The Alfalfa Management Guide is designed especially for busy growers, with to-the-point recommendations, useful images of diseased plants and pests, and quick-reference tables and charts. Revised in 2011, this edition of Alfalfa Management Guide covers the latest strategies for alfalfa establishment, production, and harvest-soil testing, fertilizing, integrated pest management, rotation, and more.
This book is the first comprehensive compilation of deliberations on whole genome sequencing of the diploid and tetraploid alfalfa genomes including sequence assembly, gene annotation, and comparative genomics with the model legume genome, functional genomics, and genomics of important agronomic characters. Other chapters describe the genetic diversity and germplasm collections of alfalfa, as well as development of genetic markers and genome-wide association and genomic selection for economical important traits, genome editing, genomics, and breeding targets to address current and future needs. Altogether, the book contains about 300 pages over 16 chapters authored by globally reputed experts on the relevant field in this crop. This book is useful to the students, teachers, and scientists in the academia and relevant private companies interested in genetics, breeding, pathology, physiology, molecular genetics and breeding, biotechnology, and structural and functional genomics. The work is also useful to seed and forage industries.
Rainfall levels are rarely optimal, but there are hundreds of things you can do to efficiently conserve and use the water you do have and to reduce the impact of drought on your soil, crops, livestock, and farm or ranch ecosystem. Author Dale Strickler introduces you to the same innovative systems he used to transform his own drought-stricken family farm in Kansas into a thriving, water-wise, and profitable enterprise, maximizing healthy cropland, pasture, and water supply. Ranging from simple, short-term projects such as installing rain-collection ollas to long-term land-management planning strategies, Strickler’s methods show how to get more water into the soil, keep it in the soil, and help plants and livestock access it.
This comprehensive guide for western alfalfa growers brings together the most current information and recommendations in nearly all areas of alfalfa management, including stand establishment, fertilization, irrigation, pest management, and harvesting
Growing for 100 - the complete year-round guide for the small-scale market grower. Across North America, an agricultural renaissance is unfolding. A growing number of market gardeners are emerging to feed our appetite for organic, regional produce. But most of the available resources on food production are aimed at the backyard or hobby gardener who wants to supplement their family's diet with a few homegrown fruits and vegetables. Targeted at serious growers in every climate zone, Sustainable Market Farming is a comprehensive manual for small-scale farmers raising organic crops sustainably on a few acres. Informed by the author's extensive experience growing a wide variety of fresh, organic vegetables and fruit to feed the approximately one hundred members of Twin Oaks Community in central Virginia, this practical guide provides: Detailed profiles of a full range of crops, addressing sowing, cultivation, rotation, succession, common pests and diseases, and harvest and storage Information about new, efficient techniques, season extension, and disease resistant varieties Farm-specific business skills to help ensure a successful, profitable enterprise Whether you are a beginning market grower or an established enterprise seeking to improve your skills, Sustainable Market Farming is an invaluable resource and a timely book for the maturing local agriculture movement.
This book provides a comprehensive overview of the multiple strategies that plants have developed to cope with drought, one of the most severe environmental stresses. Experts in the field present 17 chapters, each of which focuses on a basic concept as well as the latest findings. The following major aspects are covered in the book: · Morphological and anatomical adaptations · Physiological responses · Biochemical and molecular responses · Ecophysiological responses · Responses to drought under field conditions The contributions will serve as an invaluable source of information for researchers and advanced students in the fields of plant sciences, agriculture, ecophysiology, biochemistry and molecular biology.
The natural environment for plants is composed of a complex set of abiotic and biotic stresses; plant responses to these stresses are equally complex. Systems biology allows us to identify regulatory hubs in complex networks. It also examines the molecular “parts” (transcripts, proteins and metabolites) of an organism and attempts to combine them into functional networks or models that effectively describe and predict the dynamic activities of that organism in different environments. This book focuses on research advances regarding plant responses to abiotic stresses, from the physiological level to the molecular level. It highlights new insights gained from the integration of omics datasets and identifies remaining gaps in our knowledge, outlining additional focus areas for future crop improvement research. Plants have evolved a wide range of mechanisms for coping with various abiotic stresses. In many crop plants, the molecular mechanisms involved in a single type of stress tolerance have since been identified; however, in order to arrive at a holistic understanding of major and common events concerning abiotic stresses, the signaling pathways involved must also be elucidated. To date several molecules, like transcription factors and kinases, have been identified as promising candidates that are involved in crosstalk between stress signalling pathways. However, there is a need to better understand the tolerance mechanisms for different abiotic stresses by thoroughly grasping the signalling and sensing mechanisms involved. Accordingly, this book covers a range of topics, including the impacts of different abiotic stresses on plants, the molecular mechanisms leading to tolerance for different abiotic stresses, signaling cascades revealing cross-talk among various abiotic stresses, and elucidation of major candidate molecules that may provide abiotic stress tolerance in plants.
Over the past decade, our understanding of plant adaptation to environmental stress has grown considerably. This book focuses on stress caused by the inanimate components of the environment associated with climatic, edaphic and physiographic factors that substantially limit plant growth and survival. Categorically these are abiotic stresses, which include drought, salinity, non-optimal temperatures and poor soil nutrition. Another stress, herbicides, is covered in this book to highlight how plants are impacted by abiotic stress originating from anthropogenic sources. The book also addresses the high degree to which plant responses to quite diverse forms of environmental stress are interconnected, describing the ways in which the plant utilizes and integrates many common signals and subsequent pathways to cope with less favorable conditions. The book is directed at researchers and professionals in plant physiology, cell biology and molecular biology, in both the academic and industrial sectors.
