Advances in temperate grassland science and management

While grasslands face a number of challenges, such as land-use competition and the impact of climate change, there is a growing recognition of the critical role they play in supporting the transition to more resilient, sustainable and circular agricultural systems.Advances in temperate grassland ...

Current crop models

Whilst crop models have made significant progress in recent years, different models still diverge and struggle to predict the complex effects of genetic, environmental and management (G x E x M) variables in optimising crop production in the face of climate change.Current crop models: State-of-th...

Advances in sheep production

While sheep production has an important place in many farming systems across the world, sheep products face an increasingly competitive market. In addition to traditional concerns about product quality, consumers are also increasingly motivated by issues such as livestock welfare, greenhouse gas ...

Cmos image sensors

The book describes the operating principles of CMOS images sensors, their architecture and performance, on-chip and external electronics, and characterisation techniques. Most of the book explores the pinned photodiode pixel, the experimental methods for image sensor characterisation, and present...

Exploring clonostachys rosea: a versatile fungal biocontrol agent for effective plant disease management

Clonostachys rosea is a fungal biocontrol agent able to control a range of impactful plant diseases, such as damping-off, root rot, botrytis blight, fusarium head blight, and others. The use of C. rosea can subsequently replace or reduce the use of chemical pesticides. However, biocontrol efficac...

Advances in improving the safety and quality of eggs

Global egg production continues to rise in line with increasing consumer demand, with an estimated 1.6 trillion shell eggs produced each year. However, with consumer expectations surrounding food now higher than ever, the sector must ensure that key aspects of egg quality and safety are optimised...

Advances in poultry nutrition

This collection provides a comprehensive overview of the range of research on recent advances in poultry nutrition, focussing primarily on broilers for meat production. The book also reviews the development of novel feed sources and their role in optimising gut function in poultry.

Performance art in ireland

This book, the first devoted to the history and contemporary forms of Irish performance art in the north and south of Ireland, brings together contributions by prominent Irish artists and major academics.  Co-published with Live Art Development Agency. 

Analytical lens design using the optical plate diagram

Nuclear materials science (second edition)

This book provides an overview of the intersection of nuclear engineering and materials science at a level approachable by advanced students from materials, engineering and physics. The text explains the unique aspects needed in the design and implementation of materials for use in demanding nucl...

Embryo development and hatchery practice in poultry production

This collection reviews the latest research on embryo development, as well as the effects of incubation and the hatching stage on chick health, welfare and production traits.

Optimising poultry flock health

This collection reviews the range of recent research on improving our understanding of the mechanisms of disease transmission and how this understanding can be used to improve poultry flock health.

The wofost (world food studies) cropping system model

The WOFOST cropping system model is a process-based model developed by Wageningen University & Research (WUR) for a wide array of applications such as yield forecasting, climate impact assessments, yield gap analysis and agronomic decision support. The latest versions, WOFOST 7.3 and 8.1, int...

The light interception and utilisation family of crop models

There is a wide range of models in the LINTUL family of crop growth models. All are based on a simple relationship between leaf area index and light interception and the concept of light or radiation use efficiency to convert intercepted radiation into dry matter. This chapter provides an overvie...

The genotype-by-environment interaction on crop growth simulator model

The Genotype-by-Environment interaction on CROp growth Simulator (GECROS) is a generic crop model that specifically addresses carbon-nitrogen, root-shoot, and source-sink interactions to predict crop responses to weather variables and soil water and nitrogen supply. GECROS uses relatively few, ea...

Assessing microplastics and nanoplastics in food

The environmental impact of macroplastics in the sea and soil has become a global problem, resulting in their entry into the food chain. Macroplastics become microplastics and nanoplastics over time through abrasion and degradation mechanisms. Current analytical measurements show that micro- and ...

Grasslands and one health: the human health component

The evolution of Homo as habitual consumers of inside- (marrow, brains) and outside-bone (meat, liver, fat) nutrients within grassland ecosystems, coupled with the infrequency of cardiometabolic diseases in modern hunter-gatherer communities, suggests that ancestral-type diets (although variable)...

Harnessing the power of grasslands in mixed farming/crop– livestock systems

The escalating demand for food, driven by population growth and urbanization, threatens global agricultural systems. Traditional agricultural policies emphasizing specialization and intensification often degrade ecosystems and heighten pollution risks. In response, sustainable intensification of ...

Developments in spray technologies for precision agriculture

This chapter reviews recent developments in crop sprayer technology. It adds to the content in a previous chapter in Precision agriculture for sustainability edited by John Stafford and published in 2019. This chapter particularly considers nozzle control on a boom, spray drift control, methods o...

Macrofauna as indicators of soil health: earthworms and enchytraeids

Soil fauna represent a substantial portion of life in soils and play a critical role in providing ecosystem services and maintaining and enhancing soil quality. This chapter focuses on the potential of two key soil faunal ecosystem engineers—earthworms and enchytraeids—as soil health indicators i...

Orbital angular momentum states of light (second edition)

This book provides an in-depth introduction to modelling of long-range propagation of orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes as well as more general structured light beams through atmospheric turbulence.

Modern classical optical system design

Modern Classical Optical System Design (MCOSD) shares the author’s “bag of tricks”, knowledge, experience, and interpretation of optical design fundamentals to the development of optical systems in a modern fast-paced product development context. Topics include imaging principles, elements of len...

Radioactive sample counting: principles and practice (second edition)

This book outlines the physical principles and operational properties and quality control procedures for the use of radioactive sample counters. It also provides worked examples for their clinical and research applications.

Dynamic x-ray imaging systems used in medicine

This report will provide information to test the appropriateness of a particular dynamic fluoroscopic system for a particular clinical task. This can be used in quality assurance programmes when assessing the appropriateness of a particular dynamic X-ray system.

Green by design

This book offers an in-depth examination of bio-polymeric materials, emphasizing their interfacial science, including key functional groups, physical phenomena, and interactions within specific environments. It highlights these materials as sustainable alternatives that go beyond merely replacing...

Silicene-based layered materials

This book explores in detail the most up-to-date research in silicene-related systems, including few-layer silicene, sliding bilayer silicene, adatom-doped silicene, atom substituted silicene and silicene with substrate.

Silicon photonics

This book is a concise introduction to the fundamental theories of integrated optics that focuses on modern silicon photonic technology. It offers analytical mathematical treatments and practical guidelines for the design of silicon–photonic circuits including examples to further emphasize the ma...

Electronic tongues

This book provides the reader with the history, fundamentals and theoretical aspects of electronic tongues and their applications. Includes theoretical aspects of detection techniques and applications highlights novel nanomaterials and nanotechnology strategies and features in computational metho...

Characterisation methods in solid state and materials science

An excellent resource for students studying solid state science, as well as researchers and industry specialists, this book provides a deeper understanding of the benefits, drawbacks and overlap within different characterisation techniques, and it bridges the gap between theory and implementation...

Nuclear materials science

In this book, Karl Whittle provides a solid overview of the intersection of nuclear engineering and materials science at a level approachable by advanced students from materials, engineering and physics. The text explains the unique aspects needed in the design and implementation of materials fo...

Microbial bioprotectants for plant disease management

This collection summarises and reviews the wealth of recent research on the development of more environmentally friendly biological methods to control plant diseases.

Measuring and assessing the biological health of soils

One of the most important topics in soil science is understanding the relationship between soil biodiversity and soil ecosystem function. This relies on techniques able to accurately identify different soil organisms and how they interact in the soil microbiome.Measuring and assessing the biologi...

Advances in seed science and technology for more sustainable crop production

This collection reviews the wealth of recent research on advances in seed science and technology, including key developments in seed phenotyping and seed treatments, and their role in contributing to a more sustainable agriculture.

Advances in precision livestock farming

This collection reviews recent advances in developing precision livestock technologies. It assesses developments in continuous, automated, real-time monitoring of production, health and welfare traits of livestock to improve the efficiency, welfare and environmental impact of livestock farming.

Advances in pig breeding and reproduction

This collection provides a comprehensive review of the wealth of research on recent developments in pig breeding, including the shift from a primary focus on production traits to traits encompassing improved feed efficiency and disease resistance. The book also considers advances in understanding...

Weed management in conservation agriculture systems

This collection provides a comprehensive overview of the recent research on ways to optimise weed management in Conservation Agriculture systems without reliance on herbicides such as glyphosate.

Climate-smart production of coffee

The coffee sector needs more sustainable methods of cultivation. This volume reviews the range of recent research addressing these challenges, from social and environmental sustainability to integrated management of pests and diseases based on agroecological principles.

Achieving net zero dairy farming

To meet the targets outlined in the 2015 Paris Agreement, many countries are actively working towards reaching climate neutrality and achieving net zero by 2050. With the livestock sector estimated to contribute approximately 11-17% of global greenhouse gas emissions, more research and innovation...

The role and range of voluntary standards and certification systems governing sustainable agricultural practices

This chapter charts the development and progressive broadening of sustainability as a concept, focusing on the particular role of voluntary sustainability standards set up by individual companies as well as sectors such as coffee and palm oil. It discusses the challenges of coordinating the multi...

Agri-food supply chains in southern and eastern europe

This chapter describes the fundamental characteristics of the food systems of Eastern and Southern Europe, paying particular attention to their agro-export nature and the late predominance of large-scale distribution companies in their markets. The chapter then reviews the unsustainability of thi...

Advances in understanding and exploiting the role of soil microbiomes in protecting crops against pathogens and pests

The soil microbiome has the potential to protect crop plants from biotic stress caused by pests and pathogens. Studies have, for example, shown the role of root exudates in recruiting and enriching beneficial bacteria to protect against pathogens and pests, paving the way for developing strategie...

Autonomous navigation and path planning for agricultural robots

Navigation and path planning are essential technologies for increasing the productivity of agriculture machine systems performing modern precision agriculture tasks. Production agriculture requires efficient methods for complete coverage of agricultural landscapes to complete the critical product...

Understanding and minimising fungicide resistance

This collection reviews the wealth of research on understanding the development of fungicide resistance and preventative measures to limit the problem and its impact on effective control of crop diseases.

Advances in bioprotection of plants against diseases

This book reviews some of the latest trends in the bioprotectants sector, looking at advances in techniques, the development of new and emerging biocontrol agents, as well as the growing range of applications.

Techno-economic analysis for cultivated meat production

Techno Economic Analysis and Techno-Economic Modeling are key activities in the development of emerging technologies and play a critical role in cultivated meat commercialization. The production scales required to replace a meaningful portion of current meat consumption are significant and will r...

Creating a regulatory framework for cultured meat products: singapore

The Singapore Food Agency’s regulatory framework for cultured meat and the principal considerations behind Singapore’s food safety system is presented as a case study in this chapter. A review of the regulatory framework is covered in detail, including considerations for safety assessment of cult...

Achieving sustainable production of poultry meat volume 1

Poultry production faces many challenges. This collection starts by reviewing safety, including detection, prevention and control of zoonoses in poultry flocks. It also discusses key aspects of quality such as meat flavour as well wider issues such as the environmental impact of poultry production.

Achieving sustainable production of poultry meat volume 3

Health and welfare are major issues in poultry production. This collection reviews our understanding of bacterial, viral and other diseases affecting poultry and their effective management. It also discusses ways of managing poultry flocks to optimise their welfare from hatching to slaughter.

Achieving sustainable production of poultry meat volume 2

There have been significant advances in poultry breeding and nutrition. This books discusses key developments such as marker-assisted breeding and improvements in poultry feed such as the use of enzymes to optimise nutritional efficiency.

Improving gut health in poultry

This collection summarises current research on the composition and function of the gastrointestinal tract in poultry, the factors that affect its function, and nutritional strategies to optimise poultry nutrition, health and environmental impact.

Advances in pest- and disease-resistant cocoa varieties

Plant-parasitic nematodes cause cocoa yield losses, a sudden death of trees and retardation of seedling growth in nurseries. This chapter explains the hidden nature and the masking effects of these nematodes and how these have led to erroneous control measures. The chapter describes the nematode ...

Organic cocoa cultivation

The last two decades have witnessed a dramatically increased demand for organically produced goods. As a crop, cocoa can be grown successfully using organic methods, and demand for organic chocolate has risen in line with the overall growth in the organic market. This chapter offers a summary of ...

Organic beef farming: key characteristics, opportunities, advantages, and challenges

This chapter offers an overview of the current status of organic beef production systems and emphasizes the need for more data to better characterize this farm system. It also offers an overview of the course of farm conversion, together with the available resources and options to determine the c...

Ensuring the genetic diversity of potatoes

Preserving genetic diversity lies at the heart of improvements in breeding and resilience in potato cultivation. This chapter discusses the challenges, opportunities and recent accomplishments of potato gene banks in the areas of acquisition, classification, preservation, evaluation and distribut...

Improving modelling of water cycles in crop cultivation

Adequate representation of the water cycle in cropping systems remains as one of the major concerns for crop model developers as it is involved in many critical processes such as the determination of the energy balance and crop temperature, the determination of crop productivity, and the movement...

Advances in cultivation of pistachio

Pistachio is grown most intensively in Iran, Syria, Turkey and the USA. The other pistachio-producing regions are the Near East, North Africa and Southern Europe. The most important characteristics of pistachio nuts from a marketing viewpoint are large size, high percentage of shell splitting, lo...

What is ‘drought stress’ and what are options to increase crop yield?

‘Drought’ is vague and ill-defined term that fails to account for the temporal dynamics through the growing seasons due to variable weather conditions, soil water status, plant development stage, and crop growth conditions. These variables all lead to an infinity of responses to water deficit. ...

Nutrition and soil management in banana cultivation

There is significant variation in banana production systems across the world, particularly at the level of soil management. However, research on plant nutrition and soil management in relation to bananas has been limited for a number of reasons: bananas are unusual in their physiology and managem...

Organic grassland

Organic farming makes up an increasing share of agricultural and food systems. Within organic agriculture, grasslands are of particular importance because of their multiple benefits to soils, crops, livestock and ecosystems. In this chapter, we review the multifunctionality of grasslands in the c...

Advances in temperate agroforestry

This collection reviews key recent advances in temperate agroforestry. The book considers the role of temperate agroforestry in promoting biodiversity and key ecosystem services such as soil carbon sequestration, as well as recent developments in different types of silvopastoral and silvoarable s...

Nutritional strategies and management practices to improve poultry meat quality

The concept of meat quality is of primary relevance for both producers, due to the implications for fresh retail and value-added meat products, and consumers, which are increasingly aware of the nutritional quality of food. Beside the genetic background, many environmental factors are able to inf...

Advances in poultry genetics and genomics

This collection begins by reviewing current challenges facing poultry breeding. It goes on to review recent research on the genetics of key production and functional traits. The book then summarises key advances in genomic selection techniques and concludes by surveying emerging trends such as th...

The use of epigenetics in poultry breeding

Epigenetics is not a commonly used in the selection of parents to breed the next generations. That is surprising as epigenetics can influence gene function, is inherited via mitosis and/or meiosis and can occur both from the female and male lines. Epigenetics have been shown to affect gene-expres...

Managing breeder poultry flocks to optimise hatchability and chick health

A relatively small number of broiler breeders produce globally billions of broilers each year. Optimal reproduction and health in the parent stock is therefore of the utmost importance to optimize product quality, welfare and profitability of the poultry meat chain. Appropriate management during ...

Advances in organic dairy cattle farming

This collection reviews the wealth of recent research on how organic dairy farming can best meet the key organic principles of health, ecology, fairness and care. The book also considers how the organic dairy sector is addressing challenges such as improving welfare and sustainability.

Understanding gut microbiomes as targets for improving pig gut health

This collection summarises current research on the structure and function of the gastrointestinal tract in pigs, the factors that can influence its effectiveness, as well as the nutritional strategies that can improve gut development and optimise gut function.

Nutritional strategies to boost immune function in pigs

Our understanding of porcine nutrition and immunity has increased dramatically over the last two decades. For the vast majority of nutrients, researchers attempted to demonstrate the potential to improve immunity in pigs. The use of lipopolysaccharide to stimulate the immune system often was used...

Instant insights: using manure in soil management

This book reviews recent advances in the utilisation of livestock manure to improve soil management and health. Chapters discuss best practices for the storage, treatment and processing of livestock manure, as well as the effects of manure application on the ability of soil to deliver a range of ...

Death machines

Death Machines offers a critical reconsideration of ethical theories and political justifications for technologised practices of violence in contemporary conflicts.

Spatial woundings

Minerals and metals underpin our everyday existence, yet the extraction process—ripping them from the earth—fuels toxic geopolitical relationships, colonization, and conflict. This book confronts this devastation, focusing on spatial wounding—the violence inflicted on landscapes, people, and atmo...

Security and defence in south-west england before 1800

From Roman times to the eighteenth century, the South West of England was an example of the importance of matters of security and defence to a local society easily threatened by external and internal conflicts and tensions. These studies provide a series of vignettes illustrating perennial and en...

Privateering and colonization in the reign of elizabeth i

Privateering, ship design, English society, the lost colonists, the drawing of John White, and the adoption of Sir Walter Raleigh as an American folk hero are among the topics covered in this volume. Illustrated.

Writing effective ecological reports

An in-depth guide to writing high-quality and effective professional ecological reports. Mike Dean distils the knowledge and experience gained over a period of more than 20 years working as an ecological consultant, during which time he has written and reviewed many such reports.

Harbour ecology

With Poole Harbour as its case study, this book examines the question of sustainable development in the coastal estuarine/marine context. Key themes include historical background, ecology, fisheries, water quality, and environmental regulation and legislation. Is it possible to get a balance betw...

Thermal imaging for wildlife applications

Thermal Imaging for Wildlife Applications opens up a world of possibilities for wildlife research, ecology and management. Combines academic research, applied field protocols and the author’s wealth of experience, the book presents the use of thermal imaging technology for a broad range of species.

The stics soil-crop model: a generic model to simulate the functioning of agroecosystems

This chapter offers a general presentation of the STICS soil-crop model. Through numerous illustrations dealing notably with genetic x environment x management interactions, it presents an overview of the wide domain of validity of the model, along with its performances, demonstrating its potenti...

The monica agroecosystem model

This chapter describes the MONICA agroecosystem model, its development from the original HERMES model, its main features, and example applications for various tasks across scales. MONICA allows a balanced view on crop and soil processes when simulating cropping systems over a wide range of enviro...

The agricultural land management alternative with numerical assessment criteria (almanac) model

Process based simulation model combining an easily parameterized plant model with readily available soils data and weather data, are valuable tools for a wide variety of management, environmental, and climate change scenarios. The Agricultural Land Management Alternative with Numerical Assessment...

The denitrification-decomposition (dndc) model

DNDC is a well-established biogeochemical crop model that has been featured in over 400 peer-reviewed publications and excels at quantifying agricultural impact under diverse environmental and management conditions. DNDC employs a thermal time-driven biomass accumulation sub-model across all crop...

The usda root zone water quality model

The USDA Root Zone Water Quality Model (RZWQM), developed in the 1980s and released in 1992, simulates root zone processes based on earlier models like CREAMS, GLEAMS, and NTRM. It includes modules for water balance, soil carbon and nitrogen cycling, plant growth, energy balance, solute transport...

The cycles agroecosystem model

Cycles is a process-based model of the soil–plant–atmosphere continuum that functions as both a knowledge repository and analytical tool. This chapter outlines its structure, highlights its use in in-silico trait exploration and modeling of biogenic carbon and water cycles, and presents three cas...

The simplace crop and ecosystem management modelling platform

Process-based crop models have become a central tool for agricultural systems analysis, allowing scientists to explicitly define model structures most suited to a given research question and data availability. With the evolution of computation and programming language paradigms, algorithms descri...

The daisy crop model

The process-based model Daisy simulates complex crop traits in different environments through various process descriptions for water and solute/nitrogen transport and crop growth of diverse agroecosystems and managements. Daisy runs in one or two dimensions, in the field (basic management unit) o...

The aquacrop model

FAO (the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) launched in 2009 the dynamic crop growth model “AquaCrop” to predict yield response to water of herbaceous crops. After a brief description of the calculation scheme and the input requirements, the chapter discusses the parametriza...

The simulator of crop trait assembly, management response and adaptation crop model

SAMARA was developed to study in-silico plant type (ideotype) concepts submitted to different climatic/soil environments and management practices. The originality of the model relies on (1) the integration of substantial morphological detail of plants organ cohorts (leaves, tillers, internodes), ...

The systems approach to land use sustainability (salus) model

This chapter explores SALUS (Systems Approach to Land Use Sustainability), a process-based crop model designed to simulate interactions between soil, climate, genetics and agronomic management, focusing on their effects on crop growth and yield, soil organic matter and nitrogen dynamics. SALUS ex...

The crop, land, and soil simulation (classim) group of models

Process-level crop models integrate mathematical representations of the soil-plant-atmosphere with genetic, environment, and management factors. These tools support a range of needs including on-farm decision support, scientific inquiry, crop breeding, and climate impact assessments. The USDA-ARS...

The cropgrow model

The CropGrow series model, comprising WheatGrow and RiceGrow, was developed by the Engineering and Technology Center for Information Agriculture at Nanjing Agricultural University. The model integrates cutting-edge methodologies, such as system analysis, dynamic modeling, scenario simulation, and...