Special Program for International Students

GRADUATE COURSE IN EARTH SCIENCE
  & GEOENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
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Mohammed Zahidul Islam (Bangladesh)

Email: mohammed_islam26@yahoo.com

Thesis title:  Elucidation of mechanisms of carbon cycle agriculture.
Supervisor:  Assoc. Prof. Sadanobu Katoh (2015-2018).

Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It has been practiced for thousands of years for both fuel and as a building material. It is an organic material. Wood is fundamentally composed of cellulose, hemicelluloses, lignin, and extracts. The chemical composition of wood varies from species to species, but it is approximately 50% carbon, 42% oxygen, 6% hydrogen, 1% nitrogen, and 1% other elements (mainly calcium, potassium, sodium, magnesium, iron, and manganese) by weight. In Japan, approximately 30 million m3 of wood wastes are engendered every year. This waste wood is excreted from several different sources, including municipal waste, construction, demolition, wood processing and manufacturing, pallets and wooden packaging, and any other way. Felicitous management of wood wastes should be established as quickly as possible to use wood material properly. Recently, a promising agricultural approach for utilizing wood wastes has been reported that applies a high carbon: nitrogen (C: N) ratio organic material without additional nitrogen fertilizers achieving four times higher productivity than that of conventional farms. The use of organic matter such as animal manures, human waste, food wastes, yard wastes, sewage sludge and composts has long been recognized in agriculture as beneficial for plant growth and yield and the maintenance of soil fertility. The new approaches to the use of wood chips in farming have proven to be more effective for improving soil structure, enhancing soil fertility and increasing crop yields.

Sustainable agriculture, as defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the 1990 Farm Bill, should "...Over the long term, satisfy human needs, enhance environmental quality and natural resource base, make the most efficient use of nonrenewable resources and integrate natural biological processes, sustain economic viability and enhance quality of life." . Traditional fertilizing, composting, agricultural chemicals, pesticides have been known for many years but new methods of carbon cycle agriculture (CCA) by the use of wood chips can be much more popular for the sustainable agricultural production.

Objectives:
  1. To demonstrate high yield CCA production and sustainability, without application of chemical fertilizers, compost, pesticides and agro chemicals by field analysis method.
  2. To examine the relationship between fungal diversity and CCA plant production in detail using PCR, microscopic analysis and field investigation.
  3. To figure out the defense mechanisms of CCA plants in detail using field and lab analysis technic.
Significance:

Chemical fertilizers and pesticide pose health hazard and affect the microbial population in soil by degrading the physical structure of the soil leading to lack of oxygen in the plant root zone besides being quite expensive and making production cost high. Furthermore, natural balance is essential for healthy soil and healthy plants which includes microbes in the soil environment. If chemical agriculture is allowed to continue, the environment in which we live will be severely threatened. Scientists over the world have started research on alternate farming, and many successes are achieved. It is believed that CCA farming has a good future although there are many problems yet to be overcome by practitioners. This is just the beginning and good beginning means half success as a whole.


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