Bushra Muqaddas

• PhD
• Lecturer at Bahauddin Zakariya University

Understanding root development in soil profiles of agroforestry systems is challenging. It is uncertain to what extent the proximity of cash crops, such as cocoa and coffee, to shade trees reduces nutrient concentrations in the topsoil and whether the cash crops continue to develop fine roots in the topsoil when they are planted in close proximity...

Mineral nutrient fluxes derived from litterfall are key components of nutrient biogeochemical cycles in both natural and agroforesty systems. Cocoa production systems are generally nutrient depleted and may benefit from on external nutrient application to maintain primary productivity. However, in developing countries the main source of nutrients i...

The use of biochar is changing, and the combined application of biochar with fertilizer is increasingly gaining acceptance. However, the yield gains results reported in the existing literature through the co-application of fertilizer with biochar are conflicting. To resolve this, we utilized a meta-analysis of 627 paired data points extracted from...

Replenishing soil nutrient particularly total nitrogen (TN) and available phosphorus (P) is important to sustain soil health for food production. Organic amendments such as compost and biochar are commonly applied to improve soil nutrient retention especially N and P. In farms, biochar is usually applied once followed by applying other organic amen...

Litterfall helps maintaining nutrient return in forest ecosystems. However, the influence of long-term prescribed burning on the dynamics of litterfall biomass and carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling is poorly understood. A 39-year old prescribed burning field trial in a wet sclerophyll forest, southeast Queensland, Australia, was used to investiga...

Litterfall helps maintaining nutrient return in forest ecosystems. However, the influence of long-term prescribed burning on the dynamics of litterfall biomass and carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling is poorly understood. A 39-year old prescribed burning field trial in a wet sclerophyll forest, southeast Queensland, Australia, was used to investiga...

A pot experiment was conducted to compare the influence of Enterobacter cloacae-W6 and Serratia ficaria-W10 (exopolysaccharides and auxin producing, phosphate solubilizing and abundantly root colonizing bacteria) inoculation either alone or in combination with or without carriers (peat, biogas slurry, press mud) on the growth, yield and nutrient co...

the long-term effects of repeated prescribed fires on soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) pools are poorly understood. This study aimed to investigate how different fire frequency regimes influence C and N pools in the surface soils (0–10 cm). A prescribed fire field experiment in awet sclerophyll forest established in 1972 in southeast Queensland was...

A field experiment was conducted to see the effects of three tillage systems, i.e. minimum, conventional and deep tillage and three farm manure (FM) levels (0, 20 and 40 Mg ha') on soil physical properties and wheat growth. The maximum plant growth, yield, saturated hydraulic conductivity, soil nutrient status at harvest, nutrient uptake by plant a...