The Solar Corridor Crop System: Implementation and Impacts presents a case-study format on the planning and implementation of alternative cropping systems designed to maximize incident sunlight and bio-support of all crops in a rotation system. The book describes the basic component of the system, an increased access point of incident sunlight between each row or pairs of rows that enables a more uniform vertical distribution of incident sunlight to chloroplasts within the entire corn leaf canopy. While the production environment and environment specific genetics determine the performance potential of this principle, by maximizing the principles that light is basic to crop yield, a solar corridor ultimately contributes to increased grain yield. Written by experts who were integral in the development of solar corridor systems, and providing real-world examples of the methods, challenges and future prospects, this book will be valuable for those seeking to increase yield-per-acre through both primary and cover-crops.

Advances in Agronomy, Volume 156, 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.

From The New York Times best-selling author of The Essential Scratch & Sniff Guide to Becoming a Wine Expert, everything you need to know about America's favorite recreational plant Who better to guide you through the distinctive scents of cannabis than Richard Betts, author of best-selling books, The Essential Scratch & Sniff Guide to Becoming a Wine Expert and The Essential Scratch & Sniff Guide to Becoming a Whiskey Know-It-All ? In his newest novelty book, Betts demystifies the differences between cannabis and hemp, indica and sativa, and describes how each strain will make you feel and more, aided by scents to truly allow readers to understand the distinction between Train Wreck and Sour Diesel. With a short history lesson on where Mary Jane came from and how it became humanity's beloved pastime, plus a guide to the most popular strains, this handbook is a fact-filled and fun guide to all things cannabis. And if you don't live in a state that has legalized marijuana, this book is the closest thing you'll have to toking up!

Organic Farming: Global Perspectives and Methods explores the core definition and concepts of organic farming in sustainability, its influence on the ecosystem, the significance of seed, soil management, water management, weed management, the significance of microorganisms in organic farming, livestock management, and waste management. The book provides readers with a basic idea of organic farming that presents advancements in the field and insights on the future. Written by a team of global experts, and with the aim of providing a current understanding of organic farming, this resource is valuable for researchers, graduate students, and post-doctoral fellows from academia and research institutions.

Have you ever wondered why we eat wheat, rice, potatoes and cassava? Why we routinely domesticate foodstuffs with the power to kill us, or why we chose almonds over acorns? Answering all these questions and more in a readable and friendly style, this book takes you on a journey through our history with crop plants. Arranged into recurrent themes in plant domestication, this book documents the history and biology of over 50 crops, including cereals, spices, legumes, fruits and cash crops such as chocolate, tobacco and rubber. In The Nature of Crops John Warren reveals: -Why the Egyptians worshipped onions; -Why red-flowering runner beans provide fewer beans than white-flowering; -The inherent dangers of being a pineapple worker; and -Why a bird will always beat you in a chilli pepper eating competition!

In many tropical areas, the main constraint to increased output of livestock products is the inability of producers to feed animals adequately throughout the year. Yet opportunities exist to enhance ruminant livestock feed supplies by using crop residues, such as cereal straw and legume haulms. Greater emphasis is therefore now being placed on vegetative production in plant breeding research. Crop residues also play an important role in conserving soil moisture, preventing erosion and providing products such as fuel or thatch for smallholders. This book provides a multi-disciplinary perspective on crop residues, bringing together crop, animal and social scientists from six continents. It has been developed from papers presented at a workshop held in April 1996, at ICRISAT Asia Center, as part of the Systemwide Livestock Program of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) convened by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), based in Africa. It will appeal to a wide readership in disciplines as diverse as agronomy, soil science, plant breeding, animal nutrition and socio-economics.

In Calabria, Italy, where bergamot has been successfully cultivated since the eighteenth century, it is commonly defined as "the prince of the Citrus genus." Written by an international panel of experts from multiple disciplines, Citrus bergamia: Bergamot and its Derivatives represents the most complete treatise on bergamot and its derivatives currently available. Although production of bergamot and its derivatives is comparatively small, its chemical composition and biological properties have been of great scientific interest and the oil is considered essential in many high-quality perfumes. There is also an increased demand for bergamot oil for food flavorings and gastronomy. A tribute to bergamot, Citrus bergamia: Bergamot and its Derivatives covers all aspects of bergamot, from its historical and botanical origins, cultural practices, and transformation technologies to the use of its derivatives, possible contaminations, and biological activity. The book examines the chemical composition of bergamot in peel oils, leaf oils, juice, and fruits, extracted by various techniques-mechanical, distillation, and by supercritical fluids. It covers newly identified classes of compounds, limonoids and statins, describing the identification and assay of natural statins and the pharmacological activities of limonoids. It also discusses bergapten properties and its uses in cosmetics and medicine, as well as the use of bergamot in perfumery and in foods and beverages. The book concludes with a chapter reviewing the available data and global legislative status of bergamot as they relate to the safe use and trade of bergamot products.

Plants are frequently exposed to unfavorable and adverse environmental conditions known as abiotic stressors. These factors can include salinity, drought, heat, cold, flooding, heavy metals, and UV radiation which pose serious threats to the sustainability of crop yields. Since abiotic stresses are major constraints for crop production, finding the approaches to enhance stress tolerance is crucial to increase crop production and increase food security. This book discusses approaches to enhance abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants on a global scale. Plants scientists and breeders will learn how to further mitigate plant responses and develop new crop varieties for the changing climate.

Postharvest Physiology and Biochemistry of Fruits and Vegetables presents an updated, interrelated and sequenced view of the contribution of fruits and vegetables on human health, their aspects of plant metabolism, physical and chemical/compositional changes during the entire fruit development lifecycle, the physiological disorders and biochemical effects of modified/controlled atmospheres, and the biotechnology of horticultural crops. The book is written specifically for those interested in preharvest and postharvest crop science and the impact of physiological and biochemical changes on their roles as functional foods.

Lockhart and Wiseman's Crop Husbandry Including Grassland, Tenth Edition delivers the latest developments in crop varieties, crop protection products and environmental schemes. This new edition reflects the changing world around us, with sections covering the principles of crop production and chapters on plants, climate, soil management, fertilizers, manures, weeds and diseases that threaten farm crops. Other chapters focus on crop husbandry techniques and the integration of sustainability across the board in crop production. This update also includes an additional focus on the principles of plant breeding, seed production and certification considerations necessary for today's agriculture.

Crop Protection, Volume 55, the latest release in the Advances in Insect Physiology series, highlights new advances in the field, with this new volume presenting interesting chapters on RNAi Plus, where microbes enhance RNAi: Mechanism and Applications, Symbionts in whiteflies, miRNAs from the microbiome as drivers in the insect, a critical view on insect microbiome data analysis and interpretation, Insect-microbe interactions and transmission as shaped by future climate changes, Intestinal bacteria of the German cockroach and its interaction with entomopathogenic fungus, and Beyond Baculovirus: Alternative biotechnological platforms and pest control based on insect viruses.

Conservation Policies for Agricultural Biodiversity: A Comparative Study of Laws and Policies focuses on the challenge of securing the ecological future of the planet and its inhabitants by exploring the Convention of Biological Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing and WTO laws, such as SPSS, TBT GATT. This book demonstrates how the urgent problem of biodiversity loss can be addressed by challenging notions of national self-interest and security for the purpose of implementing policies that will benefit humanity and, more importantly, ensure the future of our planet.

Nano-enabled Sustainable and Precision Agriculture is the first single-volume resource to cover this important field using a whole systems approach that considers both opportunities and challenges. The book provides a comprehensive understanding of the role of nanotechnology in agriculture from broad aspects, but also includes a comprehensive view of the interaction of nanomaterials with soil-plant systems. It highlights aspects not described in previous books, including the application of nanoinformatics and artificial intelligence in nano-enabled sustainable agriculture, the application of nanotechnology in alternative forms of agriculture such as hydroponics, and regulatory frameworks for this research field. The book addresses all these aspects by including sections on enhanced sustainability, reduced pollution and enhanced ecosystems' health, and the role of nanoinformatics and machine learning.

Agricultural Soil Sustainability and Carbon Management presents long-term research in the field of sustainable soil use and management to guide in the prioritizing the multifunctional value of soil health and addressing interdisciplinary links between major issues such as biodiversity and climate change. As soil is the largest terrestrial carbon pool, as well as a significant contributor of greenhouse gases, much progress can be made toward curtailing the climate crisis by sustainable soil management practices.The book provides valuable insight into the soil and carbon management, the research gaps and the methodological challenges for research into soil carbon management will be include over the decades.

Neglected and Underutilized Crops: Future Smart Food explores future food crops with climate resilience potential. Sections cover their botany, nutritional significance, global distribution, production technology, and tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses of neglected and underutilized crops. By simply changing species in a crop rotation system, the cycle of some pests and diseases is disrupted and probabilities of infestations are reduced. Finally, the book provides case studies that highlight where the adaptation of crops to local environments, especially with regard to climate change, have been successful. These crops can help make agricultural production systems more resilient to climate change. Although a few books on neglected and underutilized crops are available, this comprehensive book covers the full scope of crop husbandry, nutritional significance and global distribution.

Plant Stress Mitigators: Types, Techniques and Functions presents a detailed contextual discussion of various stressors on plant health and yield, with accompanying insights into options for limiting impacts using chemical elicitors, bio-stimulants, breeding techniques and agronomical techniques such as seed priming, cold plasma treatment, and nanotechnology, amongst others. The book explores the various action mechanisms for enhancing plant growth and stress tolerance capacity, including nutrient solubilizing and mobilizing, biocontrol activity against plant pathogens, phytohormone production, soil conditioners, and many more unrevealed mechanisms. This book combines research, methods, opinion, perspectives and reviews, dissecting the stress alleviation action of different plant stress mitigators on crops grown under optimal and sub-optimal growing conditions (abiotic and biotic stresses).

This book presents the progress, changes, and evolvement for apple mechanical harvest during the past decades, which include, but not limited to, bulky harvest method, harvest platform, apple infield sorting, and harvest robotics. Though there are significant progresses in apple harvest robotics, there still is a long way ahead before its practical applications, with existing and potential bottlenecks described in this book. Hence, other researchers would take advantage of this book to have a hint of the apple mechanical harvest history and state-of-the-art progress, so that they can find the room for their new research. This book targets senior undergraduates and more importantly graduate students in the field of agricultural engineering, sensing, automatic, and robotics.

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.

A comprehensive guide that covers the banana's full value chain - from production to consumption The banana is the world's fourth major fruit crop. Offering a unique and in-depth overview of the fruit's entire value chain, this important new handbook charts its progression from production through to harvest, postharvest, processing, and consumption. The most up-to-date data and best practices are drawn together to present guidelines on innovative storage, processing, and packaging technologies, while fresh approaches to quality management and the value-added utilization of banana byproducts are also explained. Additionally, the book examines the banana's physiology, nutritional significance, and potential diseases and pests. The book also Edited by noted experts in the field of food science, this essential text: Provides a new examination of the world's fourth major fruit crop Covers the fruit's entire value chain Offers dedicated chapters on bioactive and phytochemical compounds found in bananas and the potential of processing byproducts Gives insight into bananas' antioxidant content and other nutritional properties Identifies and explains present and possible effects of bioactive and phytochemical compounds Handbook of Banana Production, Postharvest Science, Processing Technology, and Nutrition offers the most far-reaching overview of the banana currently available. It will be of great benefit to food industry professionals specializing in fruit processing, packaging, and manufacturing banana-based products. The book is also an excellent resource for those studying or researching food technology, food science, food engineering, food packaging, applied nutrition, biotechnology, and more.

Digital Terrain Analysis in Soil Science and Geology, Second Edition, synthesizes the knowledge on methods and applications of digital terrain analysis and geomorphometry in the context of multi-scale problems in soil science and geology. Divided into three parts, the book first examines main concepts, principles, and methods of digital terrain modeling. It then looks at methods for analysis, modeling, and mapping of spatial distribution of soil properties using digital terrain analysis, before finally considering techniques for recognition, analysis, and interpretation of topographically manifested geological features. Digital Terrain Analysis in Soil Science and Geology, Second Edition, is an updated and revised edition, providing both a theoretical and methodological basis for understanding and applying geographical modeling techniques.

Advances in Agronomy 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 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 continues to be recognized as a leading reference and a 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 and varied and exemplary of the abundant subject matter addressed by this long-running serial.

Over the last 50 years there has been a growing appreciation of the important role that farmers play in the development and conservation of crop genetic diversity, and the contribution of that diversity to agro-ecosystem resilience and food security. This book examines policies that aim to increase the share of benefits that farmers receive when others use the crop varieties that they have developed and managed, i.e., 'farmers varieties'. In so doing, the book addresses two fundamental questions. The first question is 'how do farmer management practices - along with other factors such as environment and the breeding systems of plants - affect the evolution and maintenance of discrete farmers' varieties?' The second question is 'how can policies that depend on being able to identify discrete plant varieties accommodate the agricultural realities associated with the generation, use and maintenance of farmers' varieties?' This focus on discreteness is topical because there are no fixed, internationally recognized taxonomic or legal definitions of farmers' varieties. And that presents a challenge when developing policies that involve making specific, discrete farmers' varieties the subject of legal rights or privileges. The book includes contributions from a wide range of experts including agronomists, anthropologists, geneticists, biologists, plant breeders, lawyers, development practitioners, activists and farmers. It includes case studies from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe where, in response to a diversity of contributing factors, there have been efforts to develop policies that provide incentives or rewards to farmers as stewards of farmers' varieties in ways that are sensitive to the cultural, taxonomic and legal complexities involved. The book situates these initiatives in the context of the evolving discourse and definition of 'farmers' rights', presenting insights for future policy initiatives.