mortiz085

Prof. Dr. KARL STAHR, Chairman of Division I (Soil in Space and Time) of the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS), the global association of soil scientists, has accepted our invitation to be the Keynote Speaker of the 14th PSSST Scientific Conference on 25-27 May 2011 at VSU, Baybay, Leyte, Philippines. Prof. Stahr gained his doctorate from the Technical University Stuttgart, Germany, in 1972 and his Habilitation (highest academic qualification required to become a professor in Germany and several other European countries) in Soil Science at the University of Freiburg in 1979. Since 1988 he is Professor of Soil Science and Petrography at the Institute of Soil Science and Land Evaluation, University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart. His main fields of research are: soil genesis, soil mineralogy, land evaluation, N-cycle, and recycling of organic waste. He has conducted research projects dealing with forest and agricultural soils of Germany as well as Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina, Spain, Po...

The Philippine Society of Soil Science and Technology Inc (PSSST) will hold its 14th Annual Meeting and Scientific Conference on 25-27 May 2011 at the beautiful campus of the Visayas State University (VSU) in Baybay, Leyte, Philippines. Theme of this year's conference is Improving the Productivity of Marginal Lands Through Integrated Soil and Water Management. Marginal lands particularly degraded uplands are widespread throughout the country and improving their productivity is vital to attaining food security. More than a hundred soil scientists from various universities, government agencies, private companies and non-government organizations are expected to attend the three-day conference. In addition, some leading soil scientists from Australia, Canada, and Germany will be attending as plenary speakers. The Department of Agronomy and Soil Science of VSU, a co-sponsor of the conference, will be organizing a pre-conference tour for those participants who will arrive early. The tour...

The Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) in the USA, assembled in 1980 a high-powered Task Force composed of 24 scientists (chaired by S.R. Aldrich) with expertise in agricultural economics, agronomy, animal science, dairy science, entomology, food science, horticulture, soil science, veterinary medicine and others to look into the similarities and differences between organic and conventional farming. The Task Force report, which remains very relevant to the current debate surrounding organic and conventional agriculture, was officially published as CAST Report No. 84 "Organic and Conventional Farming Compared" in October 1980. Some of the interesting highlights of the report are: 1. Conventional and organic farming have much in common. They differ principally in the use of modern chemical technology. Conventional farmers use commercial inputs (fertilizers, pesticides, animal feed additives) to increase productivity while organic farmers prefer to use natura...

Below is my short article which appeared in the IUSS Bulletin 117 (Nov 2010) and 118 (June 2011) under the title "Favorite Soil Science Books." Soil science is a rapidly growing ecological earth science. Consequently, the number of books on the subject has greatly increased in the last two decades. So to choose my top three soil science books, I thought of this criterion: the book must have been very useful to me when I was a student and it is still useful now in my research and teaching activities as a professor of soil science. The criterion automatically disqualifies some very good books that I used as a student but for various reasons I seldom or do not use them today as well as some outstanding soil science books published in recent years but were not yet available during my student days. My first choice is the Properties and Management of Soils in the Tropics by Pedro A. Sanchez published in 1976 by John Wiley and Sons. It discusses in a simple but in-depth manner t...

Lowland rice cultivation can enhance the proliferation of snails resulting in the accumulation of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) in the topsoil. Frank Moormann and Nico Van Breemen, well-known Dutch pedologists, first observed this phenomenon in Central Luzon, Philippines, while visiting the experimental sites of the International Rice Research Institute in the 1970s. H.U. Neue, head of the Soils Department of IRRI at the time, encouraged this writer to investigate the phenomenon. Our research revealed that such biological accumulation of CaCO3 which we named biocalcification , occurs in several rainfed and irrigated rice-growing areas in the Philippines (Asio, 1987; Asio and Badayos, 1998). The figure below shows the proposed generalized model of biocalcification in rice fields. It consists of two stages. Stage 1 is on the proliferation of snails which is generally dependent upon the calcium content of the soil or irrigation water. Moormann et al. (1976) suggested that calcium, of which s...

by Dr. Cezar P. Mamaril Senior Consulting Expert of Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) Los Ba ñ os, Laguna I would like to share my thoughts about current challenges and opportunities in agriculture that institutions like Visayas State University (VSU) should be concerned. I could not over emphasize the fact that we are facing the problem of producing sufficient food to feed the ever increasing population of our country. Last census reported that our population is increasing by 2.3 percent, while our food production (particularly rice) is increasing by about 2.5 percent. The minimal growth difference between population and food production is not sufficient to provide the other requirements of small farmers to live a decent life. I hope the current census will show a decline in population growth so that we will have a better breathing space. (If you have not yet been interviewed by the census takers, you better do so otherwise you may not get your ration of rice!). Further...

Global warming is the increase in the average global temperature. It is a real problem now and we are starting to experience its bad effects like the more frequent occurrence of strong typhoons, the warming of sea water resulting in decreased fish catch by fishermen, and the increased amount of rainfall resulting in catastrophic floods and landslides. It is predicted that the tropics where the Philippines is located will be most affected by global warming. But apart from this global environmental pr oblem, there are also serious local environmental problems that need urgent action. These include deforestation, land degradation, and soil and water pollution. Except for deforestation, these local problems have seldom grabbed the headlines and the endorsement of politicians and popular personalities hence most people are not well aware about the severity of these problems. But they are already threatening our lives and studies have indicated that these environmental problems may have alre...