Microbial Management of Plant Stresses: Current Trends, Application and Challenges explores plant microbiota including isolated microbial communities that have been used to study the functional capacities, ecological structure and dynamics of the plant-microbe interaction with focus on agricultural crops. Presenting multiple examples and evidence of the potential genetic flexibility of microbial systems to counteract the climate induced stresses associated with their host as a part of indigenous system, this book presents strategies and approaches for improvement of microbiome. As climate changes have altered the global carbon cycling and ecological dynamics, the regular and periodic occurrences of severe salinity, drought, and heat stresses across the different regimes of the agro-ecological zones have put additional constraints on agricultural ecosystem to produce efficient foods and other derived products for rapidly growing world population through low cost and sustainable technology. Furthermore chemical amendments, agricultural inputs and other innovative technologies although may have fast results with fruitful effects for enhancing crop productivity but also have other ecological drawbacks and environmental issues and offer limited use opportunities. Microbial formulations and/or microbial consortia deploying two or multiple partners have been frequently used for mitigation of various stresses, however, field success is often variable and improvement Smart, knowledge-driven selection of microorganisms is needed as well as the use of suitable delivery approaches and formulations. Microbial Management of Plant Stresses: Current Trends, Application and Challenges presents the functional potential of plant microbiota to address current challenges in crop production addressing this urgent need to bring microbial innovations into practice.

Advances in Agronomy, Volume 166, the latest release in this leading reference on agronomy, contains a variety of updates and highlights new advances in the field. Each chapter is written by an international board of authors.

Genetically Modified Plants, Second Edition, provides an updated roadmap and science-based methodology for assessing the safety of genetic modification technologies, as well as risk assessment approaches from regulators across different agroecosystems. This new edition also includes expanded coverage of technologies used in plant improvement, such as RNA-dependent DNA methylation, reverse breeding, agroinfiltration, and gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR and TALENS. This book is an essential resource for anyone interested in crop improvement, including students and researchers, practitioners in regulatory agencies, and policymakers involved in plant biotechnology risk assessment.

Working with Dynamic Crop Models: Methods, Tools and Examples for Agriculture and Environment, 3e, is a complete guide to working with dynamic system models, with emphasis on models in agronomy and environmental science. The introductory section presents the foundational information for the book including the basics of system models, simulation, the R programming language, and the statistical notions necessary for working with system models. The most important methods of working with dynamic system models, namely uncertainty and sensitivity analysis, model calibration (frequentist and Bayesian), model evaluation, and data assimilation are all treated in detail, in individual chapters. New chapters cover the use of multi-model ensembles, the creation of metamodels that emulate the more complex dynamic system models, the combination of genetic and environmental information in gene-based crop models, and the use of dynamic system models to aid in sampling. The book emphasizes both understanding and practical implementation of the methods that are covered. Each chapter simply and clearly explains the underlying principles and assumptions of each method that is presented, with numerous examples and illustrations. R code for applying the methods is given throughout. This code is designed so that it can be adapted relatively easily to new problems.

Advances in Rice Research for Abiotic Stress Tolerance provides an important guide to recognizing, assessing and addressing the broad range of environmental factors that can inhibit rice yield. As a staple food for nearly half of the world's population, and in light of projected population growth, improving and increasing rice yield is imperative. This book presents current research on abiotic stresses including extreme temperature variance, drought, hypoxia, salinity, heavy metal, nutrient deficiency and toxicity stresses. Going further, it identifies a variety of approaches to alleviate the damaging effects and improving the stress tolerance of rice. Advances in Rice Research for Abiotic Stress Tolerance provides an important reference for those ensuring optimal yields from this globally important food crop.

Advances in Agronomy, Volume 149, the latest release in the series, continues to be recognized as a leading reference and first-rate source for the latest research in agronomy. Each volume contains an eclectic group of reviews by leading scientists throughout the world. As always, the subjects covered are rich, varied and exemplary of the abundant subject matter addressed by this long-running serial.

Advances in Agronomy, Volume 143 continues to be recognized as a leading reference and first-rate source for the latest research in agronomy. This latest release brings new and updated information on Soil: The Forgotten Piece of the Water, Food, Energy Nexus, Humin: Its Composition and Importance in Soil Organic Matter, the Effects of Drought Stress on Morpho-Physiological Traits, Biochemical Characteristics, Yield and Yield Components in Different Ploidy Wheat: A Meta-Analysis, and a section on the Delineation of Soil Management Zones for Variable Rate Fertilization - A Review. Each volume in this series contains an eclectic group of reviews by leading scientists throughout the world. As always, the subjects covered are rich, varied, and exemplary of the abundant subject matter addressed by this long-running serial.

Quantifying and Managing Soil Functions in Earth's Critical Zone: Combining Experimentation and Mathematical Modelling, Volume 142, the latest in the Advances in Agronomy series continues its reputation as a leading reference and first-rate source for the latest research in agronomy. Each volume contains an eclectic group of reviews by leading scientists throughout the world. Five volumes are published yearly, ensuring that the authors' contributions are disseminated to the readership in a timely manner. As always, the subjects covered are varied and exemplary of the myriad of subject matter dealt with by this long-running serial.

Focusing on the great variety of research being done in the field of postharvest pathology, this volume presents a collection of topics concerning the diseases of harvested fruits and vegetables.

Each chapter represents a separate unit which taken together create a better understanding of the whole subject. Topics include the causal agents of postharvest diseases of fruits and vegetables, their sources and their ways of penetration into the host; factors that may accelerate the development of the pathogen in the host - and those that suppress them; a list of the main pathogens of fruits and vegetables, their hosts and the diseases elicited by them; and a detailed description of the major diseases of selected groups of fruits and solanaceous vegetable fruits. Attack mechanisms of pathogens and defense mechanisms of the host are examined as are treatments aimed at suppressing postharvest diseases. The search for natural and safe chemical compounds and the variety of alternative physical and biological methods for use in postharvest disease control are emphasized.

Teachers and students who focus on postharvest pathology, scientists in research institutes, companies dealing with fruit and vegetable preservation technologies and for all those striving to improve the quality of harvested fruits and vegetables will find this book of great interest.

Cereal grains have been the principal component of human diet for thousands of years and have played a major role in shaping human civilization. Around the world, rice, wheat, and maize, and to a lesser extent, sorghum and millets, are important staples critical to daily survival of billions of people. More than 50% of world daily caloric intake is derived directly from cereal grain consumption. Most of the grain used for human food is milled to remove the bran (pericarp) and germ, primarily to meet sensory expectations of consumers. The milling process strips the grains of important nutrients beneficial to health, including dietary fiber, phenolics, vitamins and minerals. Thus, even though ample evidence exists on the health benefits of whole grain consumption, challenges remain to developing food products that contain significant quantities of whole grain components and meet consumer expectations.
This book presents some of the latest research endeavors that aim to improve our understanding of how the chemistry of various grain components can be manipulated to improve contribution of cereals to human health. Most of the topics are based on the Cereal Grains Symposium, at the 2011 American Chemical Society held in Anaheim, CA, March 27-31.

In the later part of the 20th century, the United States experienced a remarkable surge in public interest toward medicinal and aromatic crops and this trend continues. This consumer interest helped create a significant demand for plants with culinary and medicinal applications as the public discovers their benefits for a wide range of applications. Consequently, this consumer call has generated a huge demand on farmers, but has also provided opportunities for new agricultural crops to support both fresh and dry raw material markets. Processing raw materials for end use by consumers introduces even more variables at all levels from harvesting to final desired product. Maintaining quality and authenticity throughout this process has inspired farmers, processing facilities, and regulatory agencies to adopt new practices and new laws to maintain safety and quality. Maintaining this quality and authenticity is often made possible using analytical methods for quality control, which subsequently triggered a demand for both regulatory agencies and scientists throughout the world. For aforementioned reasons, it is imperative that scientists continue to explore related topics from the field to the final consumer product. This book touches on many of the issues currently being addressed by scientists working to produce the desired consumer product while maintaining authenticity and quality and environmental stewardship.

Pasture management in South Africa covers all major aspects of pasture production and management. Particular strengths are species selection, pasture establishment, fertilizer, grazing and forage management, and livestock related aspects of nutrient supplementation and feed budgeting. Pasture fertilizer practice is dealt with comprehensively. The range of regions and topics should make the title useful to students and practitioners beyond South Africa's borders.

Genetic Engineering and Genome Editing for Zinc Biofortification of Rice provides the first single-volume, comprehensive resource on genetic engineering approaches, including novel genome editing techniques, that are carried out in rice, a staple crop for much of the world's population. Dietary zinc deficiency can lead to negative health outcomes, including increased risk of stunting, respiratory diseases, diarrhea, mortality during childhood, and preterm births in pregnancy. By providing a complete view of the need for zinc biofortification in rice, sections in this book discuss state-of-the-art scientific advances, and then go further, placing them in their proper scientific, regulatory and socioeconomic contexts. While zinc biofortification can be achieved through conventional breeding, genetic engineering and agronomic practices, this is the first reference to bring all the latest insights and understanding to a comprehensive resource that is based on real-world experience and targeted applications.

The Impact of Nanoparticles on Agriculture and Soil, part of the Nanomaterials-Plant Interaction series, contributes the most recent insights into understanding the cellular interactions of nanoparticles in an agricultural setting, focusing on current applications and means of evaluating future prospects. In order to ensure and improve the biosafety of nanoparticles, it is a primary concern to understand cellular bioprocess like nanomaterial's cellular uptake and their influence on cellular structural, functional and genetic components. This book addresses these and other important aspects in detail along with showcasing their applications in the area of agriculture. With an international team of authors, and experienced editors, this book will be valuable to those working to understand and advance nanoscience to benefit agricultural production and human and environmental welfare. In-depth knowledge of these bioprocess will enable researchers to engineer nanomaterials for enhanced biosafety.

Vegetation Dynamics and Crop Stress: An Earth-Observation Perspective focuses on vegetation dynamics and crop stress at both the regional and country levels by using earth observation (EO) data sets. The book uniquely provides a better understanding of natural vegetation and crop failure through geo-spatial technologies. This book covers biophysical control of vegetation, deforestation, desertification, drought, and crop-water efficiency, as well as the application of satellite-derived measures from optical, thermal, and microwave domains for monitoring and modeling crop condition, agricultural drought, and crop health in contrasting monsoon/weather episodes.

Advances in Agronomy, Volume 179, the latest release in this leading reference on agronomy, contains a variety of updates and highlights new advances in the field. Each chapter is written by an international board of authors.