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The microflora of the soil is adversely affected by chemical fertilizers. Excessive use of chemical fertilizers has increased crop yield dramatically at the cost of soil vigor. The pH of the soil is temporarily changed by chemical fertilizers, which kill the beneficial soil microflora and can cause absorption stress on crop plants. This leads to higher dosages during the application, causing groundwater leaching and environmental toxicity. Nanofertilizers (NFs) reduce the quantity of fertilizer needed in agriculture, enhance nutrient uptake efficiency, and decrease fertilizer loss due to runoff and leaching. Moreover, NFs can be used for soil or foliar applications and have shown promising results in a variety of plant species. The main constituents of nanomaterials are micro- and macronutrient precursors and their properties at the nanoscale. Innovative approaches to their application as a growth promoter for crops, their modes of application, and the mechanism of absorption in plant tissues are reviewed in this article. In addition, the review analyzes potential shortcomings and future considerations for the commercial agricultural application of NFs.

The microflora of the soil is adversely affected by chemical fertilizers. Excessive use of chemical fertilizers has increased crop yield dramatically at the cost of soil vigor. The pH of the soil is temporarily changed by chemical fertilizers, which kill the beneficial soil microflora and can cause absorption stress on crop plants. This leads to higher dosages during the application, causing groundwater leaching and environmental toxicity. Nanofertilizers (NFs) reduce the quantity of fertilizer needed in agriculture, enhance nutrient uptake efficiency, and decrease fertilizer loss due to runoff and leaching. Moreover, NFs can be used for soil or foliar applications and have shown promising results in a variety of plant species. The main constituents of nanomaterials are micro- and macronutrient precursors and their properties at the nanoscale. Innovative approaches to their application as a growth promoter for crops, their modes of application, and the mechanism of absorption in plant tissues are reviewed in this article. In addition, the review analyzes potential shortcomings and future considerations for the commercial agricultural application of NFs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Robot driven combined site-specific seeding and N fertilization (CSSF = SSS + SNF). • Both Kings (KA) and Robin Hood (RHA) prescriptions are contrasted in SNF. • SNF-KA reduces N and seed inputs but SNF-RHA increases little N use. • SSS followed by SNF-RHA improves grain yield and economic margin. • Robot based CSSF is technically feasible, profitable, time-efficient. Autonomous agricultural management combats the labor crisis in farming industry and ensures efficient farm operations, whereas variable rate technology has proven to increase resource use efficiency and reduce environmental impacts. This study developed an autonomous robot-driven combined site-specific seeding and nitrogen (N) fertilization solution, whose agro-economic and environmental viability was evaluated in maize. A commercial field in Belgium was scanned using a mobile on-line visible and near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy for predicting soil organic carbon (OC), pH, phosphorus (P), potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), and moisture content (MC). The six on-line soil layers were fused to delineate a management zone (MZ) map and derive recommendations for site-specific applications. Recommendations for site-specific seeding (SSS) and site-specific N fertilization (SNF) were implemented with a precision seeder and fertilizer sprayer, respectively, coupled to a field robot. Based on the fertility status, each MZ class was sown with one of the seed rates of 70, 80, 90, 100, 110 kSeeds ha−1 by seeding densely in the highly fertile MZ and vice versa (i.e., Kings approach). On the fourth day after seeding, variable N rates of 87, 81, 75, 67, 61 kg N ha−1 were applied according to two strategies, namely, Kings (KA – feeding the rich) and Robin Hood (RHA – feeding the poor). Results showed that SSS followed by SNF-RHA improved grain yield (9.96 t ha−1), compared to uniform rate (UR) (9.74 t ha−1) and SNF-KA (9.52 t ha−1) treatments, hence, increased gross margin by 53 € ha−1, compared to UR. SNF-KA consumed lower N and seed inputs than SNF-RHA and UR, while SNF-RHA used slightly more N by 1.5 kg N ha−1, compared to UR. This SNF-RHA was more profitable than the other two treatments. SNF-RHA also resulted in comparable yields across different MZ classes, by recommending complementary N doses, which was not the case for the SNF-KA. In conclusion, autonomous robot-driven combined maize SSS and SNF-RHA solution is proven to be technically feasible, while being profitable and time-efficient, allowing farmers to do multi-tasks simultaneously. Future work should evaluate the proposed integrated technology solution on different crops and a large number of fields to generalise the results achieved to promote practical applications by farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2018, the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences of Széchenyi István University celebrated the bicentenary of its predecessor’s foundation. Agrobusiness courses played an important role in the university’s agricultural engineering program throughout this major time period. The aim of this study is to examine how the titles, the content, and the significance of the courses changed during the institution’s important periods. Institutional history publications and the academic textbooks of great professors provided the basis of this research. Business administration, accounting, and agricultural estimation studies courses were already dominant in the first curricula. Later, courses concerning business and agricultural economics gained more ground and were accompanied by other fields of study: agricultural statistics, agricultural politics, agricultural history, and agricultural economics. During this 200-year period, the education of economics and other social science courses was done within the departments of agricultural economics and marketing, work organization and factory management, and social science and business operations, with the contribution of internationally renowned professors: Pál Sporzon, Richárd Suschka, Árpád Hensch, Károly Világhy. The Hungarian Royal Economics Academy (1874-1942) can be considered as the first prime of the agricultural economics education. From the 1900s onwards, the courses became more specialized, their numbers continuously grew, the disciplines expanded, and the number of departments increased. The second prime is the first decade of the 2000s, when besides the traditional agricultural programs, the institution started teaching economic agricultural engineers in its undivided 5-year training. They were the most popular agricultural engineers in the labor market due to their well-balanced knowledge in agriculture and economics, as well as their excellent leadership skills. Having abandoned the economic agricultural engineering program, the institution currently educates, besides other agricultural majors, rural development agricultural engineers, whose skills the labor market does not know very well. The proportion of business related courses show a significant decline in the curriculum of traditional agricultural programs as well. JEL code: N30 ARTICLE IN PRESS!

Abstract: Soils used for cropping of rainfed lowland rice are frequently rather poor, and nutrient limitation is known to be a major constraint for grain yields. However, actual fertilizer use by most rainfed rice farmers is still very low even if input-responsive rice varieties are widely adopted. To address this contradiction, this study, conducted in central and southern Laos, intended to test existing fertilizer recommendations in farmers’ fields and under their crop management, to evaluate the effect of topographic field position on fertilizer response, and to conduct an economic evaluation of fertilizer use based on farmers’ input and output prices. Trials were conducted for two seasons in three different agroecological environments (rainfed rice in lower fields and in middle/upper fields, and irrigated rice in lower fields). Tested were five different fertilizer treatments in four farmers’ fields per site and season. Commercial organic fertilizer increased yields but resulted in negative economic returns in almost all cases because of its unfavorable nutrient/price ratio. In lower fields, farmyard manure and inorganic fertilizer gave good yield responses and positive economic returns but the average value/cost ratios of 1.3–1.6 were at the lowest level required for widespread adoption of fertilizer use. Water limitation reduced attainable yields in middle/upper fields and in this environment good fertilizer response was observed only for farmyard manure and half the recommended rate of inorganic fertilizer. The actual benefit of fertilizer use depended strongly on the input/output price ratios at each site. Thus, site-specific fertilizer management options, including economic parameters, are required to make fertilizer use in rainfed lowland rice more profitable. The necessary information for such guidelines is available but needs to be prepared in the form of decision tools to help farmers choose the optimal nutrient management option for their agroecological and socioeconomic production environment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The restoration of ecosystems to stop biodiversity losses in agricultural landscapes has high priority in many regions of the world. It does not take place in a vacuum but is nested in a socio-historical and agro-political context. Austria and Western Australia (WA) are examples of old and newly impacted agricultural environments, and these are used to examine two contrasting agro-political and agro-economic frameworks within which ecological restoration currently operates. WA is characterised by ancient, nutrient-impoverished, and degraded agricultural landscapes that have been under cultivation for some 100 years and support a low density rural population. In Austria agriculture has been practised for some 7000 years and the European Union (EU) and its extensive funding system largely determine agro-political policies.The paper concludes that: (1) differences in agro-political priorities have resulted in diverging agro-economic systems where producers are heavily subsidised (EU) or largely unsubsidised (WA); (2) diverging agro-political priorities result from differences in terms of land degradation; demographic characteristics, and duration of respective agriculture; (3) WA failed to develop a financial strategy aimed at ecological restoration for biodiversity conservation while Austria benefits from a EU-driven subsidy system to maintain biodiversity conservation; (4) the Landcare movement plays a significant role in the restoration of biodiversity in WA, but is largely absent in the EU; (5) different environmental and social histories demand different approaches to improve the economic frameworks within which ecological restoration is conducted in each region. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]