Book Description

Book Description

This important book brings together a wealth of information and techniques for working with maize (corn), a plant of enormous significance as a crop and as a model system for studies in plant genetics, biochemistry, and molecular biology. A distinguished editorial board has coordinated the compilation of protocols on maize cell biology, genetic methods and maps, tissue culture, and molecular biology. This book is a bible for maize researchers, and will be of wide interest to other scientists working on other plants. ... Read more

Book Description

Traces the origins and progress of the industry, and describes the basic science underlying the physiology, breeding and nutrition of the oil palm. Covers research and wider issues, such as genetic modification of the crop, the promise of clonal propagation, and the effects of palm oil on human health. Previous edition: c1988. ... Read more

Book Description

This superb guide uses specially commissioned color photographs and diagrams to clearly explain the basic pruning procedures. All the popular plants suitable for pruning or training are covered in the authoritative text. Diagrams and photographs combine to give a detailed visual reference of what a plant should look like before, during, and after pruning care.

- Ornamentals: roses, deciduous and evergreen trees, shrubs, climbers, wall shrubs, hedges and topiary, pinch pruning
- Fruit Trees: apples and pears, plums, cherries, peaches, apricots, figs, renovating fruit trees, plus many more
- Soft Fruits and Vines: gooseberries, currants, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and cranberries, grapes, passion fruit, kiwi fruit

The book also features:

- 300 step-by-step color diagrams to guide readers through a year-long agenda of what to do, when, and how
- Superb color photographs showing plants that are pruned or trained to look their best through all seasons
- A-Z plant directories for quick reference to practical advice
- Complete cross-references to detailed instructions
- Tools and equipment - A glossary of technical terms plus further reading and a comprehensive index ... Read more

Book Description

Traditionally the study of chemical principles as they relate to soil has been limited to the field of agronomics. Soil and Water Chemistry: An Integrative Approach, stands alone because it balances agricultural and environmental perspectives in its analysis of the chemical properties and processes that affect organic and inorganic soil substances.Written for soil science practitioners, researchers, and students, this book provides a comprehensive treatment of soil composition and reactions. Topics include: clay mineralogy, soil organic matter, mineral weathering and stability, ion speciation, solubility, ion exchange, adsorption, oxidation-reduction, acidity, alkalinity, and salinity. Each chapter concludes with numerous exercises that emphasize concepts and have practical, real-world applications. ... Read more

Book Description

The United States government began to promote Health Maintenance Organizations in the early 1970s, shortly after Medicare and Medicaid gave millions of elderly and poor Americans access to health care which caused acute shortages of medical personnel and resources and unprecedented health care costs.

In this timely book, Jan Gregoire Coombs tells why HMOs failed to improve services or control costs.Using Wisconsin's Marshfield Clinic as a case study, Coombs examines the advantages and disadvantages of publicly and privately financed medical care, and of nonprofit and for-profit systems; the implications of benefits coverage and pharmaceutical costs on employers, employees and patients; and issues involving medical ethics and autonomy, clinical practice guidelines, managed care strategies, rationing, and patients' rights.

Drawing upon a wealth of research, Coombs compares HMOs throughout the nation with the one in Marshfield, which came as close as any HMO to realizing the ideal of early advocates.This book is a vital resource for specialists in the fields of health policy research and analysis, health care management, health law and politics, public health, and social and organizational history of medicine.It will also appeal to many readers who are disturbed by the current state of America's health care system and are curious about its future. ... Read more

Book Description

Sustainability of agricultural systems is a major global concern due to population growth and a number of environmental factors. This book addresses the key to the development of sustainable agriculture-management of soil fertility. Combining data from temperate and tropical regions, it presents a complete picture of how various soils can best be managed under widely different environmental conditions. Soil Fertility Management for Sustainable Agriculture is an excellent reference for environmental and agricultural professionals as well as a textbook for undergraduate and graduate students preparing for a career in agriculture or soil fertility management. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

New Zealand HIAI Monthly email Newsletter
This is a monumental effort, 220 page plus book well laid out and researched with heaps of references and an easy to follow index of pests and diseases plus biological solutions as the title indicates. Members may recall that John McPartland in fact all the authors were very helpful to NZHIAI some time back regarding MAF's (Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries) request for information regarding industrial hemp pests and diseases. By NZ standards this book is quite pricey (NZD 150-00 plus landed) That said I would suggest if you are re serious regarding growing industrial hemp this book will become as it is rapidly for me "Your bible." There is so much information my head is spinning. It is attractively bound and could well become a collectors item. No problems with NZ customs. In a word it is BRILLIANT. A credit to the authors. It can be obtained from the website below. Only took a week to get here.

Review from CC Archives
Hemp diseases and pests An amazing new tome on cannabis cultivation. from CC On-line, by Pete Brady

Here's the perfect recipe for a book about cannabis: use three authors who have spent decades studying cannabis horticulture, combine them with an international publishing company, and give them enough resources to create an oversized book with professional citations, illustrations, and binding.

This perfect recipe has produced a gorgeous new book, HEMP DISEASES AND PESTS - MANAGEMENT AND BIOLOGICAL CONTROL. The authors - Dr. John McPartland, Robert Connell Clarke, and David Watson - are premier marijuana researchers whose credibility and breadth of knowledge are legendary.

McPartland is a medical doctor, botanist and cannabinoid researcher. Clarke is the author of two epic texts, MARIJUANA BOTANY and HASHISH!. Watson runs HortaPharm, the Dutch cannabis breeding consortium supplying specialty cannabis to UK med-pot research projects conducted by GW Pharmaecuticals.

HEMP DISEASES AND PESTS is a fascinating, practical book, and an upcoming issue of CANNABIS CULTURE will give a more complete summary of its features. For the purposes of this brief online review, however, I assure you that this book will significantly increase yield, efficiency and quality for any marijuana grower who follows its advice.

The book includes photos that help growers diagnose dozens of plant dysfunctions, including enemy insects, mites, mammals, and fungi, environmentally-caused problems, overwatering, and nutrient deficiencies. It tells growers how to protect their crops using biocontrols instead of toxic chemicals. It describes ideal soil components, harvesting guidelines, and curing procedures.

Although HEMP DISEASES AND PESTS is not intended as a "grow book" that focuses on lighting, security, and clandestine techniques, its scope, accuracy and detail make it an incomparable textbook that every marijuana grower should have. It is interesting and entertaining, immaculately presented and organized, and features the most innovative and reliable techniques for keeping your plants healthy and happy.

HEMP DISEASES AND PESTS is a large, 251 page, professional book with a professional price. It's well worth it. When I grew my own marijuana, I was often puzzled by plant problems. If I'd had this book, I could have easily eliminated those problems. HEMP DISEASES AND PESTS will likely increase the yield of your garden by at least 50%- if that's not worth, I don't know what is!

overwhelmingly thorough
Having only been able to get an overview of this imposing tome, I came away thorougly impressed. for by far the most comprehensive book on the subject, this book should become indispensable. in a field dominated by the likes of ed rosenthal and jorge cervantes, it's nice to see a work that's more academic than either e.r. or j.c. are inclined to churn out (not that they don't provide a great service to the public as well!) if you've got the time, and are serious about cultivation, this work will resolve a lot of nagging questions and issues you might have in a professional, well-organized fashion. ... Read more

Book Description

For most people, the global war over genetically modified foods is a distant and confusing one. The battles are conducted in the mystifying language of genetics.

A handful of corporate "life science" giants, such as Monsanto, are pitted against a worldwide network of anticorporate ecowarriors like Greenpeace. And yet the possible benefits of biotech agriculture to our food supply are too vital to be left to either partisan.

The companies claim to be leading a new agricultural revolution that will save the world with crops modified to survive frost, drought, pests, and plague. The greens warn that "playing God" with plant genes is dangerous. It could create new allergies, upset ecosystems, destroy biodiversity, and produce uncontrollable mutations. Worst of all, the antibiotech forces say, a single food conglomerate could end up telling us what to eat.

In Food, Inc., acclaimed journalist Peter Pringle shows how both sides in this overheated conflict have made false promises, engaged in propaganda science, and indulged in fear-mongering. In this urgent dispatch, he suggests that a fertile partnership between consumers, corporations, scientists, and farmers could still allow the biotech harvest to reach its full potential in helping to overcome the problem of world hunger, providing nutritious food and keeping the environment healthy. ... Read more

Book Description

An understanding of genetic resources is an essential prerequisite for any breeding program. The cacao (Theobroma cacao) plant has a rich genetic diversity that exists at two levels: that of the primitive populations in the area of original distribution of the species, and that of the derived cultivated populations.This book provides a comprehensive review of our current knowledge of this subject. Starting with the foundations of genetic diversity in the Amazonian and Caribbean regions, it describes how this has developed in cultivated populations, first in South America and around the Caribbean, and then beyond the Americas. It then describes the relationships between populations and how the genetic resources can be utilized to produce new cultivars. The book is written by an acknowledged world expert with 50 years of experience in the subject, and should provide a unique knowledge base upon which further work can be based. It will interest workers in plan genetics and breeding, botany, and the cocoa and chocolate industry. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

I like it!
This book told me everything I wanted to know about finding ginseng in the wild -- yes there is wild ginseng in the United States, and it is valuable. The detail was amazing, as was the history of the American plant dating back to George Washington. I learned how to grow ginseng and prepare it for sale. I also found a list of businesses that sell the seeds to get you started, and a list of buyers who will purchase all the ginseng you can find or grow. The color photos were a real help. Best of all, I found over $100 of ginseng while hiking one day. What a trip! ... Read more

Book Description

One of the most influential works by a world authority on soils and their formation. This advanced treatise on theoretical soil science, long considered a masterpiece of scientific methodology offers pedologists, geologists and geophysicists both a detailed discussion of the nature of the earth’s terrestrial environment, and a method of subdividing and studying it. 1941 edition.
... Read more

Reviews (1)

Factors of Soil Formation : A System of Quantitative Pedolog
This book by Jenny is the basis for soil formation theory.

Jenny's State Factor Function model consists of the effect of Climate, Organics, Relief, Parent Material and Time on the formation of soils.

It may be easily remembered by:

Cl,O,R,P,T.

I feel that this book is invaluable to anyone studying soils at higher education level. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

On The Emperor's GM Clothes
"Genetic Engineering, Food, & Our Environment" is crisply written, keenly argued, tightly and extensively researched. It presents a wealth of facts and possibilities, both an extremely disturbing side in and around the genetic engineering industry, and some encouraging information on potentially sustainable alternatives.

An excellent study for anyone considering GE-related issues, it makes a key handbook for the campaigner. It is a resource one can variously refer to in connection with environmental and other concerns, third world development possibilities, and underpinning issues in the background of global politics.

Luke Anderson's book entirely deserves the wide readership and serious attention gained by Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring." Carson's book detailed impacts and threats of industrial chemicals in use forty years ago; Anderson's is an effective sequel, an update on the state of play today. Depressing how some of the villains in the story are the same - or rather, grander and more dangerous. Inspiring how voices will yet courageously emerge like those of Carson and Anderson, with the wits and the research base to point to the toxins dribbling down the Emperor's new clothes (or carcass) and explain where they came from.

Altogether a thoroughly useful, troubling and galvanising kind of book. If you haven't got it, get it.

Great overview of issues related to GE food
Here in North America the public generally hears very little about debates surrounding around GE foods, this 1999 book from a UK author is a quick read, easy to understand overview of GE food issues. It is strictly food & agriculture covered here, human GE areas are not touched on. Besides discussing safety & nutrition concerns, chapters cover such topics as control of farming & environmental pollution, patenting genes with a brief history of what's already taken place over the last 15 years, and how the world trade organization is used to force countries to accept these products or to outlaw product labeling. There is a chapter on 2 journalists in Florida who got into a lot of trouble with Monsanto for attempting to run a television series on a hormone injected into cows to increase milk production.

Some of the information in this book is quite shocking. The sheer amount of money Monsanto has used to bribe and "settle out of court" tells me there's got to be something very wrong in what they're doing. I enjoyed the "follow the money" advice this book offers - if an "expert" is saying there's no harm at all any of this try to find out who's paying the salary or funding the grant. This quote from pg. 106 is unforgettable, "We paid $3 billion for these television stations. We will decide what the news is......"

Lots of information packed into a small book, also a guide to organizations and further information.

Egregious Examples of Bio-Science Run Amok
Mr. Anderson succeeds admirably in eliciting shock and outrage in the reader with his clear, succinct, and fluid prose on the visible and invisible dangers of agricultural biotechnology. Modern day manipulation of the food chain and the ecosystems that provide humanity with its food (and other valuable services) has the potential to irreversibly affect both human beings and the environment. While the scientific and industrial cognoscenti exchange increasingly friendly repartee genetically modified foods, and governments turn a blind eye to 'scientific progress', Mr. Anderson is right when he says that the human is being unwillingly and unwittingly subjected to an experiment whose long-term effects are difficult to assess.

Written shortly before scientists began to seriously question the effects of even minute quantities of hormone disrupting and cancer-causing, mutagenic chemicals and the potential effects of errant DNA in the greater environment, and shortly after genetically modified crops had been shown to sterilize insects and willy-nilly cross-pollinate with plants of the same species located either nearby or a great distance away, this handy little book introduces a considerable amount of information on genetic engineering and its dubious successes to readers who are not well versed in the sciences. In seven highly fluid and readable chapters, the book addresses a plethora of ethical, economic and technological issues associated with genetic engineering and agricultural biotechnology. The first chapter lucidly explains many of the key concepts underpinning genetic engineering as it applies to agriculture, and introduces most of the very real specters to health and the environment that the technology not only has caused, but also can and ultimately may cause in the future. The author devotes one chapter each to the thorny issues of genetic engineering and its effects on the environment, the way that agricultural biotechnology portents to and actually is transforming farming globally for the worse, and the attempts of individuals, universities and corporations, with all the zeal characteristic of a gold rush mentality, to patent every snippet of DNA they can get their hands on. Readers may find the book's fifth chapter to be truly shocking, as it describes in vivid detail the apparent disinterest of governments in industrialized nations to safeguard the best interests of its citizens- especially in the area of public health, from the bitter fruit of agricultural biotechnology. Chapter six presents a detailed case study of one particular biological abomination- the superfluous use of increasing amounts of biotech hormones to increase milk production, even in the face of persistent gluts year after year. The seventh and final details efforts by many groups to resist the onslaught of the adoption of such biotechnologies, and offers insight into the ways the poor in Third World countries are used as dupes and guinea pigs for these less than optimal technologies. The author also includes a detailed list of resources that concerned readers can tap into in their efforts to learn more or to protect themselves from most, but not all, of the spurious products of agricultural biotechnology.

In reading this book, one gets the feeling that the author wants us to share in his concern about the lingering effects of these overly hyped technologies of dubious merit. While the author clearly did his best to choose many of genetic engineering's most egregious examples, readers of this text should bear in mind that these examples merely represent the tip of the iceberg. As a scientist and engineer, it is hard for me come up with a suitable justification for many of the fruits of ag biotech, given that farmers in the industrialized countries are plagued with the onerous problem of oversupply. Furthermore, with slight modifications to current agricultural practices, and a shifting of inputs and plant resources, every single person on the planet could easily be fed, so the excuse of biotechnology feeding the world's hungry does not quite wash either. Basically, I find the motives of big biotech companies to be less than altruistic: if the biotech corporation controls the seeds and the larger food supply, then they control the people dependent upon them.

In this day and age of financial skullduggery and scientific chicanery, astute citizens must actively behoove themselves to exercise caution and awareness at all times. As Huff told us in his classic little book, How to Lie with Statistics, if the honest person wants to prevent oneself from being burglarized, then it pays to learn the ways of the criminally minded. As such, this book's disclosure of the aggressive foisting of these dubious scientific advances on an unsuspecting public by an unscrupulous gaggle of corporate, academic and government interests clearly demonstrates a most disturbing and peculiar case of criminal intent of the highest degree.

Resource Section Alone, makes this book a MUST have.
This book is packed with current and useful information about GE foods, farming practices, life patents issues, and the impacts of GE food on our environment. It is an excellent manual for anyone wanting control of their food, or simply to better understand what all the contraversy about GE foods.. It is short & easy to read. There are many interesting quotes from scientists & industry spokes people. The best part of this book is a comprehensive RESOURCE section. Showing points of contact in the US, other international organizations, magazines, journals, email information services, and websites, for GE information. Anyone who wants to start doing something about this important issue needs to start here. The book is full of excellent references supporting the arguments. Also a worthwhile list of recommended readings. Buy it & share that resource information with everyone you know. Can not over emphasize the usefulness of this book. ... Read more

Book Description

Agricultural research and development has stimulated enormous increases in agricultural productivity in the twentieth century. Now, in response to common pressures, countries the world over are changing how they manage and pay for agricultural R & D.Paying for Agricultural Productivity reviews agricultural R & D policy in Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States and assesses whether the new approaches are raising or lowering the efficiency and effectiveness of R & D. To complement the case studies, the book analyzes trends in R & D investment in twenty-two developed countries.Paying for Agricultural Productivity will be an invaluable resource for economic and development specialists concerned with agricultural research and development, as well as for farmers, food processors, agricultural wholesalers and retailers, environmentalists, and research scientists.

Book Description

Turfgrass Science and Management, 3E is a comprehensive text covering the entire spectrum of turfgrass management. Readers will find updated information and illustrations that reflect the latest trends in the industry. A detailed treatment of vertebrate pest management has been added, as well as chapters on integrated pest management and golf course management, which reflect the growing interest in these areas. An appendix of related Web sites will help readers expand their research capabilities. ... Read more