Identification of agriculture types in Poland with analysis of spatial associations. The aims of the paper were to identify and characterize contemporary agriculture types in Poland, and evaluate the suitability of the typology used. The analysis was performed on the basis of territorial units (communes, LAU2). The study involved a total of 68 variables characterizing agriculture. Spatial associations found in the data were identified. As the next step, an analysis of local spatial autocorrelation was performed and spatial clusters were identified by LISA and cluster analysis performed by the method of k-means clustering, which identified a total of five agriculture types. The study presented the spatial distribution of individual types of agriculture and their characteristics. Furthermore, the method was shown to be especially useful for investigating agricultural phenomena characterized by a large number of traits in relation to a large number of territorial units.

Monoculture of modern cereal crops are popular due to the technical and organizationa lreasons. They are easier in crop husbandry, qua lity and product use. However, in monoculture chemical protection of crops is a norm, due to the fact that they are more susceptible to diseases, pests and sometimes weed infestation. In order to keep high and stable grain yields and quality in monoculture one has to use high inputs. Experimentally and practically it has been proved that cultivar and species mixtures can constitute an alternative to cultivar growing in pure stands. It has been found that in mixtures opperate different epidemiological and ecological factors, which lead to considerable disease reduction, pest and weed control, which finally result in higher and more stable grain yields than in barley varietes grown in pure stands. The results of two years field experiment designed to evaluate epidemiological and economical effects of winter barley cultivar mixtures are presented. The studies were carried out in two sites – experimental lStation for Variety Testing Słupia Wielka (in Wielkopolska region) and Plant Breeding Station Bąków (Opole District). This two sites were 300 km away from each other, and had different soi land meteorological conditions. In the experiment impact of different barley cultivars and their different two- and three-component mixtures were tested with reduced dosages of fungicidies on grain yield in the mixtures compared with pure stands were evaluated.

Silicon (Si) is the second most abundant element present in the lithosphere, and it constitutes one of the major inorganic nutrient elements of many plants. Although Si is a nonessential nutrient element, its beneficial role in stimulating the growth and development of many plant species has been generally recognized. Silicon is known to effectively reduce disease severity in many plant pathosystems. The key mechanisms of Si-mediated increased plant disease resistance involve improving mechanical properties of cell walls, activating multiple signaling pathways leading to the expression of defense responsive genes and producing antimicrobial compounds. This article highlights the importance and applicability of Si fertilizers in integrated disease management for crops.

Bollworms comprise the most harmful and economically relevant species of lepidopteran. Helicoverpa gelotopoeon (D.) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) is native to America and affects many crops. Tobacco is an industrial crop in which methods of pest control rely mainly on the application of insecticides. To develop new eco-friendly strategies against insect pests it is very important to overcome the side effects of insecticides. The utilization of fungal entomopathogens as endophytes is a new perspective that may accomplish good results. The present study aimed to evaluate the ability of endophytic Beauveria bassiana (Bals.-Criv.) Vuill. to affect H. gelotopoeon life parameters and feeding behavior on tobacco plants. Beauveria bassiana LPSC 1215 as an endophyte did not reduce the amount of vegetal material consumed by H. gelotopoeon larvae but affected the life cycle period of the plague, particularly the larval and adult stages. Also, egg fertility was affected since adults laid eggs that were not able to hatch. The results of this investigation provide new information on endophytic entomopathogen potential to be incorporated in Integrated Pest Management (IPM) programs.

The paper presents a new method of determination of economic benefits of land consolidation of farms, which result from reduction of land parcels' number. A model method and a logical method have been applied. The discussed economic benefits have been determined by means of comparing economic evaluation of a model farm's land configuration before and after land consolidation. As a result of analysis, a mathematical formula that describes an economic benefit of land consolidation, resulting from the reduction of land parcels number, has been derived. The economic benefit is a function of the differences between the numbers of arable fields and the differences between the area of an arable lands and green lands of a farm, before and after land consolidation, as well as constant parameters and slope of linear regression equations for the models of such fields. The benefit does not depend on the area of farms.

In the four-year experiment the impact of four different barley varieties and selected two-and three-component mixtures were tested. The studies were carried out at two sites: Experimental Station for Variety Testing Słupia Wlk. (Wielkopolska region) and Plant Breeding Station Bąków (Opole District) during four growing seasons (2001/2002–2004/2005). The aim of the studies was to evaluate the yield through growing barley variety mixtures in combination with reduced use of fungicide and application dose rates. Positive effects (1–15% yield increase in mixtures compared to pure stands) were observed. On the base of obtained results it can be stated that winter barley variety mixtures can constitute an alternative way of growing winter barley, especially at low-input and ecological agriculture.

The physicochemical and bacteriological quality of groundwater was assessed to show the impact of the agriculture and human activities in the Triffa Plain located in North-East of Morocco. The current levels of contamination of the groundwater were estimated by analysing electrical conductivity, nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, orthophosphate, and indicators of faecal pollution content.

Water samples from 55 locations were collected during two period of time, the wet and the dry season of the year 2016. Result obtained indicated that most samples are highly contaminated. The electrical conductivity varied from 800 to 9 100 μS∙cm–1. Nitrate levels ranged from 25 to 216 mgꞏdm–3, with 78% of samples exceeding the critical level value set at 50 mgꞏdm–3. Nitrate concentrations are slightly higher during the wet period in 73% of studied cases. Nitrite rarely exceeded the normal rate fixed by World Health Organization and reached 0.90 mgꞏdm–3. Ammonia and orthophosphate contents do not exceed these norms.

The study revealed a wide contamination of groundwater by microbial agents such as, total coliforms, faecal coliforms and faecal streptococci, with content ranged from 0 to 14 000, 0 to 5 000 and 0 to 5 000 CFUꞏ(100 cm3)–1 respectively, con-firming the impact of septic tanks, wastewater discharge into rivers without treatment, and the use of animal waste on the ground water vulnerability.Samplings and measurements were carried out according to the international standard ISO 13395, ISO 11732 and ISO 15681-2 for chemical compounds and ISO 9308-1 and ISO 7899-2 for microbiological numerations.

Most of the developing countries economy largely depends on the agriculture. More than half of the population rely on agriculture related activities for their survival. In spite of dependency on agriculture, the technological development of agricultural work in developing country is not comparable to the countries like Australia or Israel. The main reason behind the lack of development is the small size of farms. Such farmers cannot afford expensive technology available in the market due to limited profit margins. The report describes an autonomous fertilization system that takes care of the fertilization requirements of the small scale farms at affordable rates. The system is divided in two parts namely User Interface and Control System. The user interface is designed using the state of the art Raspberry Pi board and a touch screen LCD. The control system is developed using the Arduino platform and can control five fertilizers at a time. The output of the system is the mix of the fertilizer, which is forced into the drip irrigation system of the farm. The system has built in data for the fertilization requirement for important crops and vegetation. The system also facilitates the customize fertilization requirements to be added in the system as per the user requirements.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the use of agricultural land on the territory of united communities and their individual districts of Zhytomyr region as the smallest units of the administrative territorial division of Ukraine. The relevance of this study, due to current changes in national land relations, dictates the need to have information about agricultural lands, their owners, tenants and the lands status for planning agricultural production, the land-leases development, sale of land. The analysis of land use was carried out according to the following indicators: location of land plots of all owners within the community district and the whole community; their area; monetary evaluation; status of documents for each land plot, in particular the availability of lease, land cultivation presence. The initial data of the researches is the data of the state land cadastre database, and data of the real property rights register, both in general access and in need of special access. As a result of the research there were defined areas and location of lands of some landowners, who leased their lands and areas of lands not leased, also there were defined areas of lands, used illegally, without any documents on land use, defined areas of lands, used or owned by agricultural producers (farms, physical persons, legal entities). A cartographic core was created for the purpose of convenient planning of agricultural land use and land management within selected districts on the territory of the community.

The concept of regenerative agriculture increased as a response to the progressive degradation of soils intensively used in agriculture and the need to restore their biodiversity and fertility. A characteristic feature of this concept is not only to reduce the negative impact of agriculture on the environment, but also to improve its quality. The most characteristic elements of the concept of regenerative agriculture include: restoring soil health, including increasing the capacity to sequester carbon to mitigate climate change and reversing biodiversity loss. The EASAC report on regenerative agriculture relates mainly to the European Green Deal, and is a critical analysis of the scientific evidence base on the practices of regenerative agriculture to meet the main targets of the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategy, carbon storage and food production. The publication of the report on regenerative agriculture by EASAC became an inspiration for organizing a seminar entitled “Regenerative Agriculture” on May 25, 2022. The seminar was organized as cooperation of three scientific committees of the Polish Academy of Sciences: the Committee of Agronomic Sciences, the Committee of Animal Sciences and Aquaculture and the Committee of Veterinary Sciences and Reproductive Biology, being an excellent forum for discussing such an important issue.

Social and Economic Costs of Spatial Disorder in Agriculture. The main objective of the study was the identification of the phenomena of chaos in the structure and spatial organization of agriculture, that is the agrarian fragmentation of farms, exclusion of land from agricultural production in suburban zones and the fragmentation of the agricultural landscape. These processes cause a major increase in economic and social costs, which results in the loss of resources and spatial disorder in agriculture. An attempt was made to estimate the costs of these processes in economic, social and environmental terms. The economic dimension of spatial disorder in agriculture is manifested by negative results in the production and consumption sphere related most often to high labour costs, and consequently to low incomes. The social dimension of spatial disorder in agriculture is demonstrated by the effects of de-agrarization processes and deformation of social structures. De-agrarization means the processes of agricultural area reduction, extensification and fallowing as well as an increasingly limited significance of agriculture as a workplace and a reduction in the source of income by rural residents. A conducted analysis of spatial disorder in agriculture resulting from the lack of appropriate regulation and taxation systems as well as historical factors allowed determining direct and indirect results influencing the structure and spatial organization of agriculture. Direct results include: a chessboard pattern of agricultural land, marginalization of the agricultural function in rural areas which mostly applies to suburban zones, unregulated ownership of farmland, its unjustified designation for other purposes, a decrease in biodiversity in agriculture and fragmentation of the agricultural landscape. Indirect results include: an increase in the costs of agricultural production, expensive agricultural-installation plans, loss of direct payments, easement appurtenant, the emergence of human-environment conflicts and major transformations of the agricultural landscape in a suburban zone.

In literature as well as in the university debate, we can observe the increase of interest regarding converting agricultural residues into energy. Furthermore, the energy and climate policies have encouraged the development of biogas plants for energy production. One of the most significant reasons of this escalation is that this technology may be both convenient and beneficial. The produced biogas is not only supposed to cover the energy demand like heat and electricity, the resulting digestate has the prospect of a beneficial fertilizer and can thereby influence the energy management plans. This technology is widely introduced to countries, which have large income from agriculture. Not only does this reduce the use of industrial fertilizers, but also finds use for agricultural residues. One of the countries of this type is Vietnam, which is the fifth largest exporter of rice in the world. Over 55% of greenhouse gas emission in Vietnam comes from agriculture. Using innovative technologies such as biogas, may decrease this value in near future. It may also contribute to more sustainable agriculture by decreasing traditional fields burning after the harvesting period. The goal of this research paper is to estimate the possible production of biogas from rice straw to cover the energy demand of the rice mill. Four possible scenarios have been considered in this paper, the present situation and where electricity, energy or both were covered by biogas from agricultural residues. An attempt was made to answer the question whether the amount of biogas produced from agricultural residues is enough for both: electricity and energy supply, for the rice mill. If not, how much rice straw must be delivered from other sources, from which rice is not delivered to the rice mill. The base of the assumptions during the estimation of various values were statistics from FAO and other organizations, secondary sources and data from the existing rice mill in Hậu Mỹ Bắc B in Mekong delta in Vietnam.

The development of the modern economic system is becoming increasingly dependent on the sufficient provision of quality energy resources due to the intensification and transformation of the mechanization and automation of all industries. The growth of the energy needs of society is parallel to the awareness of the need to ensure the environmentally friendly development of society. There are a number of reasons for the search for new energy sources, including the limited reserves of traditional sources, dependence on oil-exporting countries, the greenhouse effect due to the entry of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and air pollution by harmful gases. The biofuel sector offers the potential for both the development of national agriculture and for increasing its energy independence. Global trends in the rapid development of bioenergy in combination with the systemic crisis of the energy sector in Ukraine have necessitated a detailed study on the possibility of increasing the yield of biofuels from crops. The economic and mathematical modeling of the possibility of increasing the yield of bioethanol and vegetable oil from agricultural crops has been carried out. An economic optimization model has been formed, which made it possible to study an increase in the yield of bioethanol from sugar-containing and starch-containing crops and vegetable oil from oil crops from 1 ton per 1 hectare of area. Also, an assessment of the lost yield for the investigated crops has been carried out using the method of analysis of the functioning environment (Farrell’s method).

The paper describes the impact of two different plant protection products on silkworm ( Bombyx mori L.) development. These products are commonly used in agrotechnical treatments and are officially allowed to use in ecological agriculture. They are also fungicides, which suggests lower negative impact on other groups of organisms. The two used products were Biosept Active Spray (grapefruit extract) and Miedzian 350 SC (copper oxychloride) which were sprayed on mulberry leaves used to feed silkworms from the beginning of the 4th instar. As to measure the level of impact, the mortality of larvae (percentage of dead specimens) and cocoon shell ratio (percentage of shell weight in whole cocoon) were checked. The highest mortality was recorded in the group treated with 0,7% Miedzian solution (92,5%) as well as the lowest shell ratio (12,06) comparing to the control group (mortality 7,5% and shell ratio 17,43). In the Biosept group, no significant mortality was recorded (comparing to the control group) but mean shell ratio showed a significant decrease in the cocoon quality. The study shows that one of the pesticides is highly effective against a non-target organism.

The aim study is the development of the classification of agricultural enterprises, based on the properties of the distribution of enterprises depending on the size of the land bank. To achieve this aim, open databases of agricultural enterprises were used, from which data for the Dnipropetrovsk district were selected. The data is not official. They are collected according to the data provided by the agricultural enterprises themselves. Since the official statistics group of small enterprises with up to 200 ha of land includes a fairly large number of enterprises that exist only formally, and since actively functioning enterprises are voluntarily registered in the databases used for the study, the developed classification reflects the real situation with agricultural enterprises in the Dnipropetrovsk district. The proposed scheme of a grouping of agricultural enterprises is regular, logarithmically uniform and based on the exponential increase of the land bank of agricultural enterprises. Its parameters are chosen in such a way as to take into account the classification of farms used in the Tax Code of Ukraine. The developed grouping of agricultural enterprises was used to analyze such characteristics of enterprises as types of production and organizational and legal forms of management. The analysis of the distribution showed that with the decrease of the land bank the number of farms increases and the number of enterprises, whose forms of management are joint-stock companies of different types, decreases.

This paper discusses the agrotechnical use of foundry waste based on spent foundry sands (SFS). The advantage of foundry waste use is its high concentration of quartz sands and its similar physical properties to soils, including good permeability and filtration rate. An important component of foundry waste containing a mineral binders (green sands) is the presence of a clay fraction. In contrast, organic binders in some foundry wastes increase the percentage of organic matter. However, organic binders may contain toxic substances that are hazardous to the biota. Therefore, it is not recommended to use foundry waste with organic binders in agriculture or horticulture. Moreover, heavy metals may be problematic in the agrotechnical use of foundry waste mainly derived from cast metal. The disadvantage of using foundry waste as soil substrates is the low proportion of fertilizing components. Due to the low content of nutrients in foundry waste, it is recommended that it is used as a structural component mixed with other additives, such as sewage sludge or compost. The paper presents the results of research on the content of pollutants and the assessment of the biotoxicity of foundry waste. Based on the analyzed literature reports and own research, it was found that the use of foundry waste for non-industrial purposes, such as the production of artificial horticultural substrates, soilless substrates and artificial soils (Technosols), should be preceded by numerous studies to confirm the absence of negative impacts on the environment and human health.

Field research was conducted at Siedlce University of Natural Sciences and Humanities in 2019–2021. The objective was to determine the effects of bacterial formulations and cover crops on the biomass, number and species composition of dominating weeds prior to spring barley harvest. The field trial involved two factors: A – bacterial formulations: I – control, II – nitrogen-fixing bacteria ( Azospirillum lipoferum Br17, Azotobacter chroococcum), III – nitrogen-fixing bacteria ( Azospirillum lipoferum Br17, Azotobacter chroococcum) + phosphorus-solubilizing bacteria ( Bacillus megaterium var, phosphaticum, Arthrobacter agilis), IV – nitrogen-fixing bacteria ( Azotobacter chroococcum) + plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) ( Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus amyloliquefaciens, Pseudomonas fluorescens); B – cover crops: control without a cover crop, red clover, red clover + Italian ryegrass, Italian ryegrass. Spring barley was harvested in late July. Weed samples were collected just before harvest to determine the fresh and dry matter of weeds as well as their number and species composition. The research demonstrated conclusively that an application of bacterial products combined with cover crops contributed to a significant reduction in the weight and number of weeds including dominating species such as Chenopodium album, Sinapis arvensis, Tripleurospermum inodorum and Elymus repens. Superior weed control was achieved in spring barley grown in combination with Azotobacter chroococcum + PGPR and a mixture of red clover and Italian ryegrass as a cover crop.

The aim of this study was to monitor pesticide residues in the blood of agricultural workers (farmers, pesticide dealers, and spraying workers) living in the Dakahlia Governorate, Egypt. Residue analysis revealed that 48, 76, and 84% of the farmers, pesticide dealers, and spraying workers had pesticide residues in their bloods, respectively. Eleven compounds were detected in the blood of examined individuals. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) classification, most of these pesticides (nine pesticides) were in moderately hazardous compounds. Carbofuran, a highlyhazardous compound was the most toxic. The compound with the lowest toxicity was hexytiazox, which is unlikely to pose an acute hazard in normal use. Chlorpyrifos was found in the blood of 38.3% of the study subjects, followed by acetamiprid (11.7%) and profenofos (10.7%), while fenvalerate was the lowest occurring compound (1.3%). Of the collected samples 41.3% was free of pesticide residues, while 58.7% of the samples was contaminated. Furthermore, the amounts of all detected pesticides were below the no observable adverse effect levels (NOAEL). Also, 38.7% of the samples had only one pesticide, while 8% of them contained residues of two pesticides, and 5.3% contained more than two compounds. The worker’s age did not affect the accumulations of pesticide residues in their bodies. However, there was a strong correlation between pesticide residues accumulation and an individual’s exposure time. Therefore, from these results it can be seen that encouraging greater awareness among pesticide users of the need to improve safe usage and handling of pesticides by education, advice, and warning them of the risks involved in the misuse of these poisonous materials is highly recommended.

Metcalfa pruinosa (Say, 1830) was recorded for the first time in Poland, in the city of Warsaw. This Nearctic species of the Flatidae family was introduced into Europe in the late 1970s and has expanded its range ever since. We provide data on the first record as well as briefly characterize the insect in terms of its diagnostic features, biology and potential harm to agriculture and the environment.

According to the Nitrate Directive it is necessary to established a protective belt (ecotones) around lakes. Inside these belts, it is forbidden to use fertilize for agricultural purposes. It is believed that it is the most imported measure to protect water quality in the lake. The analysis were conducted to estimate the sources of nitrogen entering the waters of the lake. Some analysis were conducted to estimate the sources of nitrogen entering waters of the lake. It was proved that the biggest load (more than 80%) of contamination is entering the lake with water flowing in streams and ditches. Only 10% of the chemicals are entering the lake with the groundwater filtrating to the lake. It is very important to use a proper methods of agriculture with proper methods of fertilization in the whole area of river basin flowing to the lakes.