Mulch*

This study ventures into the exploration of potential poly-3-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) degradation in alpine environments. PHB-degrading bacteria were identified in both campus soil, representing a residential area, and Mt. Kurodake soil, an alpine region in Hokkaido, Japan. Next-generation sequencing analysis indicated that the campus soil exhibited higher microbial diversity, while Ralstonia insidiosa C1, isolated from Mt. Kurodake soil, displayed the highest proficiency in PHB degradation. R. insidiosa C1 efficiently degraded up to 3% (w/v) of PHB and various films composed of other biopolymers at 14 °C...

BACKGROUND: Tillage practices can substantially affect soil properties depending on crop stage. The interaction between tillage and crop growth on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) communities remains unclear. We investigated the interactions between four tillage treatments (CT: conventional tillage, RT: reduced tillage, NT: no tillage with mulch, and SS: subsoiling with mulch), maintained for 25 years, and two wheat growth stages (elongation stage and grain filling stage) on AMF diversity and community composition...

Rainwater is the main water source in arid and semiarid areas of the Loess Plateau, where rainfall is generally insufficient, ineffective and underutilized during the growing season. Thus, improving rainwater utilization efficiency is essential for sustainable agricultural development. A new system composed of rainwater harvesting, an infiltrator bucket with multiple holes and mulching (RHM), was designed to maintain soil moisture at a proper level in rain-fed orchards in arid and semiarid areas of the Loess Region of China...

To understand the effects of different stover mulching amounts in no-tillage on soil carbon and nitrogen contents and enzyme activities, finding a stover mulching amount which can meet the requirement of soil carbon and nitrogen accumulation while maximizing economic benefits, we conducted a long-term conservation tillage field experiment since 2007 in Mollisols area of Northeast China. We analyzed soil carbon and nitrogen contents, enzyme activities and economic benefits under conventional tillage (Control, CT), no-tillage without stover mulching (NT0 ), no-tillage with 33% stover mulching (NT33 ), no-tillage with 67% stover mulching (NT67 ), and no-tillage with 100% stover mulching (NT100 ) before planting in May 2020...

No-till and mulching are typical management operations in conservation agriculture (CA). To model pesticide degradation and leaching under a CA scenario, as compared to a conventional-tillage scenario (CT), the mulch module of the agro-hydrological model Daisy was extended. A Daisy soil column was parameterized with measurements of topsoil, mulch, and a realistic subsoil, and tested against published experimental data of pesticide fate in laboratory soil columns covered by mulch. Uncertainty and sensitivity analyses of the new Daisy version were conducted for a series of weather, soil, pesticide, and mulch parameters, using 4939 Monte Carlo simulations under each scenario...

Mulching to conserve moisture has become an important agronomic practice in saline soil cultivation, and the effects of the dual stress of salinity and microplastics on soil microbes are receiving increasing attention. In order to investigate the effect of polyethylene microplastics on the microbial community of salinized soils, this study investigated the effects of different types (chloride and sulphate) and concentrations (weak, medium, and strong) of polyethylene (PE) microplastics (1% and 4% of the dry weight mass of the soil sample) on the soil microbial community by simulating microplastic contamination in salinized soil environments indoors...

Neonicotinoid insecticide (NEO) residues in agricultural soils have concerning and adverse effects on agroecosystems. Previous studies on the effects of farmland type on NEOs are limited to comparing greenhouses with open fields. On the other hand, both NEOs and microplastics (MPs) are commonly found in agricultural fields, but their co-occurrence characteristics under realistic fields have not been reported. This study grouped farmlands into three types according to the covering degree of the film, collected 391 soil samples in mainland China, and found significant differences in NEO residues in the soils of the three different farmlands, with greenhouse having the highest NEO residue, followed by farmland with film mulching and farmland without film mulching (both open fields)...

The adverse influence of maternal obesity on offspring metabolic health throughout the life-course is a significant public health challenge with few effective interventions. We examined if black bean powder (BBP) supplementation to a high-calorie maternal pregnancy diet or a postnatal offspring diet could offer protection against the metabolic programming of metabolic disease risk in adult offspring. Female Sprague Dawley rats were randomly assigned to one of three diets (n = 10/group) for a 3-week pre-pregnancy period and throughout gestation and lactation: (i) a low-caloric control diet (CON); (ii) a high-caloric obesity-inducing diet (HC); or (iii) the HC diet with 20% black bean powder (HC-BBP)...

Numerous research showed that mulching with conventional agro foils elevates soil temperature and promotes plant growth, but negatively influences soil health and brings environmental concerns. Most of the published research on nonwoven mulches for plant cultivation includes nonwoven fabrics produced by extrusion processes providing nonwoven fabric structures similar to films. A limited number of studies investigate the impact of nonwoven mulches produced by a mechanical process on the cards and bonded by needling on plant cultivation...

Soil sodicity is a growing concern for crop growth and development in arid and semi-arid regions of the world. Conservation agriculture (CA) provides an effective solution towards reclamation of degraded sodic lands and enhance the crop productivity. A field experiment was carried out to assess the sodic soil reclamation potential of CA based management practices including zero tillage, legume (mungbean; Mb) rotation, residue (+R) mulch, and subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) for three years under rice-wheat (RW) system...

INTRODUCTION: The presence of brackish water resources is significant in addressing the scarcity of freshwater resources, particularly in the Xinjiang region. Studies focused on reducing adverse effect of brackish water irrigation based on using ionized brackish water, as well as on investigating its effects on fibre and oil plant production processes, remain incipient in the literature. Some benefits of this technique are the optimization of the quality and quantity of irrigation water, economy of water absorbed by the plants, improvement in the vegetative growth and productivity compared to irrigation using conventional brackish water...

Fusarium wilt of banana caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense , Tropical Race 4 (TR4) is a soil-borne disease, and it is devastating. At present, the biological control using antagonistic microorganisms to mitigate TR4 is one of the best strategies as a safe and green way. Yunnan has abundant and diverse microbial resources. Using the dual-culture method, the antagonistic endophytic fungi against TR4 were isolated and screened from the root nodule of Dolichos lablab . The effect of the highest antagonistic activity strain on the morphology of the TR4 mycelium was observed using the scanning electron microscope...

Timely and accurate estimation of cotton seedling emergence rate is of great significance to cotton production. This study explored the feasibility of drone-based remote sensing in monitoring cotton seedling emergence. The visible and multispectral images of cotton seedlings with 2 - 4 leaves in 30 plots were synchronously obtained by drones. The acquired images included cotton seedlings, bare soil, mulching films, and PE drip tapes. After constructing 17 visible VIs and 14 multispectral VIs, three strategies were used to separate cotton seedlings from the images: (1) Otsu's thresholding was performed on each vegetation index (VI); (2) Key VIs were extracted based on results of (1), and the Otsu-intersection method and three machine learning methods were used to classify cotton seedlings, bare soil, mulching films, and PE drip tapes in the images; (3) Machine learning models were constructed using all VIs and validated...

BACKGROUND: Weed control is essential for agricultural floor management in vineyards and the inter-row mulching is an eco-friendly practice to inhibit weed growth via filtering out photosynthetically active radiation. Besides weed suppression, inter-row mulching can influence grapevine growth and the accumulation of metabolites in grape berries. However, the complex interaction of multiple factors in the field challenges the understanding of molecular mechanisms on the regulated metabolites...

Mulching practices have been used to improve peach growth and production across the globe. However, the impact of mulching on the physiochemical properties and soil characteristics of orchards remains largely unknown. This study aimed to decipher the impacts of various mulching patterns on the soil environment and the quality of Prunus persica fruit in "Zijinhuangcui". Three treatments were set up, which included black ground fabric mulch (BF) and two living grass mulch treatments (HV: hairy vetch and RG: ryegrass)...

The use of plastic mulch films in agriculture leads to the inevitable accumulation of plastic debris in soils. Here, we explored the potential of earthworm gut-inhabiting bacterial strains (Mycobacterium vanbaalenii (MV), Rhodococcus jostii (RJ), Streptomyces fulvissimus (SF), Bacillus simplex (BS), and Sporosarcina globispora (SG) to degrade plastic films (⌀ = 15 mm) made from commonly used polymers: low-density polyethylene film (LDPE-f), polylactic acid (PLA-f), polybutylene adipate terephthalate film (PBAT-f), and a commercial biodegradable mulch film, Bionov-B® (composed of Mater-Bi, a feedstock with PBAT, PLA and other chemical compounds)...

INTRODUCTION: Wildlife feces can contaminate vegetables when enteric bacteria are released by rain and splashed onto crops. Regulations require growers to identify and not harvest produce that is likely contaminated, but U.S. federal standards do not define dimensions for no-harvest zones. Moreover, mulching, used to retain soil moisture and maximize crop yield may impact rain-mediated bacterial dispersal from feces. METHODS: To assess Escherichia coli dissemination from a fecal point source to lettuce grown on various mulches, lettuce cv...

Composting municipal food waste is a key strategy for beneficially reusing methane-producing waste that would otherwise occupy landfill space. However, land-applied compost can cycle per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) back into the food supply and the environment. We partnered with a pilot-scale windrow composting facility to investigate the sources and fate of 40 PFAS in food waste compost. A comparison of feedstock materials yielded concentrations of ∑PFAS under 1 ng g-1 in mulch and food waste and at 1380 ng g-1 in leachate from used compostable food contact materials...

Urban forest soil is often disturbed by frequent human activity. Organic mulching is effective for improving soil quality; however, the effects of organic mulching on soil bacterial communities in urban forests are still largely unexplored. This study evaluated how organic mulching changed the urban forest soil bacterial community through an incubation experiment. Four treatments were applied: (1) no organic mulch (CK); (2) wood chips alone (5 g, Mw); (3) wood compost alone (5 g, Mc); and (4) wood chips + wood compost (This mulch was divided into two layers, i...

Biodegradable mulching films are a very attractive solution to agronomical practices intended to achieve more successful crop results. And, in this context, the employment of agricultural and industrial food residues as starting material for their production is an alternative with economic and environmental advantages. This work reports the preparation of bilayer films having two different wettability characteristics from three bio-derived biopolymers: TEMPO-oxidized cellulose nanofibers isolated from infused Yerba Mate residues, Chitosan and Polylactic acid...