Agrophysics is a branch of science bordering on
agronomy
Agronomy is the science and technology of producing and using plants by agriculture for food, fuel, fiber, chemicals, recreation, or land conservation. Agronomy has come to include research of plant genetics, plant physiology, meteorology, and ...
and
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
,
whose objects of study are the
agroecosystem
Agroecosystems are the ecosystems supporting the food production systems in our farms and gardens. As the name implies, at the core of an agroecosystem lies the human activity of agriculture. As such they are the basic unit of study in Agroecology ...
- the biological
object
Object may refer to:
General meanings
* Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept
** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place
** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter
* Goal, an ...
s,
biotope
A biotope is an area of uniform environmental conditions providing a living place for a specific assemblage of plants and animals. ''Biotope'' is almost synonymous with the term "habitat", which is more commonly used in English-speaking countrie ...
and
biocoenosis
A biocenosis (UK English, ''biocoenosis'', also biocenose, biocoenose, biotic community, biological community, ecological community, life assemblage), coined by Karl Möbius in 1877, describes the interacting organisms living together in a hab ...
affected by
human activity
Human behavior is the potential and expressed capacity ( mentally, physically, and socially) of human individuals or groups to respond to internal and external stimuli throughout their life. Kagan, Jerome, Marc H. Bornstein, and Richard M. ...
, studied and described using the methods of
physical science
Physical science is a branch of natural science that studies non-living systems, in contrast to life science. It in turn has many branches, each referred to as a "physical science", together called the "physical sciences".
Definition
Physi ...
s. Using the achievements of the exact sciences to solve major problems in agriculture, agrophysics involves the study of materials and processes occurring in the production and processing of agricultural crops, with particular emphasis on the condition of the environment and the quality of farming materials and food production.
Agrophysics is closely related to
biophysics
Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations. ...
, but is restricted to the
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
of the
plant
Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...
s,
animal
Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Kingdom (biology), biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals Heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, are Motilit ...
s,
soil
Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former te ...
and an
atmosphere
An atmosphere () is a layer of gas or layers of gases that envelop a planet, and is held in place by the gravity of the planetary body. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A s ...
involved in
agricultural
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating Plant, plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of Sedentism, sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of Domestication, domesticated species created food ...
activities and
biodiversity
Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...
. It is different from biophysics in having the necessity of taking into account the specific features of
biotope
A biotope is an area of uniform environmental conditions providing a living place for a specific assemblage of plants and animals. ''Biotope'' is almost synonymous with the term "habitat", which is more commonly used in English-speaking countrie ...
and
biocoenosis
A biocenosis (UK English, ''biocoenosis'', also biocenose, biocoenose, biotic community, biological community, ecological community, life assemblage), coined by Karl Möbius in 1877, describes the interacting organisms living together in a hab ...
, which involves the knowledge of
nutritional science
Nutritional science (also nutrition science, sometimes short ''nutrition'', dated trophology) is the science that studies the physiological process of nutrition (primarily human nutrition), interpreting the nutrients and other substances in food ...
and
agroecology
Agroecology (US: a-grō-ē-ˈkä-lə-jē) is an academic discipline that studies ecological processes applied to agricultural production systems. Bringing ecological principles to bear can suggest new management approaches in agroecosystems. The ...
,
agricultural technology
Agricultural technology or agrotechnology (abbreviated agtech, agritech, AgriTech, or agrotech) is the use of technology in agriculture, horticulture, and aquaculture with the aim of improving yield, efficiency, and profitability. Agricultural tec ...
,
biotechnology
Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used b ...
,
genetics
Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...
etc.
The needs of agriculture, concerning the past experience study of the local complex soil and next plant-atmosphere systems, lay at the root of the emergence of a new branch – agrophysics – dealing this with experimental physics.
The scope of the branch starting from
soil science
Soil science is the study of soil as a natural resource on the surface of the Earth including soil formation, classification and mapping; physical, chemical, biological, and fertility properties of soils; and these properties in relation to th ...
(physics) and originally limited to the study of relations within the soil environment, expanded over time onto influencing the properties of agricultural crops and produce as foods and
raw postharvest materials, and onto the issues of quality,
safety
Safety is the state of being "safe", the condition of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to risk management, the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk.
Meanings
There are ...
and
labeling
Labelling or using a label is describing someone or something in a word or short phrase. For example, the label "criminal" may be used to describe someone who has broken a law. Labelling theory is a theory in sociology which ascribes labelling ...
concerns, considered distinct from the field of nutrition for application in food science.
Research centres focused on the development of the agrophysical sciences include the
Institute of Agrophysics,
Polish Academy of Sciences
The Polish Academy of Sciences ( pl, Polska Akademia Nauk, PAN) is a Polish state-sponsored institution of higher learning. Headquartered in Warsaw, it is responsible for spearheading the development of science across the country by a society of ...
in
Lublin
Lublin is the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the center of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin is the largest Polish city east of t ...
, and the
Agrophysical Research Institute
The Agrophysical Research Institute (AFI, Агрофизический научно-исследовательский институт) is a public research and higher education facility dedicated to the study of agrophysics,
agricultural science ...
,
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...
in
St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
.
See also
*
Agriculture science
Agricultural science (or agriscience for short) is a broad multidisciplinary field of biology that encompasses the parts of exact, natural, economic and social sciences that are used in the practice and understanding of agriculture. Profession ...
*
Agroecology
Agroecology (US: a-grō-ē-ˈkä-lə-jē) is an academic discipline that studies ecological processes applied to agricultural production systems. Bringing ecological principles to bear can suggest new management approaches in agroecosystems. The ...
*
Genomics
Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, three-dim ...
*
Metagenomics
Metagenomics is the study of genetic material recovered directly from environmental or clinical samples by a method called sequencing. The broad field may also be referred to as environmental genomics, ecogenomics, community genomics or microb ...
*
Metabolomics
Metabolomics is the scientific study of chemical processes involving metabolites, the small molecule substrates, intermediates, and products of cell metabolism. Specifically, metabolomics is the "systematic study of the unique chemical fingerprin ...
*
Physics (Aristotle)
The ''Physics'' (Ancient Greek, Greek: Φυσικὴ ἀκρόασις ''Phusike akroasis''; Latin: ''Physica'', or ''Naturales Auscultationes'', possibly meaning "Natural philosophy, lectures on nature") is a named text, written in ancient G ...
*
Proteomics
*
Soil plant atmosphere continuum
The soil-plant-atmosphere continuum (SPAC) is the pathway for water moving from soil through plants to the atmosphere. Continuum in the description highlights the continuous nature of water connection through the pathway. The low water potential of ...
Research institutes and societies
*
Agrophysical Research Institute
The Agrophysical Research Institute (AFI, Агрофизический научно-исследовательский институт) is a public research and higher education facility dedicated to the study of agrophysics,
agricultural science ...
in St. Petersburg, Russia
*
Bohdan Dobrzański Institute of Agrophysics Bohdan may refer to:
* Bohdan, a Slavic masculine name, a variant spelling of Bogdan (which includes a list of people named Bohdan as well as Bogdan)
* Bohdan, Podlaskie Voivodeship
Bohdan is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Dob ...
in Lublin, Poland
* The Indian Society of AgroPhysics
Scholarly journals
* ''Acta Agrophysica''
* ''Journal of Agricultural Physics''
* ''Polish Journal of Soil Science''
References
''Encyclopedia of Agrophysics''in series: Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series edts. Jan Glinski, Jozef Horabik, Jerzy Lipiec, 2011, Publisher: Springer,
*''Encyclopedia of Soil Science'', edts. Ward Chesworth, 2008, Uniw. of Guelph Canada, Publ. Springer,
*''АГРОФИЗИКА - AGROPHYSICS'' by Е. В. Шеин (J.W. Chein), В. М. Гончаров (W.M. Gontcharow), Ростов-на-Дону (
Rostov-on-Don
Rostov-on-Don ( rus, Ростов-на-Дону, r=Rostov-na-Donu, p=rɐˈstof nə dɐˈnu) is a port city and the administrative centre of Rostov Oblast and the Southern Federal District of Russia. It lies in the southeastern part of the East Eu ...
), Феникс (Phoenix), 2006, - 399 c., - Рекомендовано УМО по классическому университетскому образованию в качестве учебника для студентов высших учебных заведений, обучающихся по специальности и направлению высшего профессионального образования "Почвоведение"
*''Scientific Dictionary of Agrophysics: polish-English, polsko-angielski'' by R. Dębicki, J. Gliński, J. Horabik, R. T. Walczak - Lublin 2004,
*''Physical Methods in Agriculture. Approach to Precision and Quality'', edts. J. Blahovec and M. Kutilek, Kluwer Academic Publishers, New York 2002, .
*''Soil Physical Condition and Plant Roots'' by J. Gliński, J. Lipiec, 1990, CRC Press, Inc., Boca Raton, USA,
*''Soil Aeration and its Role for Plants'' by J. Gliński, W. Stępniewski, 1985, Publisher: CRC Press, Inc., Boca Raton, USA,
*''Fundamentals of Agrophysics'' (Osnovy agrofiziki) by A. F. Ioffe, I. B. Revut, Petr Basilevich Vershinin, 1966, English : Publisher: Jerusalem, Israel Program for Scientific Translations; (available from the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Clearinghouse for Federal Scientific and Technical Information, Va.)
*''Fundamentals of Agrophysics'' by P. V, etc. Vershinin, 1959, Publisher: IPST,
External links
Agrophysical Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20060108064756/http://pmalabs.tf.czu.cz/ Free Association of PMA Labs, Czech University of Agriculture, Praguebr>
International Agrophysics*
ttp://www.pta.lublin.pl/english.htm Polish Society of Agrophysics*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20050914193229/http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/AFSIC_pubs/srb9902.htm Sustainable Agriculture: Definitions and Terms
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Agronomy
Applied and interdisciplinary physics