Impact of urbanization trends on production of key staple crops.

Urbanization has appropriated millions of hectares of cropland, and this trend will persist as cities continue to expand. We estimate the impact of this conversion as the amount of land needed elsewhere to give the same yield potential as determined by differences in climate and soil properties. Robust spatial upscaling techniques, well-validated crop simulation models, and soil, climate, and cropping system databases are employed with a focus on populous countries with high rates of land conversion.

Microwave assisted biocidal extraction is an alternative method to measure microbial biomass of carbon from cultivated and non-cultivated soils.

Developing simple and cost-effective methods for soil microbial biomass carbon (MBC) measurement eases routine laboratory analysis and enables large numbers of soil samples to be measured in a relatively short period of time. Thus, the objective of this study was to develop a microwave-assisted biocidal-extraction (MWE) method which does not employ CHCl as biocide and KSO as C-extractor, to estimate MBC. First, the microorganisms of soil samples are killed using microwave (MW) irradiation at energy level of 800 J g soil as biocide followed by microwave irradiation extraction (MWE) at 562 W (120 J g soil for 1 min), using deionized water as solvent.

Can sub-Saharan Africa feed itself?

Although global food demand is expected to increase 60% by 2050 compared with 2005/2007, the rise will be much greater in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Indeed, SSA is the region at greatest food security risk because by 2050 its population will increase 2.5-fold and demand for cereals approximately triple, whereas current levels of cereal consumption already depend on substantial imports.

Symbiotic specificity of tropical tree rhizobia for host legumes.

• The host range and specificity is reported of a genetically diverse group of rhizobia isolated from nodules of Calliandra calothyrsus, Gliricidia sepium, Leucaena leucocephala and Sesbania sesban. • Nodule number and nitrogen content was measured in seedlings of herbaceous and woody legume species after inoculation with rhizobial strains isolated from tropical soils, to establish symbiotic effectiveness groups for rhizobial strains and their hosts. • Specificity for nodulation and N fixation varied greatly among the legumes.