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Whitetop (Hoary Cress) Control In Residential Situations, Taun Beddes, Michael Caron, Jacob Hadfield, Corey Ransom

All Current Publications

Whitetop (Lepidium draba, formerly Cardaria draba) is a persistent, perennial weed that grows in open, sunny areas. It spreads by seeds and rhizomes, enabling it to spread by several feet in a single season. It is common in wildlands, agricultural, and residential areas. It rapidly spreads into unhealthy lawns, landscape beds, and vegetable gardens. This fact sheet provides information on identification, lifecycle, landscape damage, and suppression and control options.

Nebline, Nov./Dec. 2023

NEBLINE Newsletter Archive from Nebraska Extension in Lancaster County

Students Engaged in Culinary Experience With Local and Indigenous Foods

Recipes of the Month: Brownie Batter Hummus and Bison Pizza Topping by Alyssa Havlovic

Time to Order Tree Seedlings

Love Gardening? Become a Master Gardener!

Garden Guide: Things to Do This Month

ProHort Lawn & Landscape Update

Upcoming Green Industry Conferences

Problematic Frozen Pipes Can be Prevented With Routine, Pre-Winter Maintenance by Becky Schuerman

Successful Farmer Series Will Dig Into Cropping Systems Hot Topics

Cover Crop Grazing Conference, Nov. 7

Pester the Pests or Leave the Leaves? by Kait Chapman

Promoting Language Development in Young Children by Hayley Jackson

Heart …

A Beginner's Guide To Growing Mushrooms At Home, Jacob Hawkes, Paul R. Grossl, Melanie Stock

All Current Publications

Welcome to the wonderful world of mushrooms! Researchers have shown that mushrooms are not only nutritious and delicious but also provide a myriad of known medicinal benefits, such as protection against cancer, protecting brain health, stimulating gut health, and supporting a healthy immune system. Lately, psychedelic mushrooms have been receiving considerable attention as a promising treatment for mental health conditions, such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and end-of-life anxiety among the terminally ill. This publication provides a simple guide for beginners interested in growing basic gourmet and medicinal mushrooms at home for personal use using easily accessible, relatively inexpensive materials.

Supplementary Files For: "Interactive Modeling Of Bear Lake Elevations In A Future Climate", Benjamin D. Shaw, Scout Jarman, Brennan Bean, Kevin R. Moon, Wei Zhang, Nathan Butler, Tommy Bolton, April Knight, Emeline Haroldsen, Abby Funk, Rebecca Higbee

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The water level, or elevation, of Bear Lake has a significant impact on agriculture, power, infrastructure, and recreation for communities around the lake. Climatological variables, such as precipitation, temperature, and snowfall, all have an impact on the elevation of Bear Lake. As the climate changes due to greenhouse gas emissions, the typical behaviors of these climate variables change, leading to new behaviors in Bear Lake elevation. Because of the importance of Bear Lake, it is vital to be able to model and understand how Bear Lake's elevation may change in the face of different climate scenarios and to gain further …

Creating Sustainable School And Home Gardens: Create A Garden Anywhere, Rita Hagevik, Kathy Cabe Trundle

All Current Publications

This fact sheet is part of a series about creating sustainable school and home gardens. It provides information and resources on creating gardens anywhere, such as in containers, towers, raised beds, and forests. It also includes ideas and resources for encouraging beneficial insects and providing food and habitat for pollinators.

Creating Sustainable School And Home Gardens: Rain Barrels, Daniel Findlay, Rita Hagevik, Kathy Cabe Trundle

All Current Publications

This fact sheet is part of a series about creating sustainable school and home gardens. It provides information and resources on establishing rain barrels. When attached to a downspout, a barrel collects the rain that falls on the roof, allowing for local water use and preventing flooding or runoff pollution. The water can be used to nurture plants and animals.

Nebline, June/July 2024

NEBLINE Newsletter Archive from Nebraska Extension in Lancaster County

Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Facts Related to Drinking Water by Becky Schuerman

Tar Spot is an Emerging Corn Disease in Eastern Nebraska by John Nelson

Nutrition Education for Refugee and Immigrant Families in Lincoln by Emily Gratopp

Recipe of the Month: Biryani by Emily Gratopp

Garden Guide: Things to Do This Month

Sudden Wilt and Death in Tomatoes by Sarah Browning

Sun's Out, Fun's Out: Keeping Your Little One Safe This Summer by Hayley Perez

Protect Yourself from Bed Bugs by Kait Chapman

Heart of 4-H Volunteer Award: Netsy Barent and Jessica Marsh

Nebraska 4-H Foundation Scholarship Winners

Learn …

Plas 439: Organic Farming And Food Systems Faculty-Led Inquiry Into Reflective Scholarly Teaching Benchmark Portfolio, Christian Stephenson

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Organic Farming and Food Systems is a senior and graduate level course for students in the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture. This course was previously offered but has been significantly modified as I have taken on responsibility for the course. Goals for the course include student comprehension of the methods of organic and regenerative farming and the impacts of those methods on economic, environmental, and social sustainability. An additional goal is to build student competency in the evaluation of primary, secondary, and tertiary information resources and critical thinking surrounding issues in food production. Assessment for the course was through diverse …

Church2024_Development Of A Rhizobium Seed Coating...Data, Bridget M. Church, Brad Geary, Curtis L. Drake, Joel Griffitts, Kate Ruebelmann, Shannon V. Nelson, Matthew D. Madsen

ScholarsArchive Data

This file contains the data description for the “Church2024_Development of a Rhizobium Seed Coating…” Supplementary File.

The excel file contains six worksheets: 1) Exceed Study Data, 2) Exceed Study Tiss TotN%, 3) Inoc Study data, 4) Inoc Study Tiss TotN%, 5) Seed Coat study data, Seed Coat study Tiss TotN%.

Production, Utilization And Quality Of Irrigated Grasses And Legumes In The Mountain West Usa Under Mob Stocking Or Clipping, Jennifer W. Macadam, Brody Maughan, Xin Dai

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Feed is the most costly input for US ruminant livestock production systems, and increasing the utilization efficiency of irrigated forage systems can improve system profitability. This study assessed the production, utilization and quality of 22 intensively managed perennial grasses and legumes. Forages were cultivated as monocultures under irrigation and subjected to similarly intense clipping or mob stocking for two years at six-week intervals between May and September. Grasses and legumes were randomly assigned to 22 adjacent 1.5-m-wide by 9-m-long subplots within each whole plot, and pairs of whole plots were randomly assigned to grazing or clipping management. Seven grasses did …

Proteomic Characterization And Cytotoxic Potential Of Proteins From Cuscuta (Cuscuta Epithymum (L.) Crude Herbal Product Against Mcf-7 Human Breast Cancer Cell Line, Umaima Akhtar, Yamna Khurshid, Bishoy El-Aarag, Basir Syed, Ishtiaq A. Khan, Keykavous Parang, Aftab Ahmed

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Background

The burden of breast cancer, the second leading cause of death worldwide, is increasing at an alarming rate. Cuscuta, used in traditional medicine for different ailments, including cancer, is known for containing phytochemicals that exhibit anticancer activity; however, the bioactivities of proteins from this plant remain unexplored. This study aimed to screen the cytotoxic potential of proteins from the crude herbal product of Cuscuta epithymum(L.) (CE) harvested from the host plants Alhagi maurorum and Medicago sativa.

Methods

The proteins from CE were extracted using a salting-out method, followed by fractionation with a gel filtration chromatography column. Gel-free shotgun …

On The Importance Of Sequence Alignment Inspections In Plastid Phylogenomics – An Example From Revisiting The Relationships Of The Water-Lilies, Jessica A. Roestel, John H. Wiersema, Robert K. Jansen, Thomas Borsch, Michael Gruenstaeudl

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

The water-lily clade represents the second earliest-diverging branch of angiosperms. Most of its species belong to Nymphaeaceae, of which the “core Nymphaeaceae”—comprising the genera Euryale, Nymphaea and Victoria—is the most diverse clade. Despite previous molecular phylogenetic studies on the core Nymphaeaceae, various aspects of their evolutionary relationships have remained unresolved. The length-variable introns and intergenic spacers are known to contain most of the sequence variability within the water-lily plastomes. Despite the challenges with multiple sequence alignment, any new molecular phylogenetic investigation on the core Nymphaeaceae should focus on these noncoding plastome regions. For example, a new plastid phylogenomic study on …

With Love, ; An Interdisciplinary And Intersectional Look At Why Creativity Is Essential, Theo Starr Gardner

Whittier Scholars Program

My Whittier Scholars Program self-designed major, Teaching Creativity, is a mixture of Art, Literature, and Education classes. My research and praxis classes have been focused on the ‘how?’s and 'why?’s of creativity, so it felt only right that my project should be a constructivist, generative project. The project I have been working on throughout my time at Whittier, and that has just fully come to fruition on April 11th, 2024, was a solo art gallery/open mic event entitled ‘With Love,’. With Love, was conceptually inspired by the research I’ve conducted on creativity and creative arts education over the past few …

Creating Sustainable School And Home Gardens: Welcoming Pollinators, Kaitlin Cambell, Rita Hagevik, Kathy Cabe Trundle

All Current Publications

This fact sheet is part of a series about creating sustainable school and home gardens. It focuses on welcoming pollinators to the garden by providing a safe and effective habitat, and lists recommended plantings and resources.

Creating Sustainable School And Home Gardens: Raised Bed Gardening, Rita Hagevik, Kathy Cabe Trundle

All Current Publications

This fact sheet is part of a series about creating sustainable school and home gardens. It provides information and resources on raised bed gardening, which can help gardeners maximize space and increase food or flower production, all with fewer weeds.

Using Annual Forages To Replace Declining Cool-Season Grass Pasture Availability, Jonathon Matthew Jenkins

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

As land area in grain crop production increases in the US Midwest, perennial pasture availability decreases but the demand increases. Matching the seasonal growth patterns of C₃ and C₄ plant species to grow forages that are complementary allows producers to fill production gaps in otherwise monoculture systems and possibly increase overall productivity. One way to fill the forage production gap of C₃ grass dominated pastures is by producing a warm-season, annual forage in a separate field. However, with continual reductions in land availability, this may not be an option. Using two studies, our objectives were to improve …

Quemando Leña En Guatemala: Salud, Sostenibilidad Y Costumbres, Sydney Underhill

World Languages and Cultures Senior Capstones

In the Central American country of Guatemala, firewood is an important fuel source. Eighty-eight percent of households in rural areas use wood stoves and open fires to cook and heat their homes. This tradition has fundamental roots in the culture and customs of Guatemala. Unfortunately, these methods contribute to air pollution. Consequently, it also results in smoke inhalation, which causes health problems. Additionally, the massive agriculture of other crops decreases the amount of firewood available to these households, affecting the sustainability of the resource. Some communities resist changing their use of firewood due to the profound nature that firewood holds …

First Record Of The Invasive Chenopodium Aphid, Hayhurstia Atriplicis (Linnaeus, 1761) (Hemiptera: Aphididae), In Colombia, Takumasa Kondo, Roberto Rosero, Jackeline Gaviria

Insecta Mundi

The chenopodium aphid, Hayhurstia atriplicis (Linnaeus, 1761) (Hemiptera: Aphididae), is reported for the first time in Colombia. The aphid was found on the aerial parts of the quinoa plant, Chenopodium quinoa Willd. (Amaranthaceae), especially on the leaves, in five municipalities in the department of Cauca, Colombia. Brief information on its natural enemies, distribution and biology is provided. This is the only aphid in Colombia known to cause malformations on the leaves of quinoa plants. In South America, this aphid has been found previously only in Ecuador, where it was reported for the first time in 2023 based on specimens collected …

In-Field Optimization Of Soil Water Parameters For Irrigation Scheduling, Ishani Lal

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Several precision technologies are being developed to assist farmers in informed irrigation decision-making. These technologies aim to enhance irrigation water efficiency, check overirrigation, boost crop water productivity, and promote the sustainable utilization of water resources. We hypothesize that soil moisture parameters used in irrigation decision tools need to be validated to best represent the correct state of soil moisture in the field. This is an important factor that affects the accuracy of the irrigation recommendations forecasted by the decision support tools. In this research, we evaluated different methods of estimating field capacity (FC) and wilting point (WP) to optimize soil …

Public Horticulture: Process And Design Of The Lincoln Botanical Garden, Brad Kindler

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Beginning in 2012, the local non-profit, The Lincoln Botanical Garden, began organizing the conceptual design and creation of a glass conservatory within a botanical garden in Lincoln, Nebraska. These proposed urban enhancements seek to fill a gap in garden amenities in the city by providing year-round access to public horticulture programming and education.

This project, Public Horticulture: Process and Design of the Lincoln Botanical Garden, documents these efforts and makes design recommendations for a themed Glacial Erratic Garden that could be constructed within the botanical garden.

Advisors: Ellen Paparozzi and Sam Wortman

Impact Of Plant Defenses And Aphid-Associated Microbes In Modulating Sorghum-Sugarcane Aphid Interactions, Edith Ikuze

Department of Entomology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) is a vital cereal crop globally, facing challenges from invasive pests such as the sugarcane aphid (SCA; Melanaphis sacchari). To elucidate mechanisms of sorghum resistance to SCA, we examined the role of plant defenses and the influence of aphid-associated microbes in modulating sorghum defenses. Lignin is a complex heterogenous polymer present in nearly all plant cell walls that plays a critical role in protecting plants from various stresses. In this study, we investigated the role of the caffeoyl coenzyme-A O-methyltransferase (CCoAOMT), one of the core enzymes in monolignol biosynthesis pathway that leads to lignin …

Next-Generation Crop Monitoring Technologies: Case Studies About Edge Image Processing For Crop Monitoring And Soil Water Property Modeling Via Above-Ground Sensors, Nipuna Chamara

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has advanced rapidly in the past two decades. Internet of Things (IoT) technology has advanced rapidly during the last decade. Merging these two technologies has immense potential in several industries, including agriculture.

We have identified several research gaps in utilizing IoT technology in agriculture. One problem was the digital divide between rural, unconnected, or limited connected areas and urban areas for utilizing images for decision-making, which has advanced with the growth of AI. Another area for improvement was the farmers' demotivation to use in-situ soil moisture sensors for irrigation decision-making due to inherited installation difficulties. As Nebraska …

Cross-Pollination: Building A Co-Taught Course To Examine Art And Sex Through The Lens Of Botany, Christopher T. Martine, Diamanda A. Zizis, Anna K. Kell

Faculty Journal Articles

Driven by overlapping interests in plants, art, and diversity in sex expression, Anna Kell (Department of Art and Art History) and Chris Martine (Department of Biology) developed a course that integrates the perspectives of a visual artist and a botanist. Art & Sex Through the Lens of Botany seeks to impart the importance of making connections across disciplines and the value of visual literacy across academic lines. The course introduces foundational concepts in each field and encourages students to integrate and explore these different systems of knowledge and their intersections. In addition to developing fluencies related to both general botany …

Irt-Based Irrigation Scheduling And Dry Bean Crop Water Productivity Under Different Irrigation Scenarios In The Nebraska High Plains, Angie Gradiz

Department of Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations and Theses

Irrigation plays a critical role for crop production in western Nebraska of the United States, where crop evapotranspiration often exceeds in-season precipitation. This study investigated the impacts of different irrigation treatments on yield and key physiological parameters of dry edible beans grown in semi-arid western Nebraska during the 2022-2023 growing seasons. Seven irrigation levels (0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%, 125%, 150%) of the fully irrigated treatment (FIT), were applied using a Variable Rate Irrigation (VRI) Linear-Move Sprinkler System. Additionally, an eighth treatment was scheduled based on measurement from infrared radiometry thermometers (IRT) to evaluate the performance of the two-source energy …

Establishment Of Wildflower Islands To Enhance Roadside Health, Ecological Value, And Aesthetics, Jackson Ebbers

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Roadsides provide an abundant opportunity to increase connectivity of fragmented landscapes with diminishing floral resources for pollinating insects. The ecological value of these sites is often overlooked as quality habitat for pollinators, particularly monarch butterflies, which have been experiencing severe declines due to loss of habitat and loss of milkweeds that provide food for their larvae. Land managers across the nation are realizing the potential of roadsides to provide high quality floral resources for the benefit of insects and other wildlife. Current wildflower seed mixes used by state transportation departments are often low diversity and may only be implemented following …

Virus Del Marchitamiento Manchado Del Tomate En Tomates Y Pimientos, Claudia Nischwitz, Mariah Noorlander, Mary Ann Hubbell, Celina Wille

All Current Publications

En Utah, el virus del marchitamiento manchado del tomate (TSWV, por sus siglas en inglés) comúnmente afecta a tomates, pimientos y tomatillos.

Creating Sustainable School And Home Gardens: Vertical Gardening, Tyelar Haines, Rita Hagevik, Kathy Cabe Trundle

All Current Publications

This fact sheet is part of a series about creating sustainable school and home gardens. It provides information and resources on vertical gardening, which can maximize space, increase food production, and improve plant health.

Nebline, May 2024

NEBLINE Newsletter Archive from Nebraska Extension in Lancaster County

Weed Control in Pastures and Hayfields by John Nelson

Navigating Nutrition Information: Separating Fact from Fiction by Alyssa Havlovic

Recipe of the Month: Pepper Steak Sandwich by Alyssa Havlovic

Care for New Bedding Plants by Sarah Browning

Garden Guide: Things to Do This Month

Cash Rent Survey

No Matter Where You Live, Submit a Request Before You Dig! by Becky Schuerman

4-H Achievement Celebration

8 Lancaster County 4-H’ers Modeled Their Sewn Garments at Omaha Fashion Week

4-H Events Open to All Youth

Support 4-H by Eating Out, May 1 & 2

Support 4-H During “Give to Lincoln Day,” May 30 …

Ecosystem Response To Increasing Hurricane Disturbance: Comparing Nutrient Cycling Dynamics Associated With Early- And Late-Successional Tree Species In A Wet Tropical Forest, Miriam Kleit

Biology Honors Projects

Puerto Rico has seen changes in the frequency and severity of disturbances in recent years as hurricanes become more frequent and more intense under climate change. In ecosystems experiencing increasing disturbances, we expect that species composition will shift as early successional trees become more common. These changes to species composition and community ecology are likely to affect terrestrial nutrient cycling both directly and indirectly, and it is still not well understood how shifting community composition may alter ecosystem functioning. To address this gap, I measured carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) variables in soils, microbial biomass, roots, leaves, and soil greenhouse …

Simple Sprinkler Performance Testing For Rich County, Kelly Kopp, L. Neil Allen, Dallen Smith, Lauren Thomson

All Current Publications

This fact sheet describes how to perform a site inspection and a sprinkler test so you can irrigate your landscape more efficiently. It also provides an irrigation schedule for Rich County, Utah.