Agriculture

Effect of Selenium (Se) concentration in the nutrient solution on quality and Nitrogen, Potassium concentration of Brussels sprout plants (Brassica oleracea, var Gemmifera) was evaluated. The Brussels sprout plants were treated with six concentration of Se as selenate sodium (Na2 SeO4., 0, 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 mg L-1). Treatments were arranged in a completely randomize design with four replicates. The total soluble solid, vitamin C increased by increasing Se concentration from 0 to 8 mg L-1. Also, results showed the effect of Se application (0, 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 mg/l Se as Na2SeO4) increased nitrogen and potassium content of young and old leaves plants as compared with the control treatments in floating system. However they were reduced in 16 and 32 mg L-1 Se concentration. It can be concluded that Se supplements (8 mg L-1) improve yield, quality and Se concentration in the bud.

In this study, the long-term impacts of poultry manure (PM) on vertical distribution of soil macronutrients (N, P, K, Ca and Mg) have been determined. In addition, change in other soil fertility indicators such as organic matter (OM) and cation exchange capacity (CEC) levels were assessed. Soil samples from four depths (0-15, 15-30, 30-60, and 60-120 cm) from the sites were analyzed. Generally, the mean total soil nitrogen increased with depth in the cultivated poultry manure amended soils up to 60cm depth and decreased sharply at depth range 60-120 cm in both wet and dry seasons. At both the cultivated and uncultivated sites at Deduako, available P levels were highest at the top 15 cm depth of the soil and decreased rapidly with increasing depths for both seasons in both the cultivated and uncultivated sites. The exchangeable K content at Deduako during the wet and dry season was significantly higher at all sampling depths than the corresponding depths of uncultivated land. Generally, the exchangeable Ca levels were significantly higher in cultivated soils at the experimental sites than those of the uncultivated land. There were significantly higher exchangeable Ca levels in wet season than that of dry season at both sites. Significantly higher (p < 0.05) Mg levels recorded in wet season. The OM contents at all sampling depths of cultivated site were also higher than that of the uncultivated sites. At the Deduako vegetable site, during the wet season, the CEC in cultivated soils at the various sampling depth were significantly higher (p < 0.05) than those of uncultivated soil. Increases in all selected soil properties were, generally, higher in the wet season than the dry season.

Maize is one of the cereals crop dominantly grown in tropic and mainly used as food for human being, feed for live stock and the by product also used for construction and fuel. Common bean crop is one of the pulse crop highly cultivated around the low land areas of tropics. Afield experiment was conducted in Guduru animal production research site, during 2015 cropping season to determine the effect of varieties and intra row spacing of common bean intercropped with maize on growth and yield component of the associated crops. Maize variety 540 at 100% (44,444 plants ha-1) was intercropped with four varieties of common bean (Ibbado, Omo, Nasire and Tibe) in a factorial combination with three intra row spacing (5cm, 10cm and 15cm) of the recommended sole common bean and maize. The field was laid out as randomized complete block design with three replications. Common bean varieties were significantly (p< 0.01) affected on ear length, dry biomass, and grain yield and harvest index of the associated maize. Intra row spacing was shown significant effect (p<0.05) on days to 50% tessling, leaf area, dry biomass, grain yield and harvest index of maize crop intercropped with common bean. The highest grain yield (2597.5kg/ha-1) was recorded when maize intercropped with common bean variety of Nasire at 5cm intra row spacing. While the interaction effect was significant effect on plant height, number of ear per plant, and thousand seed weight of maize crop. The main effect of common bean varieties had significant (p<0.01) effect on days to 50% flowering, Plant height, Number of branches, number of seed per pods, dry biomass, grain yield and harvest index when intercropped with maize. The intra row spacing of common bean was shown significant (p<0.05) differences on plant height, number of seed per pods, dry biomass, grain yield and harvest index of common bean intercropped with maize. Interaction effect was significant differences on days to 90% maturity, leaf area index, number of pods per plant, thousand seed weight of common bean intercropped with maize. The highest grain yield (2256kg/ha-1) was recorded when common bean varieties of Nasire intercropped with maize at intra row spacing of 5cm. The main effect of varieties and intra row spacing and interaction were significant (p<0.05) differences on total land equivalent ratio and total growth monetary value. The highest total LER (2.03) and (2.01) was observed when Omo variety of common bean intercropped with maize at intra row spacing of 5cm. The highest total GMV of (23102.1 ETB ha- 1) and (23471.9 ETB ha-1) were recorded when maize intercropped with bean variety of Nasire at intra row of 5cm. While the lowest total GMV (21,123.93kgha-1) was obtained when Tibe variety of common bean was intercropped with maize at 15cm intra row spacing. Therefore, maize (100%) intercropped with common bean variety of Nasire at 5cm intra row spacing was recommended for intercropping in the study area. However, the experiment has to be repeated across locations and over the growing seasons with consideration of farmer’s preference of the common bean varieties to reach at conclusive recommendation were significantly affected by the interaction.

Peri-urban cultivated areas of many cities in Pakistan are being irrigated from municipal and industrial wastewater since long. Similarly wastewater of Nullah Lai is also being used for irrigation in Rawalpindi. Wastewater and soil samples were collected from six locations of Rawalpindi districts for investigating fungal diversity. Eight fungal species were found in these soils. The most common fungal strains were Aspergillus sp., Acremonium sp., and Chaetomium sp. To isolate the fungi in different soil samples, sterilization technique, serial dilution and spread plate technique were used. Presence of fungi was detected in the different soil samples on the bases of morphological characteristics, percentage frequency, growth rate and colony forming units. The results obtained showed that most widely distributed fungi in soil samples were Aspergillus sp. Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus flavus grew well in contaminated soil containing heavy metals. This ability of Aspergillus makes it attractive potential candidate for further investigation regarding its ability to remove metals from contaminated soil. The usage of untreated wastewater in agricultural land put harmful effects on soil physical, chemical properties and biodiversity. To recognize health risk due to wastewater usage for irrigation, treat the wastewater to the recommended level.

The combine performance characteristics are related to threshing ability, the minimum amount of loss and fuel consumption. Loss is the most important of these factors. Material threshing is one of processes which have more effect on combine performance. Threshing efficiency has been inversely associated with threshing loss. It is desired to maximize threshing efficiency in threshing mechanism, because it will decrease the load of separation and cleaning mechanisms, which lead to reduction of separation system losses. Stem height, feed rate, threshing clearance ratio and rotational speed of threshing cylinder are operation parameters, which are used in combine design and its performance evaluating. In order to evaluate effect of these parameters on threshing material, experiments were conducted in 4×3×3 factorial pattern with Randomize Blocks design. Material threshing was considered as a dependent variable. These experiments were done on 68’s Sahand combine harvester. Results were analyzed in Neurosolutions 5.0 software. Multilayer Perceptron with four inputs and one output, with a different number of neurons in hidden layer, was used to estimate the amount of material threshing. Results showed that a network with 21 neurons in hidden layer had minimum MSE with R2=0.9. Furthermore, results showed that the amount of material threshing had dependent on stem height, threshing clearance ratio, speed of threshing cylinder and feed rate, respectively. Material threshing was increased with reduction in stem height, feed rate, threshing clearance ratio and speed up of threshing cylinder.

The effect of compost and earthworm production on soil properties, growth and dry-matter yield of maize in crude oil degraded soil was studied. The treatment consisted of 250g crude oil degraded soil (DS) and 50g each of four different compost materials mixed differently with 250g of degraded soil, and the compost were cassava peels (CP), cassava peels + poultry manure (PC), cassava peels + pig manure (GC) and cassava peels + pig manure + poultry manure (PGC) and 10 pieces of sub-adult earthworms (Eudrilus eugenae) were inoculated to each of the experimental pot after 11 days. The five treatments were replicated four times, data generated were subjected to analysis of variance test and treatment means were separated using least significant difference (LSD=0.05). The results of the study indicated significant differences between the treatments in soil and agronomic parameters assessed. The application of compost and earthworm activities increased the plant height, leaf area, and number of leaves at 4 weeks after planting (WAP) and 6 WAP, and dry matter yield of maize. The shoot and root dry matter yield was observed to increase in the order PC>PGC>GC>CP>DS. Earthworm activities in the study measured by the number survived and biomass weight showed CP and GC as the best culture for earthworm production in oil degraded soil. The degraded soil (DS) did not record any earthworm survival at harvest. The result of the soil analysis indicated less change in the textural class of the soil, and all the chemical parameters tested were enhanced by the compost and earthworm activities. Based on the results of growth rate and yield components of maize as well as soil chemical properties, the PC and PGC cultures having performed competitively better than the other treatments can be considered useful and adequate with the help of earthworm in reclaiming an oil degraded soil for crop production in a tropical environment.

Pores and organic matter take a multitude of forms in soil and their characteristics change in space and time following a change in tillage practices as a new “steady state” is approached. Information on the variation with depth (stratification) in the characteristics of pores and organic matter and the rates of changes in these characteristics are vital to interpreting the short- and long-term impacts of the reduction of using conventional tillage on the productivity and hydrology of agricultural soils. This information is also of value in estimating the effect of a reduction in tillage on the sequestration of carbon in agricultural soils. The influence of tillage on bulk density, macro porosity and organic matter content was found to be documented more extensively than the effects on pore size distribution, soil organic matter fractions and their interactions at different soil depths. Many of the reports documenting tillage-induced changes in soil porosity and organic matter were based on measurements at a specific time after initiating the tillage trial. The potential advantages of conservation tillage in organic farming are reduced erosion, greater macro porosity in the soil surface due to larger number of earthworms, more microbial activity and carbon storage, less run-off and leaching of nutrients, reduced fuel use and faster tillage. Conversion from conventional (CT) to no-tillage (NT) resulted in an immediate change in the placement of aboveground crop residue and the reduced fragmentation of the soil matrix may also slow the mineralization of SOC.

Assessment of land response to certain land uses is necessary to reach the sustainable land management. In this study Almagra model from MicroLEIS DSS and remote sensing technology were used to determine the suitability of land for main crops in an arid region east of Tehran (Iran). The weighted average of land and soil characteristic were obtained from representative soil profiles in each land mapping unit, through digital classification of satellite images and entered to the model. Land suitability maps for each crop were presented as thematic maps by integrating soil map with determined land suitability classes in GIS. The results showed that %55 of the area has moderate to high suitability for wheat, alfalfa, maize and melon. Salinity, alkalinity and soil texture are considered as the main soil restrictions for studied crops in this area. According to the obtained results, the priority of the selected crops should be considered as wheat, alfalfa/ melon and maize, respectively. Application of remote sensing technology accompany with land suitability models helped  to enhance the abilities of this model by both saving the data compilation time  and generating georeferenced data to overlay with other information layers and spatialization in GIS.

Conservation tillage (CA) systems are gaining increased attention as a way to reduce the water footprint of crops by improving soil water infiltration, increasing soil moisture and reducing runoff and water contamination. The concept of water footprint is defined as the total volume of freshwater used, directly or indirectly, to produce a product or process including the total amount of water required in agriculture for growing crops. About 141 million and 645 thousand hectares of land in the world have been destroyed by erosion because of inappropriate tillage operations. The total amount of 26 billion tons of soil eroded is estimated and about 2 billion tons comes out from Iran. Parallel to the erosion, loss of soil organic matter that occurs on to several factors, farming has become more challenging. Many strategies exist to combat soil degradation through erosion and compaction on agricultural fields. One of these strategies is conservation agriculture (CA). Reduced or no-tillage techniques, together with crop residue management and crop rotation are the pillars of CA. The term reduced tillage covers a range of tillage practices but it never involves inverting the soil. In this way, soil disturbance is minimized and crop residues are left on the soil. Studies in many European countries have shown that CA can indeed be very effective in combating soil erosion. However, soil and water conservation do not appear as main drivers in farmers’ decisions to shift or not to CA. Economic factors tend to be more important, but there are a lot of uncertainties on this domain. Studies show that production costs are mostly reduced, mainly by reduced fuel costs. Although many European studies have investigated the effect of reduced soil tillage on crop yields, a lot of uncertainties still exist.

Different parts of Moringa oleifera shoot are reportedly useful for nutrition, medicine, water purification and as raw material for the industry. It is however hypothesized that the growth and mineral composition of Moringa could be affected by the medium in which it is growing. Consequently, a factorial experiment involving three pre-determined soil depths of 0-15, 15-30 and 30-45 cm at four soil water levels: 100, 75, 50 and 25% Field Moisture Capacity (FMC ) was conducted in Ibadan, South western Nigeria, to investigate the effect of soil depth and water stress on the growth and mineral composition of Moringa shoot. The total N, C, P, K, Mg and Ca contained in the soil samples collected from the three soil depths were in the order of 0-15>15-30>30-45 cm. As a result, Moringa plants produced in the surface soil (0-15 cm) was superior in height; stem girth, number of leaves and dry matter yield irrespective of water- stress condition. Reduction in FMC from 100 to 50% did not significantly affect growth performance. Surface soil produced stems and leaves richer in mineral composition (Ca, Mg, K, Fe, Cu and Zn) than subsoil. Therefore, growing moringa on a fertile-soil is better for animal health.