Turf and amenity grasslands in their multifarious form, including sport pitches, playing fields, golf courses, lawns, motorway embankments, roadside verges, urban parks, and open spaces, have a significant impact on our everyday lives. Each year central government, local authorities, sports clubs, and other organizations spend large sums of money establishing, maintaining, and managing such grasslands. It is essential that all these bodies meet proper standards of provision and manage their grassland efficiently and in an environmentally friendly and cost-effective way. This book will help them to achieve these objectives.

Grassland: Quietness and Strength for a New American Agriculture takes on the task of increasing our awareness of the vital role grass and grassland plants have in ensuring a sustainable future for America. Geared toward agriculturists, students, the public, and policymakers, Grassland aims to inspire and provide the reader the foundation needed to move into the future. Three main sections * track the history of grassland farming, highlighting the voices of grassland advocates * examine the current roles that grassland plays throughout the United States * look at the benefits grass-based agriculture can provide when grass is treated as an essential resource As Wendell Berry so eloquently argues in the foreword to Grassland, True farmers have minds that are complex and responsible...They understand and honor their debts to nature. They understand and honor their obligations to neighbors and consumers...In the time that is coming, we are going to need many more such farmers than we have, and we will need them much sooner than we can expect to get them.We will get them only to the extent that young people come along who are willing to fit their farming to the nature of their farms and their home landscapes, and who recognize the paramount importance of grass and grazing animals to good farming everywhere. This book will help that happen.

Pest and Disease Management Handbook updates the 3rd edition of the Pest and Disease Control Handbook (1989). The structure of this important new book differs in several respects, acknowledging the advances that have been made in integrated crop management and the trends towards the more rational use of pesticides. Fully revised and up-to-date, the book commences with a new introductory chapter covering the principles of pest and disease management. Following chapters, each written by acknowledged experts in the field, cover a group of major temperate northern hemisphere crops. As well as comprehensive details of pest and disease management strategies, each chapter also includes a classification scheme for the cited pests and diseases. This important publication is a vital tool for all those involved in the crop protection / agrochemical industry including business managers, entomologists, agricultural scientists, plant pathologists and those studying and teaching BASIS courses. As an important reference guide for undergraduate and postgraduate students studying agricultural sciences, applied entomology and crop protection, copies of the book should be available on the shelves of all research establishments and universities where these subjects are studied and taught. Pest and Disease Management Handbook is published for the British Crop Protection Council (BCPC) by Blackwell Science. BCPC is a registered charity having the principal objective of promoting the development, use and understanding of effective and sustainable crop protection practice. Dr David V Alford, based in Cambridge, UK, is a member of the BCPC board, with many years' experience working as a government entomologist.