Organic farming

The European Green Deal encourages the use of non-productive activities in agriculture. One of the measures is the cultivation of melliferous floral plants at the field margins. Their influence on soil compaction and other deterioration is due to heavy machinery, its inappropriate use and frequent driving on field margins, is little studied. Plants of a high environmental value though rarely grown by farmers were selected for melliferous plant strips: perennial grass swards (PGS), perennial legume swards (PLS), annual floral plats mixture (AEP) and natural grassland swards (NGS)...

PURPOSE: This study aimed to investigate the digestion process of biodegradable and non-biodegradable microplastics (MPs) within black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) and assess their impact on larval growth and development. The goal was to understand the fate of MPs within BSFL, considering their potential for waste conversion polluted with MPs. METHODS: BSFL were exposed to two types of MPs, and their growth, development, potential accumulation and excretion of MPs were monitored...

Biofouling is a serious challenge for global salmon aquaculture and farmers have to regularly clean pen nets to avoid impacts on stock health and farms' structural integrity. The removed material is released into the surrounding environment. This includes cnidarian species such as hydroids, whose nematocyst-bearing fragments can impact gill health and fish welfare. There is also increasing evidence of the association of parasites and pathogens with biofouling organisms and cleaning fragments. It is unknown whether and how far local current regimes disperse biofouling material and whether this material reaches and interacts with adjacent pens or even neighbouring farms downstream, or wild fish populations in surrounding environments...

Feed has a great influence on the composition of swine manure, which is the principal cause of odor. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to simply change the shape of pig feed and control calories to find a suitable feed form for reducing the smell of swine manure. The experiment was conducted on 15 pigs from July to August 2021, and a total of three measurements were done. Three types of feed were evaluated in this study. The analysis items related to odor of swine manure are complex odor, ammonia, sulfur-based odors, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs)...

BACKGROUND: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global threat to public and animal health. Escherichia coli is considered an indicator organism for monitoring AMR among gram-negative Enterobacteriaceae in humans and animals. The current study aims to assess the antibiogram profile of E. coli isolated from dairy cattle and in-contact humans in central Ethiopia and to identify risk factors associated with multidrug resistance (MDR). METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in which 58 farms were recruited from selected districts of central Ethiopia...

Growing public awareness of the negative effects of pesticides on the environment, ecosystems, and human health has led governments to set targets for reducing pesticide risk. Switzerland introduced in 2023 two new policy measures to reduce pesticide risk by 50 % by 2027: (1) voluntary direct payment programs supporting pesticide-reduced and pesticide-free but non-organic cropping systems for most crops on arable land, and (2) restrictions of harmful pesticides for farmers managing under Swiss cross-compliance standards...

The use of virus-neutralizing (VN) and nonstructural protein (NSP) antibody tests in a serosurveillance program for foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) can identify pig herds that are adequately vaccinated, with a high percentage of pigs with VN positive antibody titers; these tests can also help identify pigs with NSP-positivity that have previously been or are currently infected even in vaccinated herds. To identify infected herds and manage infection, the combination of VN and NSP antibody tests was used in Taiwan's serosurveillance program implemented simultaneously with the compulsory FMD vaccination program...

Trueperella pyogenes can cause various infections in the organs and tissues of different livestock (including pigs, cows, goats, and sheep), including mastitis, endometritis, pneumonia, or abscesses. Moreover, diseases induced by T. pyogenes cause significant economic losses in animal husbandry. In recent large-scale investigations, T. pyogenes has been identified as one of the main pathogens causing endometritis in lactating cows. However, the main treatment for the above-mentioned diseases is still currently antibiotic therapy...

Carotenoids are essential nutrients for humans and animals, and carotenoid coloration represents an important meat quality parameter for many farmed animals. Increasingly, studies have demonstrated that vertebrate carotenoid cleavage oxygenases ( CCO s) are essential enzymes in carotenoid metabolism and are therefore potential candidate genes for improving carotenoid deposition. However, our understanding of carotenoid bioavailability and CCO s functions in invertebrates, particularly marine species, is currently quite limited...

Antibiotics in animal production are widely used around the world for therapeutic and preventive purposes, and in some countries, they still serve as antibiotic growth stimulants. Regardless of the purpose of using antibiotics in livestock, they may be present in animal tissues and organs as well as in body fluids and excretions (feces and urine). Farm animal excrement in unprocessed form (natural fertilizers) or processed form (organic fertilizers) is applied to agricultural fields because it improves soil fertility...

Sustainable farming is one of the priority goals of the "4 per 1000" concept with regard to the preservation of soil fertility and carbon sequestration. This paper presents a study on the use of a mixture of cover crops of self-grown oats ( Avena sativa L.) and sown white mustard ( Sinapis alba L.) in organic farming under the agroecological conditions of Serbia. The main objective was to identify sensitive carbon pools (microbial carbon and nitrogen, basal respiration and a number of specific groups of soil microorganisms) in organic farming with and without cover crops...

Food production sustainability is one of contemporary agriculture's fundamental challenges. Farmers are currently facing high input prices in crop production and declining organic matter in the soil. For this reason, a field experiment was established to assess the effect of the biostimulant NeOsol (NS), the manure stabilizer Z'fix (ZF), farmyard manure (FM), and their combination in farm practice. In situ measurements provided information on the change in bulk density (BD), unit draft (UD), saturated hydraulic conductivity (SHC), and cone index (CI)...

Climate change, especially in the form of temperature increase and sea acidification, poses a serious challenge to the sustainability of aquaculture and shellfish farming. In this context, lactic acid bacteria (LAB) of marine origin have attracted attention due to their ability to improve water quality, stimulate the growth and immunity of organisms, and reduce the impact of stress caused by environmental changes. Through a review of relevant research, this paper summarizes previous knowledge on this group of bacteria, their application as protective probiotic cultures in mollusks, and also highlights their potential in reducing the negative impacts of climate change during shellfish farming...

Soil organic matter (SOM) is one of the best indicators to assess soil health and understand soil productivity and fertility. Therefore, measuring SOM content is a fundamental practice in soil science and agricultural research. The traditional approach (oven-dry) of measuring SOM is a costly, arduous, and time-consuming process. However, the integration of cutting-edge technology can significantly aid in the prediction of SOM, presenting a promising alternative to traditional methods. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that an accurate estimate of SOM might be obtained by combining the ground-based sensor-captured soil parameters and soil analysis data along with drone images of the farm...

Perovskite/organic tandem solar cells (PO-TSCs) demonstrate exceptional suitability for emerging applications such as building-integrated photovoltaics, wearable devices, and greenhouse farming. By leveraging the distinctive attributes of perovskite and organic materials, which encompass expanded solar spectrum utilization, chemically benign solubility, and soft nature, PO-TSCs position themselves as ideal candidates for high-performance semi-transparent photovoltaics (ST-PVs). Despite these advantages, their development significantly lags behind other perovskite-based counterparts, such as perovskite/perovskite, perovskite/silicon, and perovskite/Cu(In, Ga)Se2 ...

The objective was to evaluate the effect of detoxified castor bean replacing soybean meal in the concentrate diet or as nitrogen organic fertilizer replacing urea on intake and nutrient digestibility, blood parameters and productive performance of sheep finished on irrigated Tamani grass pasture under continuous stocking and variable stocking rate. The treatments were two concentrate diets: standard (ground corn and soybean meal) and alternative diet (ground corn and detoxified castor bean cake), and two nitrogen fertilizers: chemical (urea) and organic (fresh castor bean cake)...

Camelina cake (CAM) is a co-product proposed as an alternative protein source; however, piglet data are still limited. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of different doses of CAM in substitution of soybean meal on the growth, health and gut health of weaned pigs. At 14 days post-weaning (d0), 64 piglets were assigned either to a standard diet or to a diet with 4%, 8% or 12% of CAM. Piglets were weighed weekly. At d7 and d28, faeces were collected for microbiota and polyamine and blood for reactive oxygen metabolites (ROMs) and thyroxine analysis...

Farming externalities are believed to co-vary negatively, yet trade-offs have rarely been quantified systematically. Here we present data from UK and Brazilian pig production systems representative of most commercial systems across the world ranging from 'intensive' indoor systems through to extensive free range, Organic and woodland systems to explore co-variation among four major externality costs. We found that no specific farming type was consistently associated with good performance across all domains...

Spring viremia of carp virus (SVCV), as a high pathogenicity pathogen, has seriously restricts the healthy and sustainable development of cyprinid farming industry. In this study, we selected 5-Fluorouracil (5-Fu) as the drug model based on zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) to construct a drug delivery system (5-Fu@ZIF-8), and the anti-SVCV activity was detected in vitro and in vivo. The results showed 5-Fu@ZIF-8 was uniform cubic particle with truncated angle and smooth surface, and the particle size was 90 nm...

The growth of the human population causes significant harm to ecosystems, directly affecting the biological diversity of coastal areas by replacing natural habitats with artificial structures such as breakwaters, ports, and marinas. The hard substrate from those marine facilities lacks the topographic complexity of natural habitats. Because of that, artificial habitats usually do not support a diverse community to the same extent as rocky shores in the surroundings. To address this issue and bring a strategic solution to the improper disposal of shell waste from aquaculture farms, we evaluated how increasing the environmental heterogeneity of walls by incorporating mussel and oyster shells on artificial concrete affected the diversity of sessile organisms from the subtidal zone...