ترویجی
Rostam Khorshidiyan; Ayatollah Karami; Mehdi Nooripoor
Abstract
This study was implemented to identify the economic, social, and environmental consequences of changing cultivation patterns on low-yield steep lands to rainfed gardens in Kabgian District of Boyer Ahmad County. Drawing upon expert opinion at the Agricultural Jihad Organization of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer ...
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This study was implemented to identify the economic, social, and environmental consequences of changing cultivation patterns on low-yield steep lands to rainfed gardens in Kabgian District of Boyer Ahmad County. Drawing upon expert opinion at the Agricultural Jihad Organization of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer Ahmad Province, a causal-comparative study was conducted using156 individual stakeholders (72 as project pros and 84 as cons) as a sample population at two points in time (before and after project implementation). Data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire. The results showed that cost, production, job creation, financial power and assets, sales market, support, competition, investment, income level, and bank facilities explained 70.77% of the total variance of the project's economic consequences while migration, job desirability, knowledge and experience requirements, participation, belongingness to the village, satisfaction with local institutions, project awareness, support, and conflicts explained 75.5% of the variance of the project's social consequences. The quality of the environment, living standards in the village, changes in species, and household consumption levels explained 68.83% of the variance of the project's total environmental consequences. Generally speaking, the results indicated a more favorable situation to the project pros than to the cons in terms of economic, social, and environmental consequences. In addition, the post-project economic, social, and environmental status of the project pros was evaluated as more desirable than before changing the cultivation pattern. Overall, the findings showed that changing the cultivation pattern at the village level led to improvements in the stakeholders’ economic, social, and environmental conditions. Furthermore, the results revealed that the stakeholders with higher income levels were more likely to accept the project.
ترویجی
Pezhman Roudgarmi
Abstract
Identification of changes in land use and vegetative cover serves important functions not only for optimal management of natural resources but also for planning by the agricultural sector. Satellite imaging is a technique of special benefits for updating land use and cover maps. It was the objective ...
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Identification of changes in land use and vegetative cover serves important functions not only for optimal management of natural resources but also for planning by the agricultural sector. Satellite imaging is a technique of special benefits for updating land use and cover maps. It was the objective of the current article to exploit satellite data to determine the extent and types of land cover/use changes in Tehran Province over the past two decades. For this purpose, use was made of Landsat-7 satellite images of Tehran Province prepared in the year 2000 and the Sentinel-2 satellite images of 2021. The images along with the relevant remote sensing data were subsequently subjected to processes in the spatial analysis software. Using the data thus obtained, the areas of natural resources and agricultural lands were estimated to be 1,050,155 and 174,115 hectares, respectively, in the year 2000 while those in 2021 were estimated at 946,200 and 170,800 ha. Clearly, the area of natural resources in the province shrank by 103,955 ha during the period from 2000 to 2021 and a total reduction of 3315 ha was recorded for the agricultural land area in the province during the same period. . Moreover, a land use change of about 39000 hectares was observed in agricultural land area in favor of built-up area. This is because about 36000 ha of the natural resources area in the province was changed to agricultural use so as to partially compensate for the farmland area occupied by new settlements, resulting in the total built-up land area in the province to rise to 107,129 ha. A number of suggestions have been put forth for preserving agricultural and natural resources lands in this province, the most promising ones include deployment of a monitoring land use system with remote sensing capabilities and stringent regulations to ban further divisions of Tehran Province into smaller administrative units.
مروری
Ali Akbar Damavandi
Abstract
Land is a source of human life and an important component of sustainable development. It is a vital resource for producing food, preserving biodiversity, and facilitating natural management of water systems, which also serves as a carbon sequestrating medium. Appropriate land management can protect the ...
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Land is a source of human life and an important component of sustainable development. It is a vital resource for producing food, preserving biodiversity, and facilitating natural management of water systems, which also serves as a carbon sequestrating medium. Appropriate land management can protect the resources and maximize their benefits to human society. This is while desertification, land degradation, and drought (DLDD) are unfortunately the growingly accelerated processes, particularly in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas. The underlying biophysical and anthropogenic causes of land degradation are multiple, overlapping, and interrelated in a complex manner that are embedded in the understanding of the ‘economics of DLDD’s set of methodologies for assessing the true societal impacts of land degradation. These form the cornerstone of solutions that determine how best financial, technical, and human resources might be allocated to tackle DLDD. The current paper estimates the costs of DLDD, or alternatively, the benefits of sustainable land management (SLM), for different parts of the world. Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) should account for both benefits and costs of halting land degradation. CBA is a powerful tool to help decision makers in their objective selection of different land-use management strategies and, thereby, implement effective, resilience-building interventions when funding is limited. In this regard, the Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) method is exploited in this study as a basis for the economic analysis of land degradation. It is, indeed, appropriate economic analysis of the phenomena involved that underlies the efforts to halt or alleviate land degradation on a global scale.
مروری
Adel Reyhanitabar
Abstract
Many students of agriculture, particularly those of soil science, raise the question whether it is necessary to learn and do mathematics. If yes, the question arises as to how much of mathematical knowledge is really needed by students of these disciplines. Will derivatives, integrals, or differential ...
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Many students of agriculture, particularly those of soil science, raise the question whether it is necessary to learn and do mathematics. If yes, the question arises as to how much of mathematical knowledge is really needed by students of these disciplines. Will derivatives, integrals, or differential equations be needed in soil science? One reason why some students may not take their mathematics courses serious is their failure to appreciate their relevance to soil science. This paper presents practical examples of math applications in such varied fields as soil physics, biology, chemistry, and soil fertility to illustrate how usefully the knowledge of mathematical formulas can be exploited in data analysis and drawing sound practical conclusions. The examples range from the application of differential equations embedded in relevant physical laws to the study of water and energy transport in soil to that of quadratic equations used to determine plant water demand or plant response to fertilizer application toward maximizing crop yield. It is imperative for lecturers of mathematics at departments of Agriculture and Soil Science to use such illustrative examples as compelling reasons for their students to appreciate why they need to master mathematics and to gain a better understanding of its relevance to their fields of study.
مروری
Ali Asadi kangarshahi; Negin Akhlaghi Amiri
Abstract
This study was conducted to evaluate potassium fertilization management on citrus orchards as an effort to gain a better understanding of the potassium requirement, amount of fertilization, and proper timing of potassium application as well as potassium uptake and transfer in citrus trees. The findings ...
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This study was conducted to evaluate potassium fertilization management on citrus orchards as an effort to gain a better understanding of the potassium requirement, amount of fertilization, and proper timing of potassium application as well as potassium uptake and transfer in citrus trees. The findings can be effectively employed in formulating horticultural recommendations toward optimized potassium application. On average, mature citrus trees contain 300 to 750 kg/ha of K, 15 to 20 percent of which is found in the leaves and 45 to 60 percent in the fruits. Long-term citrus fertilization experiments in Iran and elsewhere have revealed that around 50 to 200 kg/ha of potassium as K2O is annually needed to achieve sustainable production, improved fruit yield and quality, and proper tree growth and health. Around 50-70% of this amount is consumed in fruits, about 5% deposited in tree structure and organs, and the balance between the potassium absorbed and that consumed is made up by absorption and desorption reactions at soil exchange surfaces. Studies in the past have shown that the highest K-requirement and K-uptake rate in citrus trees belong to the period from June drop to fruit maturation (i.e., the second stage of fruit growth) but that the lowest uptakes are observed during minimum activity (i.e., in the winter), at the beginning of the growing season, and after harvesting. The potassium stored in older tissues, therefore, plays the greatest role in the growth and development of leaves, branches, flowers, and fruits during the early growing season (i.e., the beginning of twig growth, flowering, and fruit setting) when potassium uptake from the soil is still at its lowest. Like the tree potassium reserves, foliar application of potassium fertilizers will, therefore, play an important role in regulating the supply of potassium to the newly growing and developing organs, especially at the beginning of the growing season. The purpose of potassium fertilizer application is, therefore, to ensure sustainable production, enhanced tree performance, improved fruit storage, and reduced fruit physiological disorders. Obviously, application of potassium fertilizer to soil prior to flowering and fruit setting has been found to have no effects on the development of spring twigs, nor on the current year flowering or fruit setting. It may, therefore, be recommended that producers should stop soil application of fertilizers before flowering and fruit setting, but start K application (percentage of the annual requirement) from the middle to the end of the first stage and gradually increase it to its maximum during the second stage of fruit maturation.
Research Paper
Seyed Mashaallah Hosseini; Aziz Majidi; Hadi Pirasteh anooshe
Abstract
Reports are indicative of the promising effects of using mycorrhizal fungi and glycine betaine on enhancing drought tolerance in wheat (Triticum aestivium L.) and, thereby, increasing its yield and quality under rainfed farming. The present investigation was carried out as an on-farm experiment in Abadeh ...
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Reports are indicative of the promising effects of using mycorrhizal fungi and glycine betaine on enhancing drought tolerance in wheat (Triticum aestivium L.) and, thereby, increasing its yield and quality under rainfed farming. The present investigation was carried out as an on-farm experiment in Abadeh characterized by calcareous soils, Fars Province, in the 2021-22 growing season under field conditions. The experimental treatments included: 1) application of mycorrhizal fungi inoculum to seeds before cultivation + foliar spray of glycine betaine in accordance with the integrated plant nutrition system, and 2) the control involving common field management. The endomycorrhizal inoculum consisted of a mixture of the three species of Funneliformis mosseae, Rhizophagus irregularis, and Glomus etunicatum at 2% (2 kg with surfactant in 100 kg of seeds) and glycine betaine foliar spray applied at 5 mg L-1 during early stem node and booting stages. The measured characteristics consisted of grain yield components (No. of ears per m2, No. of grains per ear, and one thousand-grain weight), grain yield, biological yield, harvest index, and seed quality (grain concentrations of N, P, K, Fe, Mn, Zn, and Cu). The results showed that using mycorrhizal fungi and glycine betaine in the experimental treatment led to significantly rising yield as evidenced by the increased grain numbers per ear. Grain yield, biological yield, and harvest index in the experimental treatment were found to be higher by about 60%, 39%, and 14%, respectively, than those of the control. Furthermore, the wheat grain quality measures of nitrogen, phosphorus, iron, manganese, and zinc concentrations in the same treatment were found to have significantly increased. In general, it seems that application of seed-applied mycorrhizal fungi inoculant before planting along with glycine betaine foliar spraying is capable of increasing grain yield by 60% and improving crop quality (as indicated by grain nitrogen, phosphorus, iron, manganese, and zinc contents) under rainfed conditions, which leads to sustainable production and higher farmers` income.
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