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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

N2o Emissions From California Farmlands: A Review, Elizabeth Verhoeven, Engil Isadora Pujol Pereira, Charlotte Decock, Gina Garland, Taryn Kennedy, Emma Suddick, William Horwath, Johan Six Sep 2017

N2o Emissions From California Farmlands: A Review, Elizabeth Verhoeven, Engil Isadora Pujol Pereira, Charlotte Decock, Gina Garland, Taryn Kennedy, Emma Suddick, William Horwath, Johan Six

School of Earth, Environmental, and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Of the greenhouse gases emitted from cropland, nitrous oxide (N2O) has the highest global warming potential. The state of California acknowledges that agriculture both contributes to and is affected by climate change, and in 2016 it adopted legislation to help growers reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, explicitly including N2O. Nitrous oxide emissions can vary widely due to environmental and agronomic factors with most emission estimates coming from temperate grain systems. There is, however, a dearth of emission estimates from perennial and vegetable cropping systems commonly found in California's Mediterranean climate. Therefore, emission factors (EFs) specific to California conditions are needed …


Effects Of Cover Crop Treatments On Apple Trees, Jennifer Billig May 2017

Effects Of Cover Crop Treatments On Apple Trees, Jennifer Billig

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ground cover management systems affect soil quality and health and thereby orchard growth and productivity. There have been few studies in the southern US on the effects of managed drive-rows using cover crops as part of a sustainable apple orchard management system. A field study used treatments of 1) seasonal legumes (cowpea [Vigna unguiculata] and crimson clover [Trifolium incarnatum]), 2) seasonal grasses (millet [Setaria italic] and annual rye [Lolium multiflorum]), or 3) unmanaged natural vegetation drive row plantings, with mowed vegetation blown into the tree row as mulch (mow/blow) nested variable. The legume crop cycles produced more than twice as …


Nutrient Loading Reduction In A Tile Drained Agricultural Watershed Through Watershed-Scale Cover Cropping: A High Resolution Analysis, Benjamin Gerald Bruening Apr 2017

Nutrient Loading Reduction In A Tile Drained Agricultural Watershed Through Watershed-Scale Cover Cropping: A High Resolution Analysis, Benjamin Gerald Bruening

Theses and Dissertations

Nutrient pollution originating from agricultural regions in the Midwest is a serious issue, leading to pollution of drinking water sources as well as large hypoxic zones in the Gulf of Mexico. The source of much of this contamination has been shown to be runoff from agricultural fields in the Upper Mississippi River Basin. One method that has been shown to reduce this pollution from the Upper Mississippi River Basin is the planting of winter cover crops. Winter cover crops such as rye and tillage radish have been shown to significantly reduce nitrate exported from agricultural fields, even in tile-drained watersheds …


Impact Of Fertilizer, Corn Residue, And Cover Crops On Mycorrhizal Inoculum Potential And Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Associations, Rachel Brockamp Apr 2017

Impact Of Fertilizer, Corn Residue, And Cover Crops On Mycorrhizal Inoculum Potential And Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Associations, Rachel Brockamp

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2017

Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (AMF) can associate with roots of most land plants, helping to take up water and nutrients. Intensive agricultural practices like fallow treatments and adding inorganic nutrients reduce soil AMF. The purpose of my research was to examine whether three factors influenced AMF-crop associations: 1) fertilizer type and application rate 2) inclusion of cover crops that do or do not associate with AMF, and 3) impacts of corn residue. Soil Mycorrhizal Inoculum Potential (MIP) was measured to test treatment differences. MIP is the ability for soil AMF to infect roots. Roots grown in soil from the different treatments …


Improving Water Resilience With More Perennially Based Agriculture, Andrea D. Basche, Oliver F. Edelson Jan 2017

Improving Water Resilience With More Perennially Based Agriculture, Andrea D. Basche, Oliver F. Edelson

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Land conversion from natural to managed ecosystems, while necessary for food production, continues to occur at high rates with significant water impacts. Further, increased rainfall variability exposes agricultural systems to impacts from flood and drought events. In many regions, water limitations are overcome through technological approaches such as irrigation and tile drainage, which may not be sustainable in the long term. A more sustainable approach to combat episodes of floods and droughts is to increase soil water storage and the overall green water efficiency of agroecosystems. Agricultural practices that promote “continuous living cover,” such as perennial grasses, agroforestry and cover …


The Trouble With Cover Crops: Farmers’ Experiences With Overcoming Barriers To Adoption, Gabrielle E. Roesch-Mcnally, Andrea D. Basche, J. G. Arbuckle, John C. Tyndall, Fernando E. Miguez, Troy Bowman, Rebecca Clay Jan 2017

The Trouble With Cover Crops: Farmers’ Experiences With Overcoming Barriers To Adoption, Gabrielle E. Roesch-Mcnally, Andrea D. Basche, J. G. Arbuckle, John C. Tyndall, Fernando E. Miguez, Troy Bowman, Rebecca Clay

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Cover crops are known to promote many aspects of soil and water quality, yet estimates find that in 2012 only 2.3% of the total agricultural lands in the Midwestern USA were using cover crops. Focus groups were conducted across the Corn Belt state of Iowa to better understand how farmers confront barriers to cover crop adoption in highly intensive agricultural production systems. Although much prior research has focused on analyzing factors that help predict cover crop use on farms, there is limited research on how farmers navigate and overcome field-level (e.g. proper planting of a cover crop) and structural barriers …


Cover Crop System To Control Charcoal Rot In Soybeans, Gretchen Sassenrath, C. R. Little, C. J. Hsiao, D. E. Shoup, X. Lin Jan 2017

Cover Crop System To Control Charcoal Rot In Soybeans, Gretchen Sassenrath, C. R. Little, C. J. Hsiao, D. E. Shoup, X. Lin

Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station Research Reports

This research compares methods of controlling charcoal rot in soybean cultivars from three maturity groups commonly grown in southeast Kansas. The results indicate that a mustard plant that produces high levels of glucosinolates can be used as a cover crop to reduce the charcoal rot disease in soybeans.


Fallow Replacement Crop (Cover Crops, Annual Forages, And Short-Season Grain Crops) Effects On Wheat And Grain Sorghum Yields, J. D. Holman, T. Roberts, S. Maxwell Jan 2017

Fallow Replacement Crop (Cover Crops, Annual Forages, And Short-Season Grain Crops) Effects On Wheat And Grain Sorghum Yields, J. D. Holman, T. Roberts, S. Maxwell

Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station Research Reports

Producers are interested in growing cover crops and reducing fallow. Growing a crop during the fallow period would increase profitability if crop benefits exceeded expenses. Benefits of growing a cover crop were shown in high rainfall areas, but limited information is available on growing cover crops in place of fallow in the semiarid Great Plains. A study was conducted from 2007–2017 that evaluated cover crops, annual forages, and short season grain crops grown in place of fallow. In the first experiment (2007-2012), the rotation was no-tillage wheat-fallow. The second experiment (2012-2017) rotation was no-tillage wheat-grain sorghum-fallow. This report presents results …