Alicia B. Speratti

Keywords · · · · Central America · Andean region · Direct seeding ·

The authors wish to correct the following erratum in this paper [...]

A major problem faced by small-scale farmers in northern Ethiopia is reduced crop yield due to increasing soil degradation resulting from repeated tillage and inadequate agronomic management practices. These practices have left soils and rainfed crops susceptible to hazardous climatic events such as droughts. Sustainable farm practices such as mini...

Sugarcane filtercake is a nutrient-rich residue produced prior to sugarcane distillation and is commonly disposed of by applying directly to agricultural fields, often causing high decomposition and leaching rates. Transforming this material into biochar could improve its stability in the soil. In this 92-day incubation study, filtercake biochar pr...

Precision agriculture technology at the hands of smallholder farmers in the developing world is often deemed far-fetched. Low-resource farmers, however, are the most susceptible to negative changes in the environment. Providing these farmers with the right tools to mitigate adversity and to gain greater control of the production process could unloc...

Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) leached from Brazilian Cerrado Arenosols can lead to carbon (C) losses and lower soil fertility, while excessive nutrient, e.g. nitrate (NO3-), leaching can potentially cause water contamination. As biochar has been shown to stabilize C and retain soil nutrients, a greenhouse experiment was conducted to test different...

Arenosols (sandy soils) in the Cerrado region of Mato Grosso, Brazil are increasingly used for maize production, the second most important crop in the region after soybean. Yet, these soils are typically nutrient poor with low soil water retention, requiring high fertilizer inputs that are often lost in surface runoff or leached. The addition of bi...

The Pantanal is the largest tropical wetland on the planet and yet little information is available on the biome's carbon cycle. We used an automatic station to measure soil CO2 concentrations and oxidation-reduction potential over the 2014 and 2015 flood cycles of a tree island in the Pantanal that is immune to inundation during the wetland's annua...

Arenosols in the Brazilian Cerrado are increasingly being used for agricultural production, particularly maize. These sandy soils are characterized by low soil organic matter, low available nutrients, and poor water-holding capacity. For this reason, adding biochar as a soil amendment could lead to improved water and nutrient retention. A greenhous...

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Conservation agriculture (CA) has been widely successful in the Southern Cone region of South America. A leader in the development of CA practices and technology, Brazil has encouraged the spread of CA throughout the region through an effective and innovative network of farmers and their associations, private and public partnerships. The benefits o...

Conventional tillage creates soil physical conditions that may restrict earthworm movement and accelerate crop residue decomposition, thus reducing the food supply for earthworms. These negative impacts may be alleviated by retaining crop residues in agroecosystems. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of various tillage and cro...

Earthworm–microbial interactions may stimulate CO2 and N2O emissions from soil. This study examined the influence of anecic and endogeic earthworms, represented by Lumbricus terrestris L. and Aporrectodea caliginosa Savigny, on CO2 and N2O fluxes, and on the processes (denitrification, nitrification) that lead to N2O flux from an agricultural soil....

Earthworms modify the soil environment through their feeding, casting, and burrowing activities, which may lead to more decomposition and respiration in aerobic microsites and more denitrification in anaerobic microsites. The objective of this study was to determine whether earthworms increase CO2 and N2O fluxes from an unfertilized corn agroecosys...