Iris Publishers Agriculture Soil Science

  W.F.P.’S Nobel Prize, The Pandemic, & Our Emerging Existential Food Crisis Authored by Scott M Lacy The way we make food shapes the world we live in. And if that’s the case, by reverse logic, our 21st century lives are a collective indictment of an unjust global food system. Historic levels of inequality, poverty, and hunger pervade our lived experience despite centuries of experiments in search of political, economic, and even scientific solutions to alleviate all this suffering on a macro-level. That is not to say that all of our previous experiments were mistakes, not by a long shot. In fact, our species has a remarkable history of adapting our food system to the dynamic and precarious balance between population growth and our lived environment, the planet. Specifically, the long arc of our Homo sapiens history reveals two existential food crises that may help us better understand our 21st century challenges to feeding the planet. Our species’ first existential food c...

Effect of Consorted PGPMs and Mineral Fertilizer on Grain Yield of Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and Malt Barely (Hordium vulgar L) in the Central Highlands of Ethiopia Authored by Abere Mnalku Agriculture accounts for 41% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 85% of total export and is providing the source of livelihood for the great majority (over 80%) of the Ethiopian population of 102 million in 2017 [1]. However, the sector is still characterized by low productivity, dominated by subsistence, low input and low output rainfed farming systems in which biotic and abiotic factors periodically reverse performance gains with adverse effects on household food security particularly on the staples [2]. Ethiopia is one of the largest wheats and malt barely producers in sub- Saharan Africa. However, wheat yield levels are low with a national average of about 2.2t/ha, which is well below yields obtained from research stations, i.e., 5t ha-1 in 2017 [3]. Diagnostic studies with farmers in the E...

Achieving Soil Security through Biobased Residues Authored by Maren Oelbermann Introduction The degradation of soil and the concurrent generation of organic waste is increasing as the world’s population is equally on the rise. Annually, ~12 billion hectares of land are lost to soil erosion and degradation with an approximate cost of $2.3US trillion (USD) [1]. This startling rate of soil degradation and soil erosion has resulted in short- and long-term sustainability concerns for food, energy, and water [2-4]. To address these challenges, the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus was developed. The WEF nexus addresses resource and development challenges that improve our understanding of the complex interactions among multiple resource systems [5- 7]. However, the adoption of the WEF nexus has aggravated the degradation of soil [8] and there is no evidence that the WEF nexus is sufficient to address concerns surrounding sustainability [7]. Also, the WEF nexus does not to support future resour...

  Use of Salt-Tolerant Plants and Halophytes as Potential Crops in Saline Soils in China Authored by Faisal M El Hag Introduction As one of the major abiotic stresses, salinity severely inhibits plant growth and development, leads to crop yield loss and plant ecosystem deterioration worldwide [1,2]. Sodium chloride is considered to be the most component that causing salinization and is the widespread salt that existing in saline soils [3]. UP to now, almost 10% of the land area and 50% of the irrigated soils area was affected by salinity presence [1,4]. In addition, the degree of soil salinization is still intensified due to natural and human factors such as irrational irrigation. Simultaneously, the agricultural land has declined due to the industrialization, the urban development, and the habitat need with the rapid increase of population [5]. Therefore, developing strategies to make use of saline land will be crucial for addressing the problem of insufficient farmland and mee...

Remediation Methods of Crude Oil Contaminated Soil Authored by Ding Xuezhi, Crude oil is a quick and easily accessible source of energy, making our life comfortable and raising the standards of living. It can be found naturally in many parts of the world, particularly in the USA, Russia, Romania, Iran, Mexico, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Libya, and Nigeria [1]. The petroleum industries generate billion tons of crude oil, natural gas and its derivatives every year. All of these are then undergone further processing for the production of refined products such as diesel, gasoline, petrol and lubricants [2]. It is recorded by international energy agency that demand of oil all over the world in 2015 was 97 million barrels/day which is expected to be 100 million barrels/day up to 2021 [3]. Crude oil is composed of volatile liquid hydrocarbons with varying molecular weight and structure. It contains more than 17,000 hydrocarbons and its classification are based on the most prevalent compou...