Ecological Bulletins, Ecological Implications of Contemporary Agriculture: Proceedings of a Symposium Held 7-12 September, 1986, at Wageningen

ISBN-13: 9788716102270 / Angielski / Twarda / 1991 / 212 str.

Herman Eijsackers; A. Quispel; Herman Eijsackers

Opis

Agronomists and ecologists need each other and can learn from each other: agriculture cannot ignore ecological facts, neither can ecology study and conserve ecosystems without understanding contemporary agriculture. With this intention a symposium was organized on -the ecological implications of contemporary agriculture-. Five major groups of problems were discussed, related to major elements of the system, each corresponding to a session of the symposium: - the soil and its life;
- the plants, especially the unwanted ones;
- the fauna, with emphasis on the control of pests;
- the nutrient cycles and nutrient budgets (the driving force);
- the connecting elements in the rural landscape, related as they are with lotting out. For each subject (session) two invited papers were presented in combination with a varying number of posters. All these papers were encompassed by the opening and closing lectures, which sketch the societal framework within which a more ecological approach of agriculture has to be worked out. In this overview the different elements are rearranged and assessed according to four major groups of problems: lotting out, nutrient management, soil treatment, and weed and arthropod control. It is concluded with some comments on the possibilities to realize more ecological approaches in the framework of farming-practice and EC-politics.

Spis treści

Preface.

Opening lecture: The limits to agriculture.

The substrate: how are we treating the soil?.

When is a plant a weed?.

The increasing need for ecological knowledge in pest control.

Flow of water and nutrients through agro–ecosystems.

Relations between ecosystems in the rural landscape.

Closing lecture