Biological Nano-Agrochemicals for Crop Production as an Emerging Way to Address Heat and Associated Stresses.

Climate change is a global problem facing all aspects of the agricultural sector. Heat stress due to increasing atmospheric temperature is one of the most common climate change impacts on agriculture. Heat stress has direct effects on crop production, along with indirect effects through associated problems such as drought, salinity, and pathogenic stresses. Approaches reported to be effective to mitigate heat stress include nano-management. Nano-agrochemicals such as nanofertilizers and nanopesticides are emerging approaches that have shown promise against heat stress, particularly biogenic nano-sources. Nanomaterials are favorable for crop production due to their low toxicity and eco-friendly action. This review focuses on the different stresses associated with heat stress and their impacts on crop production. Nano-management of crops under heat stress, including the application of biogenic nanofertilizers and nanopesticides, are discussed. The potential and limitations of these biogenic nano-agrochemicals are reviewed. Potential nanotoxicity problems need more investigation at the local, national, and global levels, as well as additional studies into biogenic nano-agrochemicals and their effects on soil, plant, and microbial properties and processes.

Tellurium and Nano-Tellurium: Medicine or Poison?

Tellurium (Te) is the heaviest stable chalcogen and is a rare element in Earth's crust (one to five ppb). It was discovered in gold ore from mines in Kleinschlatten near the present-day city of Zlatna, Romania. Industrial and other applications of Te focus on its inorganic forms. Tellurium can be toxic to animals and humans at low doses. Chronic tellurium poisoning endangers the kidney, liver, and nervous system. However, Te can be effective against bacteria and is able to destroy cancer cells. Tellurium can also be used to develop redox modulators and enzyme inhibitors. Soluble salts that contain Te had a role as therapeutic and antimicrobial agents before the advent of antibiotics. The pharmaceutical use of Te is not widespread due to the narrow margin between beneficial and toxic doses, but there are differences between the measure of toxicity based on the Te form. Nano-tellurium (Te-NPs) has several applications: it can act as an adsorptive agent to remove pollutants, and it can be used in antibacterial coating, photo-catalysis for the degradation of dyes, and conductive electronic materials. Nano-sized Te particles are the most promising and can be produced in both chemical and biological ways. Safety assessments are essential to determine the potential risks and benefits of using Te compounds in various applications. Future challenges and directions in developing nano-materials, nano-alloys, and nano-structures based on Te are still open to debate.

Biological Nanofertilizers to Enhance Growth Potential of Strawberry Seedlings by Boosting Photosynthetic Pigments, Plant Enzymatic Antioxidants, and Nutritional Status.

Strawberry production presents special challenges due the plants' shallow roots. The rooting stage of strawberry is a crucial period in the production of this important crop. Several amendments have been applied to support the growth and production of strawberry, particularly fertilizers, to overcome rooting problems. Therefore, the current investigation was carried out to evaluate the application of biological nanofertilizers in promoting strawberry rooting. The treatments included applying two different nanofertilizers produced biologically, nano-selenium (i.e., 25, 50, 75, and 100 mg L-1) and nano-copper (i.e., 50 and 100 mg L-1), plus a control (untreated seedlings). The rooting of strawberry seedlings was investigated by measuring the vegetative growth parameters (root weight, seedling weight, seedling length, and number of leaves), plant enzymatic antioxidants (catalase, peroxidase, and polyphenol oxidase activity), and chlorophyll content and its fluorescence and by evaluating the nutritional status (content of nutrients in the fruit and their uptake). The results showed that the applied nanofertilizers improved the growth, photosynthetic pigments, antioxidant content, and nutritional status of the seedlings compared to the control. A high significant increase in nutrient contents reached to more than 14-fold, 6-fold, 5-folf, and 4-fold for Cu, Mn, N, and Se contents, respectively, due to the applied nanofertilizers compared with the control. The result was related to the biological roles of both Se and CuO in activating the many plant enzymes. Comparing the Se with the CuO nanofertilizer, Cu had the strongest effect, which was shown in the higher values in all studied properties. This study showed that nanofertilizers are useful to stimulate strawberry seedling growth and most likely would also be beneficial for other horticultural crops. In general, the applied 100 ppm of biological nano-Se or nano-CuO might achieve the best growth of strawberry seedlings under growth conditions in greenhouses compared to the control. Along with the economic dimension, the ecological dimension of biological nanofertilizers still needs more investigation.

Nano-Restoration for Sustaining Soil Fertility: A Pictorial and Diagrammatic Review Article.

Soil is a real treasure that humans cannot live without. Therefore, it is very important to sustain and conserve soils to guarantee food, fiber, fuel, and other human necessities. Healthy or high-quality soils that include adequate fertility, diverse ecosystems, and good physical properties are important to allow soil to produce healthy food in support of human health. When a soil suffers from degradation, the soil's productivity decreases. Soil restoration refers to the reversal of degradational processes. This study is a pictorial review on the nano-restoration of soil to return its fertility. Restoring soil fertility for zero hunger and restoration of degraded soils are also discussed. Sustainable production of nanoparticles using plants and microbes is part of the process of soil nano-restoration. The nexus of nanoparticle-plant-microbe (NPM) is a crucial issue for soil fertility. This nexus itself has several internal interactions or relationships, which control the bioavailability of nutrients, agrochemicals, or pollutants for cultivated plants. The NPM nexus is also controlled by many factors that are related to soil fertility and its restoration. This is the first photographic review on nano-restoration to return and sustain soil fertility. However, several additional open questions need to be answered and will be discussed in this work.

Planning for disposal of COVID-19 pandemic wastes in developing countries: a review of current challenges.

The health sector is critical to the well-being of any country, but developing countries have several obstacles that prevent them from providing adequate health care. This became an even larger concern after the COVID-19 outbreak left millions of people dead worldwide and generated huge amounts of infected or potentially infected wastes. The management and disposal of medical wastes during and post-COVID-19 represent a major challenge in all countries, but this challenge is particularly great for developing countries that do not have robust waste disposal infrastructure. The main problems in developing countries include inefficient treatment procedures, limited capacity of healthcare facilities, and improper waste disposal procedures. The management of medical wastes in most developing countries was primitive prior to the pandemic. The improper treatment and disposal of these wastes in our current situation may further speed COVID-19 spread, creating a serious risk for workers in the medical and sanitation fields, patients, and all of society. Therefore, there is a critical need to discuss emerging challenges in handling, treating, and disposing of medical wastes in developing countries during and after the COVID-19 outbreak. There is a need to determine best disposal techniques given the conditions and limitations under which developing countries operate. Several open questions need to be investigated concerning this global issue, such as to what extent developing countries can control the expected environmental impacts of COVID-19, particularly those related to medical wastes? What are the projected management scenarios for medical wastes under the COVID-19 outbreak? And what are the major environmental risks posed by contaminated wastes related to COVID-19 treatment? Studies directed at the questions above, careful planning, the use of large capacity mobile recycling facilities, and following established guidelines for disposal of medical wastes should reduce risk of COVID-19 spread in developing countries.

Ecofriendly remediation technologies for wastewater contaminated with heavy metals with special focus on using water hyacinth and black tea wastes: a review.

Treatment of water contaminated with heavy metals is challenging. Heavy metals are non-degradable, persistent in the environment, have a high dispersion capacity by water, can bioaccumulate, and represent risks to human and environmental health. Conventional treatment methods have disadvantages; however, adsorption in biomass is a highly promising method with high efficiency and low cost that avoids many of the disadvantages of conventional methods. Black tea (BT) wastes and water hyacinth (WH) have attracted attention for their ability to remove heavy metals from wastewater. Utilizing these approaches can remove contaminants and effectively manage problematic invasive species and wastes. The conventional uses of BT and WH were efficient for removing heavy metals from wastewater. Due to the unique and distinct properties and advantages of biochar and nano-forms of biosorbents, the use of BT and WH in these forms is promising to achieve sustainable heavy metals removal from wastewater. However, more study is needed to confirm preliminary results.

Ecological risk assessment and source apportionment of heavy metals contamination: an appraisal based on the Tellus soil survey.

It is imperative to comprehend the level and spatial distribution of soil pollution with heavy metals to find sustainable management approaches for affected soils. Selected heavy metals (Mn, Zn, Pb, Cu, Cr, Ni, As, Co, and Cd) and physiochemical parameters were appraised for 620 samples from industrial, agricultural and urban sites in Northern Ireland using the Tellus database. The findings of this study showed that among the analyzed heavy metals, Mn content was the highest and Cd content the lowest. Pearson's correlation analysis revealed that heavy metals were highly correlated with each other, signifying similar sources for the heavy metals. Mixed factors (anthropogenic and lithogenic) were responsible for the contribution of heavy metals as revealed by multivariate statistical analysis. The results of contamination factor and enrichment factor analyses suggest that As, Cd, and Pb showed very high risk for pollution in the study area. The geoaccumulation index revealed that with the exception of Cd, all analyzed heavy metals showed severe accumulation in the soils. The potential and modified ecological risk indices inferred that Cd, As, and Pb represented ecological threats in the soils of Northern Ireland. The findings of this study will aid in forming approaches to decrease the risks associated with heavy metals in industrial, urban and agricultural soils, and help create guidelines to protect the environment from long-term accumulation of heavy metals.

Soils of the Southern Syria - A big database for the future land management planning.

As non-renewable natural resources, restoring Syrian soil quality is a vital issue for sustainable future planning after conflict ends. The data provided in this research exhibit features and physiochemical properties for soils from the southern part of Syria until the Jordanian border, which can provide decision-makers with sufficient information for rehabilitation stage after conflict in a regional scale. The data were collected from 107 representative soil profiles covering diverse agroecosystems throughout the area (i.e. Dara and Alswieda governorates). The most important data findings of this research included the first detection of Palygorskite {(Mg,Al)2Si4O10(OH)•4(H2O)} in Syrian soils, which is considered a strong evidence for the direct effects of the climate change on agroecosystem. Vertisols, Inceptisols, Entisols, Mollisols, and Aridisols were the most widespread soil types in the area. Overall, the database involves the field morphological characteristics, physicochemical, and mineralogical analyses.

Dataset on the Mediterranean soils from the coastal region of the Lattakia governorate, Syria.

Soil survey is indispensable for land-use planning in any agro-ecosystem, particularly in coastal ecosystems because they often face several environmental problems such as flooding and water pollution, leading to soil degradation. The data given in this article revealing the common soil types and substantial taxonomy levels in the coastal region of Lattakia, Syria which is a key question for the land-use planning in the region. Data from 30 representative soil profiles and 60 auger points covering different agroecosystems within the Mediterranean coastal region of the Lattakia governorate, Syria were studied. The database including, the field morphological characteristics, physicochemical, mineralogical and micromorphological laboratory analyses. Entisols, Inceptisols, Mollisols, and Vertisols are the main soil types demonstrated in the area, which requiring convenient management for these divergent soils. The full profile data is available online in this data article for further reuse and for appropriate decisions to manage these soils.

Dataset on the existence of andisols under aridic-hyperthermic environments in the harrats region of the Arabian Shield.

The data from twelve representative soil profiles on six harrats (two profiles from each Harrat) within the Arabian Shield are presented, including full morphological descriptions made during the field the soil survey. A number of selected physicochemical and mineralogical analyses were also conducted in the laboratory and the data were interpreted to examine the possibility of the presence of andic/vitric soil properties in the studied soils, and thus the existence of Andisols in the harrats soils. The existence of andic/vitric properties in soils is not typical of regions characterized by aridic and hyperthermic soil moisture and temperature regimes, respectively, and is probably due to the influence of paleoclimatic conditions. The data is available online for further reuse and to provide a better understanding of the findings linked to this research.

Soil pathogens that may potentially cause pandemics, including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronaviruses.

Soil ecosystems contain and support the greatest amount of biodiversity on the planet. A majority of this diversity is made up of microorganisms, most of which are beneficial for humans. However, some of these organisms are considered human pathogens. In light of the current severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak, one may ponder the origin of the next pandemic and if soil may represent a source of pathogens with pandemic potential. This review focuses on several bacterial, fungal, and viral pathogens that can result in human infection due to direct interaction with the soil. Moreover, the current status of knowledge regarding SARS-CoV-2 survival in and transmission from soil is reviewed.

Mobility, distribution, and potential risk assessment of selected trace elements in soils of the Nile Delta, Egypt.

Environmental pollution has received considerable attention over the last 50 years. Recently, there has been an increasing interest in pollution of the Nile Delta, Egypt, which is one of the longest settled deltaic systems in the world. Pollution in the delta is increasingly recognized as a serious health concern that requires proper management of ecosystems. Therefore, this project aimed to study the distribution and assess the risk associated with selected trace elements (TEs) in different soils (i.e., marine, fluvial, and lacustrine parent materials) in the northern Nile Delta. Mehlich-3 extraction was used to determine the availability of antimony, vanadium, strontium, and molybdenum in agro-ecosystems in this area and their spatial distributions were investigated. Five indices were used to assess ecological risk. Results showed that TEs were higher in the southern part of the study area because it is affected by multiple pollution sources. The available concentrations of TEs were Sr < V < Sb < Mo. The bioavailability of Sr was highest among the studied TEs. The studied indices suggested the study area was moderately polluted by Sr and Sb. Furthermore, the results showed that marine soils had higher TE levels then lacustrine and fluvial soils. The ecological risk assessment indicated that V and Mo were of natural origin, while Sr and Sb were anthropogenically linked. Therefore, the situation calls for planning to reduce pollution sources, especially in the protected north Nile Delta, so these productive soils do not threaten human and ecological health.

Geodiversity and geoheritage: Detecting scientific and geographic biases and gaps through a bibliometric study.

Many scientists have recognized that there is diversity in nature, including biodiversity, geodiversity, and pedodiversity. Studies in biodiversity date back as far as the 1700s, but geodiversity and pedodiversity studies are much more recent, dating to the late 1970s to early 1980s. Given that we are now approaching 40 years of geodiversity and geoheritage work, this study was undertaken to determine areas that have been well addressed and where current gaps are. This was accomplished by reviewing the publications in the journal "Geoheritage", the Scopus and Google Scholar databases, and established geoparks according to UNESCO records. It was found that geodiversity studies typically do not include the findings or utilize the techniques of biodiversity and pedodiversity research, despite the fact that common definitions of geodiversity include soils. Including the findings and techniques of bio- and pedodiversity would expand geodiversity work. Likewise, geoheritage preservation sites are not geographically balanced, with European countries, Brazil, Australia, and China creating the large majority. The European and East Asian countries, especially China, have dominated in the establishment of geoparks. The most pressing need in future studies is more balanced geographic distribution, as the current strong slant towards a limited portion of the world cannot adequately capture (on the research front) and preserve (on the geoparks front) global geodiversity. Finally, there is a need investigate whether the spatial patterns of biodiversity are idiosyncratic or are also a characteristic of abiotic resources, permitting the standardization of diversity research methods. This review contends that there are intriguing similarities in biodiversity, geodiversity, and pedodiversity patterns that should be explored, something that would benefit all of these research areas.

Shelter, clothing, and fuel: Often overlooked links between soils, ecosystem services, and human health.

There are clear connections between ecosystem services (ES) and human health, as well as between soils and human health. However, studies to date have not investigated links between soil ES and human health. Viewing the relationship between soils and human health through the ES lens reveals that soil ES such as the provisioning of shelter, clothing, and fuel have been overlooked in the soil and human health literature. Shelter is important to human health because it provides protection against inclement weather, temperature extremes, and other potential threats. Clothing provides a more consistent micro-environment around the skin and also provides protection from ultraviolet radiation and some parasites. Fuel allows us to warm shelters, providing refuge from cold temperatures, and cook food, which reduces disease. The materials supplied by soils in support of these functions are often done so in a more environmentally responsible way than is the case with many modern building and clothing materials or with fossil fuels. However, it is important to realize that sustainable management practices are critical in order to achieve environmentally responsible production of these products. Future studies need to investigate the links between these overlooked soil ES and human health.

Assessment of temporal and spatial water quality in international Gomishan Lagoon, Iran, using multivariate analysis.

Coastal lagoon ecosystems are vulnerable to eutrophication, which leads to the accumulation of nutrients from the surrounding watershed over the long term. However, there is a lack of information about methods that could accurate quantify this problem in rapidly developed countries. Therefore, various statistical methods such as cluster analysis (CA), principal component analysis (PCA), partial least square (PLS), principal component regression (PCR), and ordinary least squares regression (OLS) were used in this study to estimate total organic matter content in sediments (TOM) using other parameters such as temperature, dissolved oxygen (DO), pH, electrical conductivity (EC), nitrite (NO2), nitrate (NO3), biological oxygen demand (BOD), phosphate (PO4), total phosphorus (TP), salinity, and water depth along a 3-km transect in the Gomishan Lagoon (Iran). Results indicated that nutrient concentration and the dissolved oxygen gradient were the most significant parameters in the lagoon water quality heterogeneity. Additionally, anoxia at the bottom of the lagoon in sediments and re-suspension of the sediments were the main factors affecting internal nutrient loading. To validate the models, R2, RMSECV, and RPDCV were used. The PLS model was stronger than the other models. Also, classification analysis of the Gomishan Lagoon identified two hydrological zones: (i) a North Zone characterized by higher water exchange, higher dissolved oxygen and lower salinity and nutrients, and (ii) a Central and South Zone with high residence time, higher nutrient concentrations, lower dissolved oxygen, and higher salinity. A recommendation for the management of coastal lagoons, specifically the Gomishan Lagoon, to decrease or eliminate nutrient loadings is discussed and should be transferred to policy makers, the scientific community, and local inhabitants.

Developing global pedotransfer functions to estimate available soil phosphorus.

There are a large number of investigations that estimate available soil phosphorous (P), but a paucity of global data on available soil P. One significant modern challenge is developing low cost, accurate approaches to predict available soil P that are useful to scientists around the world. We conducted a global meta-analysis using data on available soil P from 738 sites, 640 in the USA and 149 in 14 other countries. Four different methods of determining available soil P, New Zealand (NZ), acid oxalate, Bray and Mehlich 3 were represented in the dataset. Inputs evaluated for inclusion in the pedotransfer functions to predict available soil P were clay (C), fine silt, (FSi) coarse silt (CSi), very fine sand (VFS), fine sand (FS), medium sand (MS), coarse sand (CS), very coarse sand (VCS), organic carbon (OC), pH, calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), potassium (K), iron (Fe), aluminum (Al), and manganese (Mn). Available soil P was estimated for: 1) the entire dataset, 2) only the USA, and 3) the non-USA dataset. The best models to estimate available soil P were obtained for the NZ method (using the co-variates C, FSi, CSi, VFS, MS, CS, OC, Fe, Al, Mn, Ca, Mg, and pH) and for the acid oxalate method (using the co-variates C, FSi, Fe, Al, Mn, Ca, and Mg). Although estimation of available soil P determined with the acid oxalate method was poor for the entire dataset, good estimates were obtained for the USA and non-USA datasets separately. Models for the Bray and Mehlich 3 methods only predicted available soil P well for the non-USA dataset. Using pedotransfer function models to estimate available soil P could provide an efficient and cost effective way to estimate global distributions of a soil property that is important for a number of agricultural and environmental reasons.

The age of vines as a controlling factor of soil erosion processes in Mediterranean vineyards.

Vineyards incur the highest soil and water losses among all Mediterranean agricultural fields. The state-of-the-art shows that soil erosion in vineyards has been primarily surveyed with topographical methods, soil erosion plots and rainfall simulations, but these techniques do not typically assess temporal changes in soil erosion. When vines are planted they are about 30cm high×1cm diameter without leaves, the root system varies from 2 to over 40cm depth, and sometimes the lack of care used during transplanting can result in a field with highly erodible bare soils. This means that the time since vine plantation plays a key role in soil erosion rates, but very little attention has been paid to this by the scientific community. Thus, the main goal of this research was to estimate soil losses and assess soil erosion processes in two paired vineyard plantations of different ages. To achieve this goal, the improved stock unearthing method (ISUM) was applied to vineyards on colluvial parent materials with similar soil properties, topographical characteristics and land managements in the Les Alcusses Valley, southwestern Valencia province, Spain. Our findings suggested that the old vineyards showed lower erosion rates (-1.61Mgha-1yr-1) than those that were recently planted (-8.16Mgha-1yr-1). This is because of the damage that the plantation of the vines causes to soil. Tillage after planting (4 times per year) resulted in changes in the inter-row and row morphology, promoting the development of a ridge underneath the vines that disconnected the inter-rows and reduced soil losses with time. After the second year and until the 25th year after plantation, soil erosion was approximately 1Mgha-1y-1, which means that most of the erosion took place during the first two years after the plantation. Soil conservation strategies should be applied immediately after the plantation works to allow sustainable grape production. That is when soil erosion most needs to be controlled.

Spatial distribution of soil chemical properties in an organic farm in Croatia.

Soil pH, electrical conductivity (EC), organic matter (OM), available phosphorus (AP), and potassium (AK) are some of the most important indicators of soil fertility. These soil parameters are highly variable in space and time, especially in agricultural areas, with implications for crop production. The aim of this work was to study the spatial variability of pH, EC, OM, AP and AK using kriging and co-kriging methods in the Rasa River Valley (Croatia). As co-variates for each variable we considered the distance from the sea (DFS), distance from the river channels (DFC), pH, EC, OM, AP and AK. Only the variables with a significant correlation with the predictor were used as predictor variables. The results showed that soils of the study area had high pH, EC, OM and AK values and a low concentration of AP. The spatial variability was high for EC and low for pH levels. pH, EC, OM and AK had significant positive correlations. All these variables had significant negative correlations with AP. The exponential model was the best to model OM, AK and AP. Spherical and Gaussian models were the most accurate to model pH and EC. Spatial dependence was high for soil AK, EC and pH, and moderate for soil OM and AP. The incorporation of auxiliary variables increased the precision of the estimations. CoK_DFS was the best method to predict soil EC and AP, while Cok_EC, was better to estimate soil pH and Cok_pH and Cok_OM predicted soil OM and AK with the best accuracy. The maps produced with the best predictors showed that pH, EC, OM and AK had high levels in the northern and eastern parts of the study area. The opposite trend was identified in relation to the AP spatial pattern.

Short-term low-severity spring grassland fire impacts on soil extractable elements and soil ratios in Lithuania.

Spring grassland fires are common in boreal areas as a consequence of slash and burn agriculture used to remove dry grass to increase soil nutrient properties and crop production. However, few works have investigated fire impacts on these grassland ecosystems, especially in the immediate period after the fire. The objective of this work was to study the short-term impacts of a spring grassland fire in Lithuania. Four days after the fire we established a 400m2 sampling grid within the burned area and in an adjacent unburned area with the same topographical, hydrological and pedological characteristics. We collected topsoil samples immediately after the fire (0months), 2, 5, 7 and 9months after the fire. We analysed soil pH, electrical conductivity (EC), major nutrients including calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), sodium (Na), and potassium (K), and the minor elements aluminium (Al), manganese (Mn), iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn). We also calculated the soil Na and K adsorption ratio (SPAR), Ca:Mg and Ca:Al. The results showed that this low-severity grassland fire significantly decreased soil pH, Al, and Mn but increased EC, Ca, Mg, and K,. There was no effect on Na, Fe, and Zn. There was a decrease of EC, Ca, Mg, and Na from 0months after the fire until 7months after the fire, with an increase during the last sampling period. Fire did not significantly affect SPAR. Ca:Mg decreased significantly immediately after the fire, but not to critical levels. Ca:Al increased after the fire, reducing the potential effects of Al on plants. Overall, fire impacts were mainly limited to the immediate period after the fire.