Principles of tropical agronomy - S. N Azam-Ali

As populations continue to grow in tropical countries, there is an ever increasing pressure to produce more food from less land, while at the same time maintaining the quality of the environment. This textbook integrates research in agronomy, physiology, environmental physics and soil science to provide a framework for analyzing practical problems associated with crop production in tropical environments. The impact of essential resources, such as solar radiation and water are discussed and research findings are used to illustrate solutions to real challenges.The book will serve as a core textbook for advanced undergraduate courses in agronomy.

Professor Sayed Azam-Ali BSc (Hons), PhD is the Chief Executive Officer of Crops for the Future Research Centre (CFFRC) the world's first centre research on underutilised plants for food and non-food uses. He is also the Chair in Global Food Security at the University of Nottingham.

After his first degree in Plant Biology at the University of Wales, Professor Azam-Ali completed his PhD in Environmental Physics at the University of Nottingham in 1983. He then worked as a plant physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), India, returning to Nottingham where he became Professor of Tropical Agronomy in 2006.

At Nottingham, Professor Azam-Ali co-ordinated three major EU-funded Programmes on Bambara groundnut and was a principal partner in two other EU programmes. He was also Principal Investigator for six UK DFiD projects. In 2008, Professor Azam-Ali was appointed as Vice-Provost (Research and Internationalisation) at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus where he successfully secured the European Union funded MYEULINK programme that links major research universities in Malaysia with counterparts in Europe. He published many research papers including an important book, Principles of Tropical Agronomy.