Conservation agriculture: the zero way
Brazilian farmers are at the forefront in the application of Zero Tillage, a cropping method that is greener, boosts productivity, and helps the climate. “Called direct drilling, no-tillage or zero tillage (ZT), the technique is in part praised for fixing carbon in the soil, thereby reducing the amount of carbon dioxide — a greenhouse gas…
Water or biofuels? You choose.
A recent editorial written by Fred Pearce in Sugaronline.com points out the alarming possible repercussions of growing biofuels for the world’s water supply. As the policy makers seriously consider this option as an apparently climate change-friendly method of fueling the world, we have to consider what affect this might have on other, already stretched, natural…
Tortilla crisis: how green fuel may be harming Mexico’s poor
In the face of global warming which is now acknowledged by almost all to be at least partly man-made, and of high oil prices and worries about dependence on imports from politically unstable regions, the idea of renewable energy from plants seems a very attractive one. Biofuels aren’t at risk from political upheaval or terrorism,…
Successful seed storage
For all you keen gardeners looking for novel ways to preserve your seed harvest this year, there’s no need to worry about not having special cryopreservation equipment or a ready supply of liquid nitrogen. You can draw on the wisdom of indigenous cultures for some methods to extend storage life. Take a look at the…
Bunny Rabbits
Fluffy and cute they may be, but rabbits cause around £115m worth of damage to UK crops annually. New research suggests that a quick and cheap method for repelling the fuzzy little menaces is to dust a wheat crop with slag – a readily available and cheap-as-chips byproduct of blast furnaces. The scientists at Central…
Climate Change Catastrophy for Californian Crops?
Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory say that increasing temperatures in California will damage yields of almonds, walnuts, oranges, avacados and table grapes. These crops are long-lived and are only planted once every 25-40 years. This could expose them to a projected temperature change of two to four degrees celsius over the next 45 years.…
About Hand picked… and carefully sorted
hand picked… and carefully sortedis the the place where the content specialists who put together CAB Abstracts, (and many other wonderful research tools from CABI) try to highlight just some of the vast amount of research information that goes into the products that we make. We are doing this because, to quote Bruce Sterling: …
Orangutans and Oil Palms
As some of you may know, this week is Orangutan Awareness Week in the UK. The fate of these rare primates is intertwined with the global demand for palm oil and the logging industry in Indonesia. With CAB Abstracts‘ wide coverage of topics in forestry and tropical agriculture, it’s the perfect place for our subscribers…
Inconvenient Truths Down On the Farm
The recent UK Stern Review on the economic costs of climate change and Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth have focused attention on the serious consequences that may result. A new review by Jurg Fuhrer published in CAB Reviews highlights the implications for agriculture, pointing out that it is “among the sectors most directly exposed…
Doing the right thing with water: The sustainable management of water in Agriculture
Water is important – ask any of us who live in the South East of England (where CABI is based) and have had to live with the hosepipe bans (and threats of worse restrictions) this year. So much for the green and pleasant land. But, being serious, water management IS important and figuring out what…
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