Category Archives: Hydroponic Horticulture

Next-generation computational frameworks can examine the complex N interactions in crop systems to inform management, prioritize research, and increase understanding of the complexities. These computational frameworks include statistical models, process-based mechanistic simulation models, and hybrids of the two . Such decision-support tools explore all facets of N in the soil-crop interface—from gene expression, crop physiology, …

Continue reading “The genes encoding hundreds of Bt toxins have been sequenced”

Moreover, the fact that one system is not as productive as another—which is only one of many measures of performance in an agricultural system—does not mean that it can be transformed through simple imitation. Adaptation, as understood in ecology and evolution, is not “adaptation towards” some target or end goal, but “adaptation from” some starting …

Continue reading “A partial explanation for this situation lies in the semantic history of the term”

In developing countries, where food expenditure makes up a large proportion of household consumption, these price fluctuations have led to a proliferation of policies to control or stabilize food prices. Temporary export restrictions have been particularly widespread, with at least 33 countries using some form of export restriction during the 2007 – 2008 food price …

Continue reading “Export bans are likely implemented during periods of high prices and are thus endogenous to prices”

As in previous accession negotiations, EU negotiators will be concerned about the impact of accession agreements on the EU treasury, while CEEC governments will be attentive to their implications for national budgets. Furthermore, many producer groups in the West will be nervous about granting market access to Eastern competitors; the political clout of these interests …

Continue reading “The commodities produced in the regions are perfect substitutes for one another”

No-till tapped into the plants’ differential ability to absorb nutrients: those with deeper and more extensive roots were able to profit better from dispersed nutrients. This became a capacity that the system was nurturing in the cotton plant by gradually undoing the compaction layer so that its roots would have more room to grow. The …

Continue reading “Seeds would be sowed late because of intractable trans-oceanic bureaucratic hurdle”

More common was for the technologies to be changed according to the version of the local context that was collaboratively assembled by Africans and Brazilians at the project front line. The project’s scope of action only reached as far as its more immediate context in the research institutes, which it sought to make more receptive …

Continue reading “One can point to some of these eclipsed elements in Latour’s ethnography itself”

The solutions recommended by the C-4 report came out of a compromise between the availability of technological expertise for addressing them at Embrapa, the demands made by the African partners, and the financial and organizational constraints posed by the Brazilian Cooperation Agency and UNDP. Solutions were as much tailored to local contexts as the latter …

Continue reading “The three hectare piece of land put aside by the Malian institute for the project was unused land”

In an interview to the Brazil-Arab News Agency in mid-2009 , the newly appointed CEO of Embrapa spoke of his ongoing “talks with the president of the Republic” about creating a new international center in Brasília for receiving trainees from the global South. Instead of carrying out small, separate projects in multiple countries, as had …

Continue reading “The C-4 Project was remarkable for other reasons as well”

Today’s South-South cooperation has also included projects for restoring their material and immaterial culture in countries like Ghana or Benin. In Accra, I visited the Brazil House, a small museum dedicated to the Tabom returnees which was, according to the ambassador there, one of President Lula’s “pet projects”. When he inaugurated the museum in 2008, …

Continue reading “Most if not all my Brazilian informants were utterly unaware of this historical fact”

Dutta et al. found similar re-aeration patterns in a 1 m column experiment in a sand dominated soil, with re-aeration occurring quickly once drying commenced. Even with the presence of a limiting layer, defined by lower pore gas velocities and higher carbon concentration, a sandy loam channel acted as a conduit of O2 into the deep …

Continue reading “These studies suggest substantial non-occupational exposure to pyrethroids in the general population”