free-flight bird shows, tree-climbing, tractor rides, farm tours, beehives, live music, 4-H arts and crafts, plant sales and 70 other hand-on exhibits and demonstrations – all to bring focus to agriculture's critical role in feeding a growing world population of 7 billion.
"The takeaway, I hope, is that they see that every meal you eat, whether it's a full meal or a snack, ties back to agriculture," said UD senior Maya Althouse, 22.
"A lot of people are very distant from livestock and the farming community," she said. "So I hope that Ag Day is a chance for them to see agriculture in any form – whether it's crop or meat or dairy, pest control, food science or the effect on wildlife or habitat, how that's very much a part of their lives as a consumer. And I hope they come away with a greater appreciation for the work and the science."
Farm science
"Feed the World, Protect the Planet," is the theme for this year's Ag Day, which brings an opportunity to showcase what the college is really about, said Renee Poole, a 23-year-old recent graduate-turned-supervisor at the UDairy Creamery.
"People don't think about where their food comes from and how the animals are treated," Poole said. "A lot of it deals with farming, but there's also a lot beyond the farm, like food science.
"People are really working hard on techniques to make food safer."
Mark Rieger, dean of the College of Agriculture & Natural Resources, reinforced the words of his current and former student advocates.
"We hope to be myth busters of sorts, we want them to walk away and shake their head and say, 'Wow, we didn't know that about the food we eat every day,' " Rieger said. "If they do that, then I'm really happy."
By 2050, the population is expected be between 9 billion and 10 billion, which will require at least 60 percent, and some say 100 percent, more food production, Rieger said. Take China and India, which one-third of the word's population calls home, he said. "They're developing a middle class quickly, and those people are going out and buying cars and buying meat and dairy."
Then comes demand to grow more livestock feed and an ever-growing need for employees in the agriculture arena.
"What it turns out to be is about two job opportunities for every graduate we can produce nationwide," Rieger said. The projection is for 50,000 to 55,000 jobs, he said, yet "there are only 29,000 graduates for agriculture and natural resources every year."
Big business
The big business of agriculture in the First State carries some compelling numbers with it, according to the University of Delaware and National Agricultural Statistics Service, such as:
• 13,919: Agricultural employment (including production and processing)
• $1.2 billion: The value of agricultural production (crops and livestock)
• $429 million: Value of crop production
• $854 million: Value of poultry/livestock production
• 508,654 acres: Land in farms and
• 2,457: Number of farms.
"The backbone of Delaware agriculture is the poultry industry, which provides thousands of jobs in production and processing," said Ed Kee, Delaware Secretary of Agriculture. "Related to that are our grain producers, growing corn and soybeans, which largely goes to poultry feed."
Sussex County is the No. 1 broiler producing county in the nation. Last year saw record corn yields, the largest since 2000, and fruit and vegetable growers also are thriving, Kee said, with Delaware a leader in lima bean production.
"In Delaware, we have a variety of programs, partnerships and initiatives to bring more people into agriculture and to strengthen the industry," Kee said, and "drawing the next generation of farmers into the field is important. ... We are addressing that through the state's Young Farmers Program."
Events like Ag Day are significant for Delawareans to learn more about farming and the role that agriculture plays in our lives, Kee said.
Brown Mang

MSU STUDY SHOWS CHANGES IN FARMING PRACTICES COULD HELP ENVIRONMENTAL STABILITY

By changing row-crop management practices in economically and environmentally stable ways, U.S. farms could contribute to improved water quality, biological diversity, and soil fertility while helping to stabilize the climate, according to an article in the May issue of BioScience.

Paraquat resistance discovered in major weed

Paraquat resistance discovered in major weed

Farmers Relying On Herbicide Roundup Lose Some Of Its Benefit

Farmers Relying On Herbicide Roundup Lose Some Of Its Benefit

True value of cover crops to farmers and environment

True value of cover crops to farmers and environment

Food production in northeastern U.S. may need to change if climate does

Food production in northeastern U.S. may need to change if climate does

Understanding plant-soil interaction could lead to new ways to combat weeds

Using high-powered DNA-based tools, a recent study at the University of Illinois identified soil microbes that negatively affect ragweed and provided a new understanding of the complex relationships going on beneath the soil surface between plants and microorganisms.

Impact Of Floods On Soils

Impact Of Floods On Soils

Scientist uses geological observatories to monitor the health of soils

Scientist uses geological observatories to monitor the health of soils

New wireless network to revolutionize soil testing

New wireless network to revolutionize soil testing

Production fish need a tranquil start to avoid malformation

Production fish need a tranquil start to avoid malformation