#Agriculture and Soil Science

[ketyoulater]

[mindblowingscience]

Strategies deployed for the restoration of degraded land have had promising results in Brazil's semi-arid region, improving the microbial properties of the soil and contributing to a return of native ecosystem services. The techniques include removal of cattle or restriction of their access to specific areas of pasture; cultivation of cover crops; and terracing to control erosion. Recovery of soil microbial properties maintains biodiversity and raises crop yields, contributing to agricultural sustainability. These are the main findings of a study reported in the Journal of Environmental Management by a Brazilian research group comprising scientists affiliated with the University of São Paulo (USP), the Federal University of Piauí (UFPI), the Federal University of Ceará (UFC), and the Federal University of the Agreste of Pernambuco (UFAPE). The review article encompasses 18 studies conducted in the semi-arid region, especially the Caatinga, a local biome consisting mainly of deciduous thorn forest.

Continue Reading.

[wachinyeya]

https://www.newfoodmagazine.com/news/227272/corn-plants-solution-arsenic-contaminated-soil-challenges/

[technoregression]

ngl kinda pissed off with the way the world works like you spend your first 10 20 years just learning learning learning:

when you draw, by hand, a graph and it has an asymptote, you must not in any way indicate that the line diverges or moves away from the asymptote. the formula for calculating temperature loss in an environment!! that was my favourite :<

nutrient agar would be described as a control, a negative control to be precise because in this instance, no growth is expected. a "lawn" of bacteria in a Petri dish is when all individual colonies in an agar plate merge to form a field, or mat, of bacteria

Gel electrophoresis of DNA. endonucleases (restriction enzymes) hydrolyse (cut) the phosphodiester bonds at specific DNA base pair sequences. In the bacteria, the restriction enzymes cut DNA as a protective mechanism against invading foreign DNA. smaller fragments can move faster through the agarose matrix from the cathode to the anode, even though the larger fragments (i.e., 23kb) are more electronegative.

if animals are stressed before slaughter, you may end up with either PSE (pale, soft, exudative - severe short term stress) or DFD (dry, firm, dark - longer term stress). This is because they either suffer a rapid breakdown of muscle glycogen (PSE), or their muscle glycogen is used up during handling, transport, before and after slaughter (DFD).

the literary devices employed by the author work in tandem to elicit an emotional response from the reader by appealing to their sense of humanity, as well as an imagined psychological trauma.

data can be stored on a hard drive next to each other in physical space and we call this contiguous. It's useful for certain data structures, sometimes necessary. But you may not have enough free memory to access or execute programs if it needs to be contiguous. This is where something like a linked list data structure can come in handy.

Metamorphic rocks are are those that have been altered by external forces, such as (and typically) pressure and temperature. Eluviation is the process of clay leaving the A1/A2 horizons and heading toward the B horizon. Illuviation is clay accumulating into the B horizon. Leaching is just the movement of other things like phosphate, nitrates, etc, downward toward bedrock. The triangular soil texture (clay/silt/sand) diagram!

K(S) + H2O(I) → H2(g) + KOH (no idea what this even meant tbh)

I used to know all of that, and more, all at once. But now here I am filling out forms for people and scanning their documents and liaising with insurance, medical, financial, and other companies on their behalf.

"Why am I learning trig? When will we ever need this?" truth is little Timmy, you (on average) won't get to use it, you (on average) won't experience the joy of using these magnificent tools we get to learn at a young age, you (on average) will be robbed of every opportunity to experience this magic.

So. Enjoy it...

[ecosystemscenes]

Heavy spring rain physically breaks down exposed soil leading to soil erosion. Year-round ground cover protects the soil surface and enhances infiltration. Supplemental tile drainage increases infiltration and flow of water to reduce ponding. Drainage from this field with perennial grasses runs clear after days of saturating rains. 

[sock-ness-monster]

[fearofthefourthdimension]

It's relevant I swear

[farmerstrend]

A Sustainable Solution to Flood-Ravaged Kenyan Communities: Chinese-funded Bamboo Agroforestry Initiative

Discover how bamboo farming along Kenya’s Nzoia River is helping farmers prevent floods, restore degraded land, and create new income sources through eco-friendly products. Learn how a China-funded bamboo agroforestry project is empowering Kenyan farmers to protect against floods, improve food security, and boost livelihoods with sustainable practices. Explore how bamboo cultivation is…

[agreads]

Launching RegenIQ: A Scalable, Data-Driven Framework Driving the Adoption of Regenerative Agriculture

Agmatix, a leading agricultural data and AI-powered technology company, announces the launch of RegenIQ at the Regenerative Agriculture Summit in Europe. RegenIQ is designed to drive the adoption of regenerative agriculture by offering a structured approach to assessing the impact of field-level efforts, supporting both environmental health and productivity. Aligned with regenerative…

[by-jessica-achillea]

The Science Behind Soil pH for Your Garden

Soil pH is a crucial factor in gardening that affects plant health, nutrient availability, and microbial activity. Understanding soil pH and its management can significantly enhance a gardener’s ability to cultivate healthy and productive plants. Here in this guide, are things you need to understand on pH and soil is here, so keep this guide handy. Let this article help keep your garden and…

[quotesfromall]

In 1937, Washington began an aggressive campaign to encourage Dust Bowlers to adapt planting and plowing methods that conserved the soil. Once again farmers ran their tractors from dawn to dusk, this time to prevent barren fields from blowing. In 1938, the massive conservation crusade had reduced the amount of blowing soil to 65 percent.

Carol Chaitkin, Let's Review: English

[hollywoodlights]

Check this out! 🌱🫶

[whats-in-a-sentence]

SOIL COMPOSITION TEST – IN A JAR

The ideal ratio of the three mineral components of soil is about 40 per cent sand, 40 per cent silt and 20 per cent clay.

Sandy soil can drain nutrients more quickly, as water passes through it faster. Clay soil can be too dense to allow much of the vital air that soil life needs, and can get more waterlogged – though all of that is also dependent on soil life.

To see how your soil stacks up in terms of general sand, silt and clay composition is really easy. All you need is a jar, water and a ruler.

Find a large, tall, straight-sided jar that has a lid; ideally the jar should be about 1 litre (4 cup) capacity. Dig up soil from the patch you want to test, discarding the organic matter (sticks, dead grass and the like) right on the top. You want to test your soil right down to about 20 centimetres (8 inches) below the surface, so dig an evenly deep hole and mix up the soil in a bucket, taking multiple samples if you want to get a broad idea of your garden. As you mix the soil up, discard any rocks or large pieces of organic matter.

Fill your jar about one-third to half full with soil. Add enough water to come about nine-tenths up the side of the jar, leaving enough room to be able to shake it. Add half a teaspoon of dishwashing detergent if you have it, to help separate the soil components. Pop the lid on and shake the jar well for about three minutes.

Leave the jar on a bench, undisturbed, for a day or so. After that time, you'll find that the jar contents will have separated into layers. On the surface of the water will be organic matter. Below that, there should be water, probably discoloured with dissolved organic matter. The next layer down is clay, below that is silt – and below that is sand which, being heavier, should have sunk to the bottom.

Use a ruler to measure the total volume of the sediment, and the depth of each layer of minerals. For instance, if you have a total height of 10 cm (4 inches) of settled soil in the jar, you may find that the silt is 4.5 cm, the clay 1.5 cm, and the sand 4 cm. Convert each of these to a percentage by taking each layer, dividing it by the total height, then multiplying by 100. In my example, 1.5 cm of clay would be 1.5 ÷ 10 × 100 = 15%. So clay would be 15% of my soil.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a fabulous soil pyramid to calculate the type of soil you have from these percentages – see http://tinyurl.com/soilcalc

The jar test is really handy for a quick, free analysis of what your general soil type is like. It's your own personal starting point. But remember, decayed organic matter and invisible life in soil can alter the way these minerals behave, because carbon and soil biology give soil structure, and can make minerals more available to plants. So, just because you don't have the ideal ratio, doesn't mean you can't grow great things. Regardless of ratios, soil life is fundamental, and should be the goal of all growers, no matter what the location.

"Soil: The incredible story of what keeps the earth, and us, healthy" - Matthew Evans

[krishilearning]

GreenHouse Farming in India

Greenhouse farming, also known as horticulture or conservation farming, is the growing of  crops in a controlled environment, usually in structures made of transparent materials such as glass or plastic. This controlled environment allows farmers to manipulate various environmental factors such as temperature, humidity, light, and ventilation to create optimal conditions for plant growth. 

 The main purpose of greenhouse cultivation is to extend the growing season and create a more favourable microclimate for crops, allowing for increased production and yields throughout the year. Greenhouses provide protection from inclement weather, pests, and disease, and allow farmers to grow a  variety of crops that would not grow in outdoor conditions. 

The main features of greenhouse farming include the use of artificial heating and cooling systems, modern irrigation systems, and sometimes supplemental lighting to ensure that the plants have ideal growing conditions. A controlled environment makes it easier to grow crops in  extreme climates and areas with limited arable land. 

 Greenhouse farming is often used to grow fruits, vegetables, flowers, and herbs. This is an efficient and sustainable farming method  that allows farmers to optimize resource use, save water,  reduce the need for chemical inputs, and ultimately become more environmentally friendly and productive. Contribute to agricultural practices.

Classification of greenhouse based on suitability and cost

a) Inexpensive or low-tech greenhouse

 Low-cost greenhouses are simple structures built using locally available materials such as bamboo and wood. Ultraviolet (UV) film is used for the cladding material. Unlike traditional or high-tech greenhouses, there are no special controls to adjust the environmental parameters inside the greenhouse. However, simple techniques are used to increase or decrease temperature and humidity. You can also reduce the amount of light by using light blocking materials such as netting. By opening the sides, you can lower the temperature in the summer. Such structures are used as rain shelters for growing crops. Otherwise, the internal temperature will increase if all the side walls are covered with plastic film. This type of greenhouse is especially suitable for cold regions.

b) Medium-tech greenhouse Greenhouse users prefer manual or semi-automatic controls with minimal investment. This is a greenhouse using galvanized iron pipes (G.I). The canopy is attached to the structure using screws. The entire structure is firmly fixed to the ground and resists wind effects. You can use an exhaust fan with a thermostat to regulate the temperature. Additionally, evaporative cooling pads and humidification systems ensure comfortable humidity within the greenhouse. Because these systems are semi-automatic, they require a great deal of care and consideration, and maintaining a consistent environment throughout the growing season is extremely difficult and tedious. These greenhouses are suitable for dry and mixed climates.

c) Hi-tech greenhouse In order to overcome some of the difficulties of medium-sized technical greenhouses, high-tech greenhouses are needed, where the entire equipment controlling environmental parameters is supported to operate automatically.

Kindly visit for more -https://krishilearning.com/advantages-of-greenhouse-farming/

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[nuadox]

Platform identifies soil microorganisms that cause disease

- By Roseli Andrion , Agência FAPESP -

One of the main challenges of precision agriculture is mapping the community of microorganisms in the soil, both beneficial and pathogenic. Biologist Rafael Silva Rocha founded the biotech startup ByMyCell in Ribeirão Preto (São Paulo state, Brazil) to facilitate this process.

The firm’s researchers use next-generation DNA sequencing to identify soil microbiota with a high degree of accuracy and more affordably than the alternatives available in the marketplace. They can detect pathogens and help farmers make decisions that boost yields and reduce the use of agrochemicals.

Image: ByMyCell’s platform produced this image. The platform can map more than 300,000 microorganisms in a single analysis. Credit: ByMyCell.

“We supply facilitated genomics via a robust cloud-based data analysis platform to help clients speed up research and development,” Silva Rocha said. The firm currently focuses on agricultural solutions. It initially targeted companies and research groups, building a client portfolio that includes the University of São Paulo (USP), the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), São Paulo State University (UNESP), federal universities, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA) and Butantan Institute. Altogether, it has more than 200 clients.

ByMyCell’s founders decided to pivot to agriculture in light of the difficulty of identifying pathogenic microorganisms on farms. “We made some changes to the platform and started offering the solution to farmers. It was a necessity that arose during the process,” Silva Rocha said.

The platform was enhanced via a project supported by FAPESP’s Innovative Research in Small Business Program (PIPE). It can identify any microorganism. More than 300,000 can be mapped in a single analysis. “Best of all, it’s affordable,” he said. 

The methodology has been used to identify pathogenic fungi, the main cause of crop disease. The model is unique, and no one else offers the same service in Brazil. Most of ByMyCell’s competitors supply raw data. “This has enabled us to grow quickly. Some players have imported solutions, but the cost is high and precision low, as they’re not designed for use in Brazil,” he said.

ByMyCell’s platform calculates the risk of disease on a farm and compares the result with its exclusive database to make predictions. “These are provided in a spreadsheet or directly on a map of the farm, which is user-friendly because the agronomist sees exactly where each microorganism could be active,” he said.

The firm also suggests bioinputs produced in Brazil to treat each disease. Imported agrochemicals currently account for 50% of production costs on average. “Farmers want to reduce this expense. Our mapping lets them target diseases precisely because it identifies all the microorganisms. Moreover, they can opt for local products, which are more sustainable,” Silva Rocha said.

Crop losses due to fungal disease average 23% worldwide. The platform could lead to a reduction in these losses in the medium to long term insofar as it enables farmers to combat disease correctly. “They can control microorganisms and diseases they didn’t even know were there,” he said.

The price of the analysis corresponds to between 0.3% and 0.5% of production costs, according to Silva Rocha. “It’s very inexpensive, especially compared to the cost of agrochemicals, which account for about 50%,” he said.

Partnerships with universities

Silva Rocha has extensive experience in the segment. After graduating in biology from the Federal University of Pará (UFPA), he earned a PhD in molecular biology at the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain), where he specialized in bioinformatics. Later he held postdoctoral fellowships at Madrid’s National Center for Biotechnology (CNB-CSIC), where he worked on systems and synthetic biology, and at the University of São Paulo’s Ribeirão Preto Medical School (FMRP-USP), working on systems biology. He also served as a university professor in FMRP-USP’s Department of Cellular and Molecular Biology.

In 2022, he decided to devote all his time to setting up and running ByMyCell. He applied his expertise in genomic data analysis to development of the solution. “I identified demand for the product while I was still working at the university,” he said.

The startup continues to partner with academia. “We have three ongoing projects. The firm’s agility isn’t possible for universities, but they have advantages we lack. The partnerships help train and develop professionals, while also offering the possibility of bringing in talented people to work for the firm,” he said.

According to Silva Rocha, few universities conduct genomics research entirely in the cloud. “Until recently, they were still buying physical servers, so many students have no experience with the cloud. Our partnership with USP has been fruitful, lending us undergraduates in their last year as interns. We train them to use the technology and prepare them for the labor market. Two out of five interns have been hired as team members so far,” he said.

The startup has two founding partners and ten staffers. The team doubled in size in the last two months thanks to the projected supported by PIPE-FAPESP. “ByMyCell has sufficient revenue to pay its own bills, so we were able to use the funding from PIPE to create a research and development group,” he said. More specialists will be hired by the end of the year, taking the workforce to 15 people.

FAPESP’s support via PIPE was fundamental to help the firm expand, which it did differently from most startups supported by the program. “We used our own capital to set up the firm, but an angel investor later came on board and enabled us to develop faster,” he said. The learning curve accelerated further thanks to input from clients, and the firm was able to bid for funding from PIPE in early 2023.

Applications in human health

The technology developed by the firm’s researchers can also be used in the human health segment. For example, it can sequence viral DNA, as was necessary during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the characteristics of the novel coronavirus had to be understood as part of the effort to combat the disease.

The startup has plans for this niche. “Many human pathogens are poorly understood, and there are cases of infections that aren’t treated adequately owing to inaccurate or imprecise diagnosis. A good example is Sporothrix, a fungus often confused with Leishmania, a protozoan parasite. Imagine having a test that could examine all microorganisms instead of analyzing them one by one,” he said.

The health sector is more highly regulated so that adaptations will be required. “To win certification for our lab in this sector, we would have to invest at least USD 20,000 for starters,” he said. The firm is studying the possibility and is ambitiously aiming at offering this kind of solution to the market in three to five years. 

“In the next three years, we’ll continue to focus on agriculture, where demand is still attractively high. We’ll then have achieved technological and entrepreneurial maturity to move into human health.”

This text was originally published by FAPESP Agency according to Creative Commons license CC-BY-NC-ND. Read the original here.

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