Agricultural productivity of the millennia-old oasis agriculture in Oman is based on the continuous application of high rates of goat and sheep manure combined with flood irrigation. The high nitrogen (N) and carbon (C) turnover in these systems is a result of year-around high temperatures and continuous soil moisture, but knowledge is lacking on how N and C are transformed under these conditions. Therefore, this study aimed at investigating the N movement in different soil N pools. To this end a field experiment was ...

Many local perennial plant genetic resources (P/PGR) are under threat due to over-exploitation, depletion, degradation, farmers’ favoring few cash crops, poor marketing conditions leading to low product prices along with the lack of knowledge about alternative uses and management strategies. Such processes often cause the underutilization and replacement of local P/PGR causing them to become neglected and underutilized species (NUS). The decline of species abundance may cause genetic erosion of these NUS crops and ...

Food security is still sub-optimal in many parts of West Africa calling for more efficient agricultural practices in mitigating food insecurity. Some of the problems faced in West African agricultural systems are bottlenecks in ruminant livestock supply, inefficiency in commercial poultry production, and loss of arthropod diversity. These issues require proper integration of farming systems, demand the closing of nutrient cycles, need diversi cation of production, and require enhancement of ecosystem services. To ...

The rise in population growth, as well as nutrient mining, has contributed to low agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). A plethora of technologies to boost agricultural production have been developed but the dissemination of these agricultural innovations and subsequent uptake by smallholder farmers has remained a challenge. Scientists and philanthropists have adopted the Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) paradigm as a means to promote sustainable intensification of African farming systems. ...

In most agroecosystems, nitrogen (N) is the most important nutrient limiting plant growth. One management strategy that affects N cycling and N use efficiency (NUE) is conservation agriculture (CA), an agricultural system based on a combination of minimum tillage, crop residue retention and crop rotation. Available results on the optimization of NUE in CA are inconsistent and studies that cover all three components of CA are scarce. Presently, CA is promoted in the Yaqui Valley in Northern Mexico, the country´s major ...

The use of organic fertilizers is an important approach to maintain soil fertility of irrigated agricultural land under the semi-arid climate conditions of Oman. However, gaseous emissions of carbon and nutrients from soil and organic fertilizers are a major challenge. Activated charcoal and tannins have the potential to reduce gaseous losses of carbon and nitrogen. Therefore, gaseous emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), ammonia (NH3) and nitrous oxide (N2O) were measured by a photo-acoustic infrared multi-gas monitor. ...

Agriculture in semi-arid and arid regions is constantly gaining importance for the security of the nutrition of humankind because of the rapid population growth. At the same time, especially these regions are more and more endangered by soil degradation, limited resources and extreme climatic conditions. One way to retain soil fertility under these conditions in the long run is to increase the soil organic matter. Thus, a two-year field experiment was conducted to test the efficiency of activated charcoal and quebracho ...

This research work aimed at investigating the physiological mechanisms of tolerance of pearl millet to low soil Phosphorus availability and drought under the Sahelian conditions.

Urban food production is an important supplier of fresh produce in the rapidly growing West African cities. In year-round vegetable production of the semi-arid tropics, low quality water is often use for irrigation. This results in health risks for producers and consumers, and causes environmental pollution, followed by soil contamination and crop yield reduction. In the presented PhD thesis quality and effects of irrigation water in urban vegetable gardens of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, were examined. The aim of these ...

At many locations in Myanmar, ongoing changes in land use have negative environmental impacts and threaten natural ecosystems at local, regional and national scales. In particular, the watershed area of Inle Lake in eastern Myanmar is strongly affected by the environmental effects of deforestation and soil erosion caused by agricultural intensification and expansion of agricultural land, which are exacerbated by the increasing population pressure and the growing number of tourists. This thesis, therefore, focuses on ...