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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Investigating Mycelial-Crop Residue Mat Application To Reduce Early-Colonizing Weeds In Row-Crop Agriculture, Donald T. Watson
Investigating Mycelial-Crop Residue Mat Application To Reduce Early-Colonizing Weeds In Row-Crop Agriculture, Donald T. Watson
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
Herbicide use within conventional agriculture has contributed to greatly increased crop yields since its widespread adoption, but environmental concerns regarding overuse and reliance on selective herbicides continue to mount. Using five fungal species and two crop residues in a factorial design, I created a novel slurry to control weeds through inhibition by the mycelial mat formed after application to soil. I monitored weed stem counts and the strength of the mycelial mat under the treatments. Additionally, as a proxy for crop yield, I measured the wet and dry mass of crop plant grown under application treatments. Weed prevalence was significantly …
Effects Of Am Fungi From Conventional And No-Till Michigan Crop Fields On Plant And Soil Health, Derek Bennett
Effects Of Am Fungi From Conventional And No-Till Michigan Crop Fields On Plant And Soil Health, Derek Bennett
Masters Theses
Centuries of conventional till (CT) management in agriculture has depleted soil organic matter (SOM) by over 50%. While only comprising 5% in most soils, SOM provides soil with fertility and productivity. To compensate for SOM depletion, producers have been forced to increase their reliance on fertilizer and irrigation to maintain yields. In the coming decades, climate change is expected to challenge food production and threaten an already fragile system. With no remaining land left to cultivate, conservation management strategies such as no-till (NT) look to restore SOM and increase the resilience of food production for an ever growing, increasingly food …
Pectin And Alginate Extraction To Treat Liquid Cafo Manure, Clare Sunderman
Pectin And Alginate Extraction To Treat Liquid Cafo Manure, Clare Sunderman
Honors Projects
For this project, various extraction methods were used to extract pectin from Pastinaca Sativa and alginate from Macrocystis. These extractions were then dried and used in treating 250mL of manure along with a CaCl2 or FeCl3 coagulant. It was found that CaCl2 was not as effective as FeCl3 in coagulating manure. But the results obtained suggest that pectin and alginate obtained with a simpler extraction method is just as effective as the highly purified and refined pectin and alginate produced for the food industry, in the treatment of CAFO manure. The liquid portion of the …
Genetically Modified Organisms Are Important But Also Controversial, Masen Pelletier
Genetically Modified Organisms Are Important But Also Controversial, Masen Pelletier
Thinking Matters Symposium
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are organisms containing a set or multiple sets of genes that have been introduced into the organism using laboratory techniques. In the instance of agriculture, the genes introduced provide advantages for the farmer and consumer by yielding plants that produce greater yields, longer growing seasons, longer shelf lives, greater concentrations of vitamins or add additional vitamins that are novel to the plant. There are two general ways that GM (genetically modified) crops are produced: the addition or removal of genes. This review focuses on an example of each strategy. An example of the latter is GM …
No Common Pesticides Detected In Snow Buntings Utilizing A Farmland Landscape In Eastern Québec, Emily Cornelius Ruhs, Oliver P. Love, Louis Drainville, François Vézina
No Common Pesticides Detected In Snow Buntings Utilizing A Farmland Landscape In Eastern Québec, Emily Cornelius Ruhs, Oliver P. Love, Louis Drainville, François Vézina
Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research Publications
Many species of migratory birds are declining worldwide, including throughout North America. Some of the most cited causes of decline are linked to climate change, urbanization, and growth in agriculture. Across eastern Canada, a number of insecticides and herbicides are commonly sprayed before and during the grain growing season to control pests and foliage competitors. During wintering and migration, a declining Arctic-breeding songbird, the snow bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis), utilizes open farmlands of southern Canada; therefore, this could be a period when the species is most exposed to these pesticides. We tested snow bunting tissues (blood and liver) for the 4 …