231 results for group: agriculture-1
A Technique Called N-Viro Soil Remineralization Using Sewage Sludge Mixed with Cement Kiln Dust
Roughly 140 billion pounds of sewage sludge are produced annually in the U.S. in an attempt to separate our human wastes from the waters we mix them with. This number has steadily increased over the last two decades as more stringent waste water treatment regulations have been put into effect. Standard methods for dealing with sludge have included incineration, ocean dumping, landfilling, land application on farms and composting.
An Interview with Dr. Robert Bruck, Ph.D. Director of the Environment for North Carolina on the State of the Appalachian Forests and Remineralization
In North America we’ve seen over the past ten or fifteen years significant and serious decline of certain forest species. The ones we’re most concerned about are high elevation red spruce and Fraser fir forests in the Appalachians. These forests comprise very unique mountaintop ecosystems on four, five and six thousand foot peaks. They’re quite rate in that they’re remnants from the last glaciation period: very beautiful, very unique. We’ve seen very rapid decline, dieback and death of these forests occur to a great extent in high elevations of the eastern Appalachians.
Preliminary Results for the Soil Remineralization Forestry Trials On Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina
This is a brief summary of our preliminary experimental data regarding the effects of Planters II on the growth and survival of red spruce and Fraser fir. As a brief introduction, I would state that red spruce and Fraser fir are the boreal montane ecosystem species here in the high Appalachians of the northeastern and southeastern U.S. These tree have undergone tremendous stress via air pollution over the past several decades and, indeed, certain air-borne and satellite surveys have indicated that as much as 40 percent of this ecosystem has already died.
Rocks for Crops: Agrominerals of sub-Saharan Africa.
A productive and sustainable agricultural system is fundamental to the well being of a nation and a cornerstone of its development. In most of sub-Saharan Africa, more than 50% of the population rely on agriculture for their livelihood, which generally contributes more than 30% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Agriculture is the major source of income, employment, food security and survival for the majority of the population. While agricultural production is steadily increasing in sub-Saharan Africa, the population is growing faster than food production. The result is a net decline in per-capita food production, which contributes to increased food ...
Evaluation for the Potential Use of Silicate Rocks from Four Volcanoes in Indonesia as Fertilizer and Soil Ameliorant
Silicate rocks, the abundant plant nutrient source in Indonesia, have not been evaluated for use as a fertilizer/and soil ameliorant. This research was aimed to identify (1) mineral and elemental compositions of silicate rocks originated from Galunggung, Kelud, Tambora, and Rinjani Volcanoes and (2) soil properties determining dissolution rate of plant nutrients from the silicate rock fertilizers (SRFs). The rocks were ground with a ball mill for 10 min providing SRFs with medians of particle size of 30 – 50 m. Each SRF was added to 6 soils from West Java, East Java, and Lombok Island at a rate equivalent to 20 t ha-1, incubated for 28 days in a ...
A holistic approach to mitigating pathogenic effects on trees
The conventional ‘disease model’ approach to tree health focuses on identifying and controlling a specific pathogen (or pest) implicated as the causal agent of tree decline. Alternatively there are more holistic approaches in tree health that address a broader suite of processes occurring at the ecosystem level which may be predisposing the trees to infection by disease. Here I describe a holistic methodology that takes into account not only the proximal agents involved in tree decline, but also the age and structure of the forest, the abundance of cryptogams, the fire history, the acidity of the precipitation, the fertility of the soil, and the ...
Efficacy, sustainability and diffusion potential of rock dust for soil remediation in Chontales, Nicaragua
To produce enough food for a growing population, soil remediation is crucial unless more forests are to be cleared to make way for agriculture land. Finely ground rocks have been proposed as a soil amendment for highly weathered soils. In Chontales, Nicaragua most of the forest has been converted to cattle pasture. In fertile soils, crop agriculture is more lucrative per unit of area than cattle grazing, but the low nutrient content of Chontales soils makes it uneconomic. The purpose of the study was to examine whether incorporation of rock dust is a sustainable way to increase the fertility in Chontales and thus can be part of a strategy that ...
Prehistoric agricultural depletion of soil nutrients in Hawai‘i
We investigated the fate of soil nutrients after centuries of indigenous dryland agriculture in Hawai‘i using a coupled geochemical and archaeological approach. Beginning 500 years ago, farmers began growing dryland taro and sweet potato on the leeward slopes of East Maui. Their digging sticks pierced a subsurface layer of cinders, enhancing crop access to the soil water stored below the intact cinders. Cultivation also catalyzed nutrient losses, directly by facilitating leaching of mobile nutrients after disturbing a stratigraphic barrier to vertical water movement, and indirectly by increasing mineral weathering and subsequent uptake and harvest. ...
Global Soil Nutrient Depletion and Yield Reduction
Nutrient depletion in soils adversely affects soil quality and reduces crop yield and consequently poses a potential threat to global food security and agricultural sustainability. With an emphasis on human-induced nutrient depletion, this paper described the causality among soil nutrient depletion, soil quality, crop production, socio-economic variables, and environmental condition. Then, global soil nutrient budgets of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) were estimated for wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), rice (Oryza sativa), maize (Zeamays L.), and barley (Hordeum vulgare) production for the year 2000. As a result, there were unbalanced ...
