Chapters authored
Overview of Biological Methods of Weed Control
Exotic plants in new ecosystems where they may be of no economic importance and where their original biological enemies may be absent become weeds, difficult to manage by crop farmers. They limit the productivity of the lands and hence affect crop development and yield. Efforts towards reducing reliance on herbicides and other methods for environmental, health, economic and sustainability reasons have led to increasing interest in the biological approach to controlling these weeds. This work therefore presents an overview of the biological approach to weed control with focus on the basic concepts, underlying principles, procedures and current practices, cases and causes of failure and successes. Specifically, this chapter has discussed the underlying principles, general procedures, reasons for relatively slow popularity and adoption of biological weed control, examples of successful biological control of weeds with introduced insects and pathogens, when is weed biological control successful?, things to consider when making the choice of agents to be introduced to control weeds and steps to identifying and introducing biological control agents.
Part of the book: Biological Approaches for Controlling Weeds
The Effect of Climate Change on Abiotic Plant Stress: A Review
The increase in the carbon-dioxide (CO2) present in the atmosphere as a result of human activities affects the ambient temperature, and rainfall pattern in terms of season, duration, intensity of sunshine, increased drought periods, waterlogging, and increased evapotranspiration. This influence negatively the development, yield and quality of the plants grown under this condition. The quests to produce stress tolerant/resistant plants and increase crop productivity have led to the study of plant stresses, their response to different stress type and stress management procedures in plants. This chapter has discussed in details the different abiotic stressors in plants and how they are being influenced by climate change, the response of these plants to different abiotic stresses or a combination of stresses, and abiotic stress management.
Part of the book: Abiotic and Biotic Stress in Plants