The use of plastics in agriculture - to increase crop output, improve food quality and improve sustainability - has grown substantially in both quantity and the range of applications. Many of the early researchers that conducted field research in the use of plastics in agriculture have either retired or are deceased. These early pioneers in plasticulture research, the basis of plant production using plastics, were very creative and persistent in discovering uses of plastics in agricultural applications. A Guide to the Manufacture, Performance, and Potential of Plastics in Agriculture contains both references not only to their accomplishments but also their publications. The book discusses plasticulture-the basis of plant production using plastics - including topics such as plastic mulch, row covers, drip irrigation, and high/low tunnels. It covers the process of producing polyethylene and polypropylene plastics that are used in plant and animal production agriculture, and the many uses of plastics in all aspects of agriculture, including plastic greenhouses, rigid mold plastics, disposal of plastics, and plastics in animal production. This book introduces a range of academics and industrial practitioners to the impact of plastics in agriculture, both historically and in a range of current applications. It also provides new perspectives on future developments to enable further research and application. It is an invaluable reference on the use of polyethylene, polypropylene films, and such products in all aspects of agricultural production.

Martha M. Ezzard and her physician husband John are among the pioneers in the movement of professionals trading busy city careers for a return to the land. While this story about saving a family farm is distinctly Southern, it typifies the national locally grown movement which has begun to sweep the US. Locally grown foods call for wines that are a taste of the local earth-what wine aficionados call the terroir, the soils and climate that give them unique flavours not found in California or Burgundy or anywhere other than, in this case, Tiger Mountain. What follows initially are long sweaty days of post hole digging, trellis wire stringing, and weed pulling mixed with a few chiggers and ticks-but also the thrill of sighting a giant blue heron in the dawn mist of the farm pond-of hearing the honking of geese at sunset. There are times when the city high rise still beckons, but what Martha and John learn after burning smudge pots all night in a late April freeze only to see their pink buds turn brown despite it all, is that wine grapes have a second bud -and so too, because of their shared venture, does their relationship. The Second Bud is a story that reflects today's agricultural evolution in the southeast, from tobacco, logging, and truck farming to agri-tourism, outdoor recreation, vineyards, and farm wineries. Filled with small town characters, unlikely obstacles and dirt based success, this memoir is a down home version of "Under a Tuscan Sun," a couple's risk taking to revive a fifth-generation family farm in the tiny North Georgia town of Tiger by cultivating fine wine grapes. It will appeal to romantics, wannabe winemakers, and all who covet the rural life.

In recent years, there has been growing attention devoted to the implementation of information and communication technology in agriculture and rural development. While evidence has linked ICT to an increase in gross domestic product, it has prompted a global dedication to the research of the socio-economic benefits, trade-offs, and policy implications of ICT consumption in developing countries. E-Agriculture and Rural Development: Global Innovations and Future Prospects is a comprehensive collection of research on the emerging trends and advances in the global use of information and communication technology in agriculture and rural development. Consisting of case studies, implementation frameworks, and policies, this book provides a global perspective and understanding of the developments in e-agriculture and rural development.

This book provides a global review of the mechanisms, incidence and control measures related to the problems of soil compaction in agriculture, forestry and other cropping systems. Among the disciplines which relate to this subject are soil physics, soil mechanics, vehicle mechanics, agricultural engineering, plant physiology, agronomy, pedology, climatology and economics.

The volume will be of great value to soil scientists, agricultural engineers, and all those involved with irrigation, drainage and tillage. It will help to facilitate the exchange of information on current work throughout the world, as well as to promote scientific understanding and stimulate the development, evaluation and adoption of practical solutions to these widespread and urgent problems.

Microirrigation has become the fastest growing segment of the irrigation industry worldwide and has the potential to increase the quality of food supply through improved water fertilizer efficiency. This book is meant to update the text "Trickle Irrigation, Design, Operation and Management." This text offers the most current understanding of the management criteria needed to obtain maximum water and fertilization efficiency.
* Presents a detailed explanation of system design, operation, and management specific to various types of MI systems
* Analyzes proper use of irrigation technology and its effect to increase efficiency
* Provides an understanding to the basic science needed to comprehend operation and management
* Over 150 figures of designs and charts of systems including, surface drip, subsurface drip, spray/microsprinkler, and more

This book takes stock of micro irrigation systems (MIS), the technological intervention in India's agricultural and water management sectors, over the past couple of decades. Based on empirical research from the major agriculturally dynamic states, viz., Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, the book provides a nuanced understanding and objective assessment of the implementation and adoption of MIS across these states. It addresses several of the questions related to adoption and impacts of MIS in India. On the adoption side, the key question that the book addresses is which segment of the farming community adopts MIS across states? The impacts analysed include those on physical, agronomic and economic aspects. At the macro level, the question being asked is about the future potential of MIS in terms of saving water from agriculture and making more water available for environment. The book also addresses the question of the positive/negative externalities and real social benefits and costs from the use of MIS, a major justification for heavy capital subsidies for its purchase by farmers. It also brings out certain critical concerns pertaining to MIS adoption, which need to be addressed through more empirical research based on longitudinal panel/ cross sectional data. The book would be of great use to researchers (agricultural water management, irrigation economics), students of water resource engineering, irrigation engineering and water resources management, as well as to policy makers and agricultural water management experts - national and international.

We must enhance the effectiveness ofland stewardship and management of the world's natural resources to meet a growing global population's need for conservation, sustainable development, and use of land, water, and other natural resources. Ecosystem-based, mul tiple-use land stewardship is necessary when considering the present and future uses ofland, water, and other natural resources on an operationally efficient scale. We need holistically planned and carefully implemented watershed management practices, projects, and pro grams to accommodate the increasing demand for commodities and amenities, clear water, open space, and uncluttered landscapes. An international conference in Tucson, Arizona, from March 13 to 16, 2000, examined these needs and increased people's awareness of the contributions that ecosystem-based, multiple-use watershed management can make to future land stewardship. The conference was sponsored by the School of Renewable Natural Resources, University of Arizona; the College of Agriculture, University of Arizona; the Rocky Mountain Research Station, USDA Forest Service; the Research Center for Conservation of Water Resources and Disaster Pre vention, National Chung-Hsing University, Taiwan; the Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota; the Center for Integrated Natural Resources and Agriculture Man agement, University of Minnesota; the Centro de Investigaciones Biologicas del Noreste, Mexico; the International Arid Lands Consortium; the USDA Natural Resources Conserva tion Service; the Bureau of Land Management of the Department of the Interior; the Salt River Project, Phoenix, Arizona; the Southern Arizona Chapter, Southwestern Section of the Society of American Foresters; and IUFRO Working Party 8. 04. 04, Erosion Control by Watershed Management."

At last, integrated management of drought on farms is dealt with in one comprehensive book. Although drought is a highly variable, near-universal natural phenomenon which has repercussions on a country's water and food supplies and many other sectors of the economy, there are many ways of avoiding, resisting and mitigating the effects of drought. Pro-active preparedness entails using the principles of risk management to upgrade the drought resistance of a farm systematically, and to have auxiliary contingency plans at the ready for use during unusually long droughts. The book provides tools for these strategies as it covers the management of water, soils, crops, rangeland, fodder and livestock, and many other drought-related topics. Audience: This book will be an important source of information for university and college staff and students in agricultural sciences, water and land use, environmental management, geography and risk management, and also farmers, agricultural advisors and policy makers.

We are facing global issues concerning environmental pollution and shortages of food, feed, phytomass (plant biomass) and natural resources, which will become more serious in the forthcoming decades. To solve these issues, immeasurable numbers of various plants and huge amounts of phytomass are required every year for food, feed and for the improvement of amenities, the environment and our quality of life. Increased phytomass is also required as alternative raw material for producing bio-energy, biodegradable plastics and many other plant-originated industrial products. Only by using phytomass as a reproducible energy source and raw material, instead of fossil fuels and atomic power, we can save natural resources and minimize environmental pollution. To increase phytomass globally, we need billions of quality transplants (small plants) to be grown yearly, in the field or in the greenhouse, under various environmental conditions. However, these high quality transplants can be produced only under carefully controlled, rather than variable environment al conditions. Recent research has shown that the closed transplant production system requires considerably small amounts of electricity, water, fertilizer, CO) and pesticide to produce value-added transplants as scheduled with minimum release of environmental pollutants and minimum loss of transplants. The closed or closed-type transplant production system is defined as a transplant production system covered with opaque walls with minimized or controlled ventilation rates, using artificial lighting. With this system, photoperiod, light intensity and quality, air temperature, humidity, CO) concentration and air current speed can be controlled as desired.

This volume contains a total of thirteen papers covering a variety of AI topics ranging from computer vision and robotics to intelligent modeling, neural networks and fuzzy logic. There are two general articles on robotics and fuzzy logic. The article on robotics focuses on the application of robotics technology in plant production. The second article on fuzzy logic provides a general overview of the basics of fuzzy logic and a typical agricultural application of fuzzy logic. The article End effectors for tomato harvesting' enhances further the robotic research as applied to tomato harvesting. The application of computer vision techniques for different biological/agricultural applications, for example, length determination of cheese threads, recognition of plankton images and morphological identification of cotton fibers, depicts the complexity and heterogeneities of the problems and their solutions. The development of a real-time orange grading system in the article Video grading of oranges in real-time' further reports the capability of computer vision technology to meet the demand of high quality food products. The integration of neural network technology with computer vision and fuzzy logic for defect detection in eggs and identification of lettuce growth shows the power of hybridization of AI technologies to solve agricultural problems. Additional papers also focus on automated modeling of physiological processes during postharvest distribution of agricultural products, the applications of neural networks, fusion of AI technologies and three dimensional computer vision technologies for different problems ranging from botanical identification and cell migration analysis to foodmicrostructure evaluation.

The rise in population and the concurrently growing consumption rate necessitates the evolution of agriculture to adopt current computational technologies to increase production at a faster and smoother scale. While existing technologies may help in crop processing, there is a need for studies that seek to understand how modern approaches like artificial intelligence, fuzzy logic, and hybrid algorithms can aid the agricultural process while utilizing energy sources efficiently. The Handbook of Research on Smart Computing for Renewable Energy and Agro-Engineering is an essential publication that examines the benefits and barriers of implementing computational models to agricultural production and energy sources as well as how these models can produce more cost-effective and sustainable solutions. Featuring coverage on a wide range of topics such as bacterial foraging, swarm intelligence, and combinatorial optimization, this book is ideally designed for agricultural engineers, farmers, municipal union leaders, computer scientists, information technologists, sustainable developers, managers, environmentalists, industry professionals, academicians, researchers, and students.

Plant Factory Basics, Applications, and Advances takes the reader from an overview of the need for and potential of plant factories with artificial lighting (PFALs) in enhancing food production and security to the latest advances and benefits of this agriculture environment. Edited by leading experts Toyoki Kozai, Genhua Niu, and Joseph Masabni, this book aims to provide a platform of PFAL technology and science, including ideas on its extensive business and social applications towards the next-generation PFALs. The book is presented in four parts: Introduction, Basics, Applications, and Advanced Research. Part 1 covers why PFALs are necessary for urban areas, how they can contribute to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, and a definition of PFAL in relation to the term "indoor vertical farm." Part 2 presents SI units and radiometric, photometric, and photonmetric quantities, types, components, and performance of LED luminaires, hydroponics and aquaponics, and plant responses to the growing environment in PFALs. Part 3 describes the indexes and definition of various productivity aspects of PFAL, provides comparisons of the productivity of the past and the present operation of any given PFALs, and compares PFALs with one another from the productivity standpoint by applying the common indexes. Part 4 describes the advances in lighting and their effects on plant growth, breeding of indoor and outdoor crops, production of fruiting vegetables and head vegetables, and concluding with a focus on a human-centered perspective of urban agriculture. Providing real-world insights and experience, Plant Factory Basics, Applications, and Advances is the ideal resource for those seeking to take the next step in understanding and applying PFAL concepts.

During the last few years, many journal articles have shown the usefulness of the Additive Main Effects and Multiplicative Interaction (AMMI) model for analyzing regional yield trials. AMMI helps agronomists and breeders in several ways: to understand or model complex data sets, especially the interactions; to estimate yields more accurately, even with less data; to make better selections; and to design more efficient yield-trial experiments.

This book is the first systematic treatment of these topics, collecting concepts from the scattered literature and also presenting many new results. Although agricultural applications are emphasized here, AMMI is applicable to two-way data tables containing one kind of data, either replicated or not, so AMMI appears in many areas of science and technology.

The volume's first seven chapters review the agricultural and statistical principles and the final chapter indicates the difference that AMMI can make for agricultural research and world food supplies. This book will be of great value to agricultural scientists throughout the world, enabling them to learn more from their data and thereby make greater progress.

The comprehensive and compact presentation in this book is the perfect format for a resource/textbook for undergraduate students in the areas of Agricultural Engineering, Biological Systems Engineering, Bio-Science Engineering, Water Resource Engineering, and Civil & Environmental Engineering. This book will also serve as a reference manual for researchers and extension workers in such diverse fields as agricultural engineering, agronomy, ecology, hydrology, and meteorology.

The book is a realistic blend of basic knowledge and understanding in soil physical properties. It will enable the reader to scientifically analyze soils to develop practical and successful means of providing sufficient drainage and to develop science-based irrigation strategies. Only basic mathematical knowledge is necessary to understand and apply the proven principles covered. With limited resources that are increasing significantly in costs, the book blends the ideal concept of providing sufficient drainage and irrigation based on using soil physical properties but with financial limitations in mind. One traditional problem with many Soil Physics, Drainage, and Irrigations-based texts is the prerequisite of understanding complicated calculus-based mathematics. Although necessary for a theory-based text, our text was developed with practitioners in mind where such complicated mathematics was avoided but referenced if the reader wishes to further explore the specific topic. Another problem with many traditional texts is the lack of practical examples or case-studies allowing readers to relate their specific scenarios to similar types of situations. We have purposely included numerous examples and practical field experiences. This is especially true when many of the theoretical ideals are covered, followed by explanations of how such ideals can be applied in the laboratory and field.

Carbon Dots in Agricultural Systems integrates and crystallizes the emerging knowledge and application strategies of carbon dots as a powerful tool in agriculture systems. The book includes practical insights into the synthesis of carbon dots from indigenous raw materials and how to employ them in agriculture systems to increase crop productivity and provide renewable and cost-effective strategies that meet agricultural needs. Presented by an international team of experts, this resource updates on the latest in synthesis, physical, chemical and optical properties, along with the effects and mechanisms of carbon dots, all further explained in real-world studies. Finally, the book highlights emerging innovative topics which are of great relevance to scientists, academicians and innovators in agriculture (soil science, agricultural chemistry and agronomy) and biotechnology for further research and development.