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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Design Of Affordable Polyaniline - Based Wearable Sensor For Real Time Plant Growth Monitoring, Temitope Borode Jan 2022

Design Of Affordable Polyaniline - Based Wearable Sensor For Real Time Plant Growth Monitoring, Temitope Borode

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The need for precision agriculture in today and future farming cannot be overstressed. Recent agriculture is characterized by numerous challenges such as environmental stressors and resource constraints resulting in low crop yield and unsustainable agriculture practices. Understanding plant growth mechanism and growth rate under the external influence is a bedrock towards precision agriculture practices ensuring optimum yield and sustainable utilization of resources. The current study addresses this need by developing and applying an affordable and stable sensor for monitoring plant growth. The sensor was fabricated by in-situ chemical polymerization of aniline on an elastic band substrate by dip coating. The …


Managing Water Quantity And Quality With Subsurface Drainage In Eastern South Dakota, Morghan Hurst Jan 2022

Managing Water Quantity And Quality With Subsurface Drainage In Eastern South Dakota, Morghan Hurst

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Moisture extremes (excess and deficit) impact crop loss and water quality. Due to excessively wet springs and dry summers, crop damage can occur within the same county or field within the same year. To determine the magnitude of this problem in eastern South Dakota, indemnified crop insurance data for drought and excessive moisture claims were assessed for the years 1991-2020 for the occurrence of both excess moisture and drought in four counties in eastern South Dakota. Results show that there is greater than a 70% chance of the moisture extremes happening in the same year, making subsurface drainage, controlled drainage, …


Internet Of Things Based Wireless Sensor Network And Advanced Machine Learning Models For Precision Agriculture, Ahmed El-Magrous Jan 2020

Internet Of Things Based Wireless Sensor Network And Advanced Machine Learning Models For Precision Agriculture, Ahmed El-Magrous

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent studies assumed that the world population would reach 10.3 billion by 2070. This will require more land for housing; simultaneously resulting in a loss of land for agricultural purposes. However, the new generations also need food, and the lack of new agrarian land is a critical reason that leads researchers and producers to improve daily agriculture practices by using precision agriculture concepts and technologies to increase yield and crop quality. This work represents the design, development, and testing of a customizable and cost-effective Weather-Soil Sensor Station (W-SSS) for use in Precision Agriculture based on high accuracy sensors, wireless communication, …


Development Of Enhanced Weed Detection System With Adaptive Thresholding, K-Means And Support Vector Machine, Dheeman Saha Jan 2019

Development Of Enhanced Weed Detection System With Adaptive Thresholding, K-Means And Support Vector Machine, Dheeman Saha

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper proposes a sophisticated classification process to segment the leaves of carrots from weeds (mostly Chamomile). In the early stages, of the plants’ development, both weeds and carrot leaves are intermixed with each other and have similar color texture. This makes it difficult to identify without the help of the domain experts. Therefore, it is essential to remove the weed regions so that the carrot plants can grow without any interruptions. The process of identifying the weeds become more challenging when both plant and weed regions overlap (inter-leaves). The proposed system addresses this problem by creating a sophisticated means …


Development Of Vegetation Mapping With Deep Convolutional Neural Network, Sae-Han Suh Jan 2018

Development Of Vegetation Mapping With Deep Convolutional Neural Network, Sae-Han Suh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Precision Agriculture plays a crucial part in the agricultural industry about improving the decision-making process. It aims to optimally allocate the resources to maintain the sustainable productivity of farmland and reduce the use of chemical compounds. [17] However, the on-site inspection of vegetations often falls to researchers’ trained eye and experience, when it deals with the identification of the non-crop vegetations. Deep Convolution Neural Network (CNN) can be deployed to mitigate the cost of manual classification. Although CNN outperforms the other traditional classifiers, such as Support Vector Machine, it is still in question whether CNN can be deployable in …


Measuring The Influence Of Bedding On Soil Nitrogen Losses And Corn Crop Nitrogen Characteristics For Fall Applied Solid Beef Cattle Manure In Eastern South Dakota, Mukesh Mehata Jan 2018

Measuring The Influence Of Bedding On Soil Nitrogen Losses And Corn Crop Nitrogen Characteristics For Fall Applied Solid Beef Cattle Manure In Eastern South Dakota, Mukesh Mehata

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nitrogen (N) is a major component of chlorophyll which plays a key role in the photosynthesis process in crops. The N is one of the highest demanded nutrients by all plants for their growth and reproduction. Manure or inorganic fertilizer is often applied to fulfill the crops’ N demand. However, the applied N sources have the potential of N losses in different forms from the soil volume in many ways such as ammonia (NH3) volatilization, aerial nitrous oxide (N2O) loss, nitrate (NO3 --N) leaching, and runoff and/or erosion. Soil fertility, crop yield, water quality, and …


A Quantitative Environmental Assessment Of Incorporating Torrefaction Into Farming Enterprises In Eastern South Dakota, Dinesh Fuyal Jan 2018

A Quantitative Environmental Assessment Of Incorporating Torrefaction Into Farming Enterprises In Eastern South Dakota, Dinesh Fuyal

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The use of renewable energy sources has been increasing in the recent years due to population growth and environmental concerns. Biomass is a promising energy source that can be used to produce biofuels or torrefied pellets. Torrefied biomass may be used in power plants, industrial and residential heating, feedstocks for gasification, air and water filtrating, and soil amendment. The interest of torrefied pellets as energy sources for various applications has been increased in the recent years due to the concerns about energy security and environmental issues. This study focuses on the economic and environmental assessment of agricultural feedstocks like corn …


A Demonstration Study Of Drainage Water Management In Eastern South Dakota, Ashik Sahani Jan 2017

A Demonstration Study Of Drainage Water Management In Eastern South Dakota, Ashik Sahani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Subsurface drainage is a common water management practice for improving crop production in poorly drained soils; however, the practice is associated with several environmental concerns such as nutrient losses to downstream surface waters. These environmental concerns from subsurface drainage have prompted interest in drainage water management strategies such as controlled drainage. This study assessed the agronomic and environmental impacts of drainage water management in eastern South Dakota by using two demonstration plots for controlled and conventional drainage. Drain flow, nitrate and dissolved phosphorous concentration in drain water, shallow groundwater, crop yield, residual soil nitrate, soil moisture and temperature, soil penetration …


Using Remote Sensing To Estimate Crop Water Use To Improve Irrigation Water Management, Arturo Reyes-Gonzalez Jan 2017

Using Remote Sensing To Estimate Crop Water Use To Improve Irrigation Water Management, Arturo Reyes-Gonzalez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Irrigation water is scarce. Hence, accurate estimation of crop water use is necessary for proper irrigation managements and water conservation. Satellite-based remote sensing is a tool that can estimate crop water use efficiently. Several models have been developed to estimate crop water requirement or actual evapotranspiration (ETa) using remote sensing. One of them is the Mapping EvapoTranspiration at High Resolution using Internalized Calibration (METRIC) model. This model has been compared with other methods for ET estimations including weighing lysimeters, pan evaporation, Bowen Ratio Energy Balance System (BREBS), Eddy Covariance (EC), and sap flow. However, comparison of METRIC model outputs to …


Discharge Measurement And Energy Efficiency Evaluation Of Irrigation Pumping Plants, Bruce A. Jennings Jan 1978

Discharge Measurement And Energy Efficiency Evaluation Of Irrigation Pumping Plants, Bruce A. Jennings

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No information has been available regarding efficiencies of electric irrigation pumping plants in South Dakota. Pumping plant discharge, a key parameter in the calculation of pumping plant efficiency, is often difficult to measure in the field. A project was initiated at South Dakota State University in 1976 to investigate field pumping plant efficiencies. The following objectives were established for the project. 1. To investigate various methods of measuring irrigation pumping plant discharge. 2. To develop a suitable field procedure for determining electric irrigation pumping plant efficiency. 3. To measure energy efficiency of selected electric irrigation pumping plants in South Dakota.


Performance Of A Diurnally Tracking Solar Energy-Intensifier, Calvin E. Siegel Jan 1978

Performance Of A Diurnally Tracking Solar Energy-Intensifier, Calvin E. Siegel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The United States agricultural system provides numerous opportunities in which solar energy can be utilized. Low to moderate temperature rise collectors can provide a large percentage of the energy requirements normally met by using high quality fossil fuels. As world demand for food production increases due to a growing population, alternative sources of energy need to be developed and applied as substitutes for these increasingly scarce fossil fuels. Agriculture offers practical advantages for the use of solar heat energy because there exists sufficient area for solar collectors and a wide range of temperature applications on most farmsteads. Demand for energy …


Integrated Numerical Simulation Of Drip Irrigation With Subsurface Drainage, James Ray Hoover Jan 1975

Integrated Numerical Simulation Of Drip Irrigation With Subsurface Drainage, James Ray Hoover

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A numerical method and model were developed to simulate soil moisture during steady-state and transient flow toward a tile drain. Intermittent application of water by drip irrigation and rainfall were simulated by use of finite difference approximation equations. No known analytical solution for these flow situations exists because of the complex mathematics describing unsaturated flow in the soil. The computer model is based on the electrical resistance network analog. The explicit finite difference equations were solved by the successive over-relaxation method for steady-state flow and by iteration for transient soil moisture flow. The computer program for the model consists of …


Evaluation Of Bi-Level Drainage Theory With A Viscous-Flow Analog, James Marfred Kienholz Jan 1973

Evaluation Of Bi-Level Drainage Theory With A Viscous-Flow Analog, James Marfred Kienholz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study is to evaluate the validity of this bi-level theory with a viscous-flow analog. Viscous-flow analogs have been used by many investigators in the past to evaluate analytical solution to drainage problems (Bear, 1972). The objectives of this study are: 1. Design and construct a viscous-flow analog for laboratory and classroom use, 2. Test the reliability of existing bi-level drainage theory with the analog, and 3. Provide design data for use in the solution of bi-level drainage problems. The bi-level drainage theory will be graphically presented for design purposes provided the theory is shown to …


The Role Of Rainfall Impact And Surface Flow In Soil Detachment And Transport, Robert Alan Young Jan 1972

The Role Of Rainfall Impact And Surface Flow In Soil Detachment And Transport, Robert Alan Young

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Soil erosion caused by rainfall is a very complex physical process. To evaluate the mechanism of erosion so that an assessment can be made of the extent to which it may be controlled necessarily begins with an understanding of the basic fundamental factors involved. The purpose of this study involves the development of an insight of the relative importance of the roles played by various contributors to the erosion process. Particular emphasis is placed on the contribution of rainfall detached soil to total soil loss. Three soil types, Barnes loam, Crofton silt loam and Central sandy loam, were prepared with …


An Incrementally Distributed Mathematical Model Of A Watershed, Charles Arnold Onstad Jan 1972

An Incrementally Distributed Mathematical Model Of A Watershed, Charles Arnold Onstad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The utilization of distributed input parameters enables hydrologists to more adequately cope with watershed management problems. A distributed system aids in evaluating alternative solutions designed to alleviate a problem situation. As a result, the objectives of this study were (1) to develop a hydrological framework delineating the surf ace configuration of a watershed to consider parameter distribution; (2) to develop a model of hydrologic performance of a watershed using existing techniques and amenable to the physical framework; and (3) to demonstrate the versatility of the model using hypothetical data. The model versatility was demonstrated by showing the effects of different …