Agronomy

Agronomy is the scientific management of land to practice effective soil conservation and to maximize crop production.

On M. Thaer's Principes Raisonne's D'agriculture.
The high reputation attached to the author of this publication as a scientific and practical agriculturist, independently of his other claims to consideration, as well as the intrinsic character of the work itself, render it incumbent on us to no. tice it... The work, besides an appendix or atlas of various tables and plates, consists of four large octavo volumes... The second volume makes its appearance, with a long and able preface from the translator, which is in effect a digest of the principles of vegetation, and of agricultural chemistry. The second section is concluded at a very early part of this volume; and the third section commences under the head of agronomy, which, as the translator informs us, should be read with great attention, in order to extract its matter with full advantage to the reader. This section first treats of the component parts of soils, and the author goes deeply into this interesting subject, noticing at considerable length lime, chalk, marl, gypsum, the nature and effects of humus, and its different combinations with the elementary earths and atmospheric influences; and then succeeds a vast deal under the particular head of agriculture (first part), which, in our simplicity, we had imagined to have been essentially the subject on which we had been before engaged. This division comprehends first manures, animal, vegetable, and mineral, a sequence to the "constituent and physical properties of soils and the mode of judging of land," contained in the preceding division — agronomy — but designed principally to explain the modus operandi of manuring substances; with a great deal which seems in some respects a repetition of points previously discussed under the head of agronomy, and which might better have been included in it.

Biotechnology procedures that permit the easy asexual transfer of genes among microorganisms, when and if mastered for higher plants, hold the potential for transferring desired genes across species, genera, and perhaps family barriers. Let your imagination roam - the high lysine trait from the pigweed might be used to improve the quality of maize protein. 'The resistance of maize to wheat stem rust might be used to make wheat resistant to this disease. The gene for tolerance to Al[uminum] toxicity in wheat might make maize tolerant to Al[uminum]... The future for agronomy is not only bright, but it has no foreseeable bounds.