Improving Agricultural Resilience to Climate Change Through Soil Management

Climate change affects soil properties and hence crop growth. Several soil management practices potentially reduce vulnerability to unfavorable climate conditions. This paper reviews how climate change affects soil properties and how should soil management be tailored to increase adaptation capacity to extreme climatic conditions. The main symptoms of climate change such as the increase in the global atmospheric temperature, unpredictable onset of the wet and dry seasons and excessive or substantial decrease in rainfall are unfavorable conditions that affect crop growth and production. Several approaches, singly or a combination of two or more measures, can be selected to adapt to the climate change. These include conservation tillage, vegetative and engineering soil conservation, mulching, water harvesting, nutrient management, soil amelioration and soil biological management. Management of soil organic matter is very central in adapting to climate change because of its important role in improving water holding capacity, increasing soil infiltration capacity and soil percolation, buffering soil temperature, improving soil fertility and enhancing soil microbial activities. Organic matter management and other soil management and conservation practices discussed in this paper are relatively simple and have long been known, but often ignored. This paper reemphasizes the importance of those practices for sustaining agriculture amid the ever more serious effects of climate change on agriculture

Detection of Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Rs2013162 of IRF6 Gene in Patient with Cleft Lip and Palate

Background: Cleft lip and palate are congenital disorders which induce affected individuals medically, socially and psychologically. The objective of this study was to investigate the association of Single Nucleotide Polymorphism(SNP); rs2013162 of IRF6 Gene in Patient with Cleft Lip and Palate. Materials and Methods: Fifty patients with non-syndromic CL/P were included in present study alongwith fifty individuals with no psychiatric history as controls. In all of the these individuals, search for Single nucleotide polymorphism was carried out by designing sequence specific primers. The sequence was amplified by using Real time PCR and products were investigated by visualizing high resolution melting curve upon HRM-PCR. Results: The logistic regression and Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium were applied to investigate the association of IRF6 SNP rs2013162 with disease. Results revealed no association of this polymorphism with non-syndromic CL/P. Conclusion: We found no association of IRF6 SNP rs2013162 in patients with non-syndromic CL/P. Further study is required with larger sample size to validate the findings of the present study in Pakistani population and along with this SNP other polymorphisms of the same gene should be analyzed to find out the association with the non-syndromic CL/P

Maize (Zea Mays, L.) Response on Fertilization of Russian MOP in Inceptisols and Ultisols

Indonesia\u27s agricultural lands commonly require fertilization of K to attain optimum plant yield. So far, most farmers use K fertilizer from KCl, apart to the fact that its effectiveness varies with soils and plants. It is expected that Russian MOP fertilizer is more effective and economically morebeneficial than KCl fertilizer. Field experiment aimed to test the effectiveness of Russian MOP for maize and was conducted in Inceptisols (of Cibatok-Bogor) and Ultisols (of Jagang-North Lampung) in dry season of 2004. The experiment applied Randomized Completely Block Design with 3 replicates, and maize of Lamuru variety was as plant indicator. The treatment consisted of 5 levels of Russian MOP fertilizer: 0, 25, 50, 100,and 200 kg ha-1 and one treatment of KCl fertilizer of 100 kg ha-1 as a reference. The result showed that the use of Russian MOP increased soil HCl-K and NH4OAc-K as well as dry matter and grain yield. RAE at Russian MOP level of > 100 kg ha-1 was 138 and 115 in Inceptisols of Cibatok and 314 in Ultisols of Jagang. The maximum profits using Russian MOP fertilizer in Inceptisols and Ultisols were Rp 4.4 and Rp 1.9 million ha-1 season-1, respectively, and were greater than those of using KCl fertilizer in both studied soils. IBCR values of the Russian MOP fertilizer were 2.44-10.37 (Inceptisols) and 0.69-3.41 (Ultisols) and were greater than those of KCl fertilizer. The requirements of Russian MOP fertilizer to achieve maximum profit were 119 and 105 kg ha-1 or equal to 71 and 63 kg K2O ha-1 for Inceptisols of Cibatok and Ultisols of Jagang, respectively. Considering its effectiveness and benefit, Russian MOP fertilizer can be used as alternative of K fertilization

Characteristics of Tropical Drained Peatlands and CO2 Emission Under Several Land Use Types

Converting of tropical rain forest into plantation and agriculture land uses has been claimed as a main factor that affects to global warming and climate change. In order to provide a comprehensive information of the issue, a field observation on  peat properties in relation to CO2 emission under several land use types had been done  at Lubuk Ogong Village, Pelalawan District, Riau Province from May 2011-April 2012. Five land use types, namely A. mangium, bare land, oil palm, rubber, and secondary forest have been selected in the study site. Observations were made for chemical and physical properties, above and below ground C-stock and CO2 emissions. The results showed a higher variation of peat depth and a below ground C-stock was almost linearly with a peat depth. Below ground C-stock for each land use was around 2848.55 Mg ha-1, 2657.08 Mg ha-1 5949.85 Mg ha-1,  3374.69 Mg ha-1, 4104.87 Mg ha-1 for secondary forest, rubber, oil palm, bare land, and A. mangium, respectively. The highest above ground C-stock observed on a secondary forest was 131.5 Mg ha-1, followed by the four years A. mangium 48.4 Mg ha-1, the 1-2 years A. mangium 36.6 Mg ha-1, and the 4 years A. mangium 34.4 Mg ha-1. While, CO2 emissions in the study sites were 66.58±21.77 Mg ha-1yr-1, 66.17±25.54 Mg ha-1yr-1, 64.50±31.49 Mg ha-1yr-1, 59.55±18.30 Mg ha-1yr-1, 53.65±16.91 Mg ha-1yr-1 for bareland, oil palm, secondary forest, A. mangium, and rubber, respectively. [How to Cite: IG Putu Wigena, Husnain, E Susanti, and F Agus. 2015. Characteristics of Tropical Drained Peatlands and CO2 Emission under Several Land Use Types. J Trop Soils 19: 47-57. Doi: 10.5400/jts.2015.20.1.47][Permalink/DOI: www.dx.doi.org/10.5400/jts.2015.20.1.47]&nbsp