Reply by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in compliance to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) order dated January 21, 2024 in the matter of ‘News item titled “Feeling anxious? Toxic air could be to blame” appearing in Times of India dated 10.10.2023’. NGT had directed CPCB to file a …
Surface coal mining in the eastern USA disturbs hundreds of hectares of land every year and removes valuable and ecologically diverse eastern deciduous forests. Reclamation involves restoring the landscape to approximate original contour, replacing the topsoil, and revegetating the site with trees and herbaceous species to a designated post-mining land …
Plant biodiversity is often correlated with ecosystem functioning in terrestrial ecosystems. However, we know little about the relative and combined effects of above- and belowground biodiversity on multiple ecosystem functions (for example, ecosystem multifunctionality, EMF) or how climate might mediate those relationships. Here we tease apart the effects of biotic …
Emission of nitrous oxide (N2O) from wheat field under various management practices was measured over two years. The experimental design consisted of two winter wheat (Triticum austivum L.) varieties with three nutritional treatments and two dates of sowing. The results revealed that soil moisture and soil temperature at different depths …
Physico-chemical properties of soil of two dominant forest types in Western Himalaya, viz. oak (Quercus leucotrichophora) and pine (Pinus roxburghii) across three soil depths, and winter and rainy seasons were analysed. In general, all the soil parameters, viz. soil moisture, water-holding capacity, organic carbon and total nitrogen decreased significantly with …
Further progress in understanding and mitigating N2O emissions from soil lies within transdisciplinary research that reaches across spatial scales and takes an ambitious look into the future. Original Source
Large amounts of methane (CH4) are known to be emitted from permafrost environments during the autumn freeze-in, but the specific soil conditions leading up to these bursts are unclear. Therefore, we used an ultrawide band ground-penetrating radar in Northeast Greenland in autumn 2009 to estimate the volumetric composition inside the …
The influence of carbon dioxide (CO2) and soil fertility on the physiological performance of plants has been extensively studied, but their combined effect is notoriously difficult to predict. Using Coffea arabica as a model tree species, we observed an additive effect on growth, by which aboveground productivity was highest under …
Tropical agroforestry has an enormous potential to sequester carbon while simultaneously producing agricultural yields and tree products. The amount of soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestered is however influenced by the type of the agroforestry system established, the soil and climatic conditions and management. In this regional scale study, we utilized …
A remarkable feature of nanobubbles (<10–6 m in diameter) is their long lifetime in water. Supplying oxygen-nanobubbles (NBs) to continuously flooded paddy soil may retard the development of reductive conditions, thereby reducing the emission of methane (CH4), a potent greenhouse gas, and dissolution of arsenic, an environmental load. We tested …
To provide technical information to farmers about the Kharif crops, a training camp under the guidelines of the state Agriculture Department and Mansa chief agricultural officer Rajinder Singh Brar was held at Budhlada. District Training Officer Guradita Singh SIdhu guided farmers about the crops and pesticide usage during the camp. …
DEHRADUN: To prevent migration of farmers from mountains in search of livelihood and save agriculture in the plains -- which is dependent on hilly regions for irrigation -- the agriculture department has decided to popularize mountain farming in a big way. For this, the department will undertake a slew of …
The Narendra Modi government is projecting its programme for issuance of Soil Health Cards (SHC) to farmers as a “flagship programme” but so far against a target of 84 lakh cards, only 34 lakh have been issued. Some of the States such as Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Kerala, Mizoram, …
Northern China is one of the most densely populated regions in the world. Agricultural activities have intensified since the 1980s to provide food security to the country. However, this intensification has likely contributed to an increasing scarcity in water resources, which may in turn be endangering food security. Based on …
With the need to increase crop production to meet the needs of a growing population, protecting the productivity of our soil resource is essential. However, conservationists are concerned that conservation practices that were effective in the past may no longer be effective in the future under projected climate change. In …
Production of cereals, the main staple and cash crops for millions of farmers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is severely constrained by parasitic striga weed Striga hermonthica, stemborers and poor soil fertility. A companion cropping system known as ‘push–pull’ overcomes these constraints while providing additional soil fertility and forage grass benefits …
Studies on measuring CO2, CH4 and N2O fluxes from five agroforestry systems viz., teak, jatropha, pongamia, simaruba and leucaena were conducted in semi-arid alfisols. This study gives an idea of successive potential values of GHGs in agroforestry systems to compare with carbon sequesteration abilities of these systems.
India is the still by and large vegetarian in dietary habit and heavily depends upon vegetative source to meet out its daily protein requirement. India is bound to be global leader in terms of production and consumer of pulses. Since, India is leading importer of pulses, production of pulse/ legume …
Nearly a thousand farmers in various parts of the district have been issued free soil health cards. The soil health cards had been distributed to farmers in Kalady, Amballoor, Chennamangalam, Puthenvelikkara and Kottuvally panchayats, said a statement issued by the Department of Public Relations. The statement said work on issuing …
The fertility of the world's soil is reaching a peak that will threaten global food supplies this century unless more is done to preserve the long-term viability of existing farmland, according to a group of leading scientists. Soil erosion and degradation, combined with the loss of agricultural land to urban …
Keeping in view the over exploitation of soil during last 20 years, the Punjab Agriculture Department on Tuesday launched an ambitious pan-State programme to monitor the soil health of every farm in the State by issuing them personalised soil health card. “Every district has been assigned one mobile soil testing …
