Emerging Plant Growth Regulators in Agriculture: Roles in Stress Tolerance presents current PGR discoveries and advances for agricultural applications, providing a comprehensive reference for those seeking to apply these tools for improved plant health and crop yield. As demand for agricultural crops and improved nutritional requirement continue to escalate in response to increasing population, plant researchers have focused on identifying scientific approaches to minimize the negative impacts of climate change on agriculture crops. Among the various applied approaches, the application of plant growth regulators (PGRs) have gained significant attention for their ability to enhance stress tolerance mechanisms. This book was developed to provide foundational and emerging information to advance the discovery of novel, cost-competitive, specific and effective PGRs for applications in agriculture.

Applications of Biosurfactant in Agriculture explores the use of beneficial microorganisms as an alternative to current synthetic plant protection strategies. The book highlights a range of renewable raw substrates including agro-industrial waste as a dependable and cost-effective technology for the mass production of biosurfactant, emphasizes the formulation of biosurfactants using a full-factorial design, scientometric assessment, and presents mathematical modeling for the enhancement of production processes. Recent biotechnological techniques such as functional metagenomics that could help in the molecular characterization of novel biosurfactant with multifunctional activities majorly from uncultured and unexploited microbes available in the soil biosphere are also explored. This book identifies possible modes of action by which nutrients are normally released to plants through the formation of metal-biosurfactant complexes and presents recent research findings on the utilization of biosurfactants for the management of mycotoxins and microorganisms when evaluated in the field and in greenhouses. Finally, the book emphasizes the application of biosurfactants as a form of potent antibiotics for the management of several zoonotic diseases and in animal husbandry.

Agriculture's Ethical Horizon: Third Edition covers the changing environment in which practitioners of agriculture are challenged to produce food for the world. Fully revised and updated, the book encourages discussions on the moral questions that agriculture faces, including what goals should agricultural science pursue and how should practitioners address important ethical questions which are different and more complex than the dominating questions of production? The book presents the story of agriculture from the blood, sweat and tears era, to the present genetic era, including the paradox of agriculture. This book is ideal for agricultural students, practitioners and anyone who would like to understand the tremendous responsibility of agricultural production. It presents a foundation for the important discussions and decisions that will be necessary to support the future of agriculture.

Advances in Agronomy, Volume 172, the latest release in this leading reference on the topic, contains a variety of updates and highlights new advances in the field, with each chapter written by an international board of authors.

Agricultural Nanobiotechnology: Biogenic Nanoparticles, Nanofertilizers and Nanoscale Biocontrol Agents presents the most up-to-date advances in nanotechnology to improve the agriculture and food industry with novel nanotools for the controlling of rapid disease diagnostic and enhancement of the capacity of plants to absorb nutrients and resist environmental challenges. Highlighting the emerging nanofertilizers, nanopesticides and nanoherbicides that are being widely explored in order to overcome the limitations of conventional agricultural supplements, the book provides important insights to enable smart, knowledge-driven selection of nanoscale agricultural biomaterials, coupled with suitable delivery approaches and formulations will lead to promising agricultural innovation using nanotechnology. Agricultural Nanobiotechnology: Biogenic Nanoparticles, Nanofertilizers and Nanoscale Biocontrol Agents explores emerging innovations in nanobiotechnology for agriculture, food, and natural resources to address the challenges of food security, sustainability, susceptibility, human health, and healthy life. The book is ideal for the multidisciplinary scientists whose goal is to see the use of nanomaterials in agriculture to reduce the amount of spread chemicals, minimize nutrient losses in fertilization and to generate increased yield through pest and nutrient management.

Advances in Agronomy, Volume 171, the latest release in this leading reference, contains a variety of updates and new advances in the field, including updates on Elevated CO2 in Semi-arid Cropping Systems: A Synthesis of Research from the Australian Grains Free Air CO2 Enrichment (AGFACE) Research Program, Simultaneous Effects of Legume Cultivation on Carbon and Nitrogen Accumulation in Soil, Growing Small Grains Organically in the Semiarid West: A Review of Markets and Management Practices to Optimize Productivity and Sustainability, Principles and Applications of Topography in Precision Agriculture, Retention of Heavy Metals by Dredged Sediments and their Management Following Land Application, and more. Other chapters focus on Genetic Diversity for Developing Climate-resilient Wheats to Achieve Food Security Goals and A Century of Subclover: Lessons for Sustainable Intensification from a Historical Review of Innovations in Subterranean Clover Seed Production.

Sea urchins and other echinoderms, which have been studied intensively by developmental biologists for more than a century, are currently among the most prominent models for elucidating the genomic regulatory processes that control embryogenesis and the evolution of those processes. This volume contains reviews from the world's leading researchers who are using echinoderms to address these questions. Chapters focus on gene regulatory networks that drive the differentiation and morphogenesis of major embryonic tissues such as the skeleton, muscle, nervous system, immune system, pigment cells, and germ line, and on evolutionary insights from comparative studies of these networks across echinoderms and other taxa. Other chapters comprehensively review the architecture and evolution of the cell signaling pathways that establish the early embryonic axes and on recent evolutionary changes in gene networks that have led to dramatic changes in the life history modes of echinoderms. This volume provides a comprehensive, current picture of exciting research at the interface between developmental genomics and evolution from one of the research communities leading this work.