Sustainable agriculture is a key concept for scientists, researchers, and agricultural engineers alike.
This book focuses on results of  the FAM- project (Munich Research Network on Agroeco-systems) of the 1990s as a means to assessing, forecasting, and evaluating changes in the agroecosystems that are necessary for agricultural sustainability. The management of two separate management systems: an organic and an integrated farming system are described to provide an interdisciplinary approach Changes of matter fluxes in soils, changes of trace gas fluxes from soils, precision farming in a small scale heterogen landscape, influence of management changes on flora and fauna, as well as the development of agroecosystem models, the assessment of soil variability and the changes in nutrient status are important aspects of this book. 

• Contains detailed results and insight of a long-time project on agricultural sustainability
• Provides an interdisciplinary approach for comprehensive understanding by scientists and researcher of soil, plants, agriculture, and environment
• Includes an international perspective

Natural and agro-ecosystems are frequently exposed to natural or synthetic substances, which, while they have no direct nutritional value or significance in metabolism, may negatively affect plant functioning. These, xenobiotics, may originate from both natural (fires, volcano eruptions, soil or rock erosion, biodegradation) and anthropogenic (air and soil pollution, herbicides) sources. And, while affected plants have only a limited number of possibilities for avoiding accumulation of these compounds, they do exhibit several enzymatic reactions for detoxification including oxidation, reduction, hydrolysis and conjugation reactions. In agro-ecosystems in particular these mechanisms have great significance in relation to herbicide detoxification and tolerance. In this volume an international group of experts present an overview of the nature and distribution of organic xenobiotics, including their uptake, effects on plant functioning and detoxification mechanisms. The particular significance of glutathione S-transferases in bio-indication and bio-monitoring, and in the detoxification of volatile organic air pollutants and herbicides is evaluated, and their potential significance in phytoremediation and bioaccumulation will be discussed. This volume will be of interest to a wide audience, from graduate students to senior researchers in a wide range of disciplines including plant ecology, plant biochemistry, agriculture and environmental management. It will also be of practical interest to environmentalists, policy makers and resource managers.

Vol. 63(1), Januar 2008

The picture shows a micrograph producted with the confocal laser scanning microscope: Barley roots inoculated with Listeria ivanovii after two weeks of incubation. The Listeria are labeled by in situ hybridization with the probes EUB-338-mix-Cy5 (blue) and Lis-1255-Cy3 (red) and are therefore depicted in magenta (mixture of blue and red). From Kutter S., Hartmann A., and Schmid M. (2006) FEMS Microbiol. Ecol. 56: 262-271

A team of scientists from the Department of Microbe-Plant Interactions, the Institute of Biomathematics and Biometry and the university Bonn receives the Erwin-Schrödinger-Award 2007 for exceptional interdisciplinary cooperation.
Photo: f. r. t. l. the president of the Helmholtz Association, Jürgen Mlynek, and the laureates M. Rothballer, A. Hartmann, C. Kuttler, B. Hense, J. Kreft and J. Müller during the awards ceremony at the Helmholtz annual meeting in Berlin