Life Sciences Commons^™

Stacking And Intersecting Nutrient 4rs On Potato, Samuel Hamilton Stapley

Theses and Dissertations

The 4Rs of nutrient management is a global agronomic initiative with an aim to improve the sustainability of major cropping systems and the environment. The objective for this project is to evaluate individual and stacked 4R management practices and how they intersect. A field trial near Grace, Idaho was conducted on potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) in 2020 and 2023. Nitrogen (N) fertilizer treatments included all combinations of two sources [urea or polymer coated urea (PCU)], two rates (82 or 100% of the recommended rate), and/or two timing/placements (all applied at emergence or 84% at emergence + 16% fertigation simulation) compared …

The Long-Term Effects Of Grazing On Desert Soils In The Great Basin, Alexander Olson, Neil Hansen, Loreen Allphin, Sam Spackman

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2023

The Desert Experimental Range in the Great Basin region of southwestern Utah was created by President Hoover in 1933 to study cold-desert rangeland ecology and observe the effects of cattle and sheep grazing on the arid ecosystem. This 225 square kilometer area was initially set up with a series of paddocks and exclosures. Various grazing intensities throughout multiple seasons were permitted within the paddocks since its origin. For the purposes of this research, samples were taken within a given exclosure and the greater paddock to monitor the long term effects of grazing and its permanent or semi-permanent impacts. Samples were …

Polymer Coated Urea Microplastics: Sweet Corn, Benjamin T. Geary, C. J. Seely, B. G. Hopkins

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2022

• Polymer Coated Urea (PCU) is beneficial for providing the food, fuel, and fiber needed for the nearly 8 billion people on earth.

• Microplastics, from a wide range of waste materials, pollute water bodies.

• One potential source of microplastics are from PCU fertilizers if the coatings are transported overland into water bodies.

• Various agricultural application methods vary in potential for surface runoff.

Objective • Determine the microplastic concentrations from runoff water for strip injection, surface unincorporated, and broadcast incorporated application in sweet corn.

Enhanced Efficiency Nitrogen Fertilizer: Coated Urea, Savannah R. Fahning, Bryan G. Hopkins

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2020

Nutrient loss contributes to pollution, depletion of natural resources, and economic loss

Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizers (EEF) increase uptake efficiency and crop yield/quality

This research focuses on Nitrogen EEF, namely Coated Urea

Effectiveness Of The Smallholder Sustainability Assessment Of Food And Agricultural Systems App For Subsistence Farm Systems In Ecuador, Carter D. Allred, H. L. Boman, S. J. Clawson, C. A. Freestone, S. N. Hockett, C. A. Holden, E. R. Phipps, C. N. Quigley, M. M. Rupard, N. C. Hansen

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2019

Small-scale agriculture is the primary source of food for the majority of the developing world. It is a vital component of the total global land usage for agricultural production, and sustaining and improving subsistence farms is critical for meeting global food demand as well as maintaining the integrity of agro-ecological systems. Due to the important role that smallholder farmers play in global agriculture, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN developed the Smallholder Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agricultural Systems App (SAFA), a 100-question survey tool created for simplicity and wide-reaching applicability. SAFA is flexible in nature in that …

Testing The Potential Of Novel Grain Crop Cultivation In Rural Malawi During The Dry Season Through Irrigation And Soil Modification, Jessica Truman

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This research project studied the germination and growth rates of oat and quinoa crops in Mtalimanja, Malawi. This project was part of a larger effort by General Mills and Brigham Young University researchers to increase the diversity and nutrient content of crops in impoverished countries worldwide. It was conducted from May to August 2017 during Malawi’s dry season. Tetraploid oats and quinoa, both modified to increase the protein content of harvested grains, were planted under three different soil conditions: unamended soil, soil mixed with composted chicken litter, and soil with surface-applied granular fertilizer. The research plots were watered daily except …

Improving Cotton Agronomics With Diverse Genomic Technologies, Aaron Robert Sharp

Theses and Dissertations

Agronomic outcomes are the product of a plant's genotype and its environment. Genomic technologies allow farmers and researchers new avenues to explore the genetic component of agriculture. These technologies can also enhance understanding of environmental effects. With a growing world population, a wide variety of tools will be necessary to increase the agronomic productivity. Here I use massively parallel, deep sequencing of RNA (RNA-Seq) to measure changes in cotton gene expression levels in response to a change in the plant's surroundings caused by conservation tillage. Conservation tillage is an environmentally friendly, agricultural practice characterized by little or no inversion of …

Drought And Nitrogen Effects On Maize Canopy Temperature And Stress Indices, David A. Carroll

Theses and Dissertations

Increased water scarcity due to changing climate, population growth, and economic development is a major threat to the sustainability of irrigated agriculture in the Western United States and other regions around the world. Management practices, such as controlled deficit irrigation, that seek to maximize the productivity of a limited water supply are critical. When using controlled deficit irrigation, remote sensing of crop canopy temperature is a useful tool for assessing crop water status and for more precise irrigation management. However, there is potential that nutrient deficiencies could compound the interpretation of water status from leaf temperature by altering leaf color …

Mentored Student Research In The Study Of Ancient Maize Agriculture In Mesoamerica, Richard E. Terry

Journal of Undergraduate Research

For the past two years, Richard Terry, his graduate students, Zachary Larsen and Jacob Horlacher have mentored twenty two undergraduate majors in Environmental Science in the collecting, preparation, and analysis of soil samples from the rural surroundings of ancient Maya cities in Guatemala and Mexico. Corn (called maize in Mesoamerica) has been very important to both the ancient and contemporary Maya. The Maya creation story as recorded in the Popol Vuh tells of the creation of man from the ground maize. Many of the Maya view themselves as “people of the maize”. The actions of planting the seeds, harvesting, preparation …

Long Term Impacts Of Short Rotations, Travis Beckett, Amanda Shiffler, Bryan Hopkins, Pamela Hutchinson, Saad Hafez, Nora Olsen

Library Research Grants

No abstract provided.

The Prolamins Of Pearl Millet, Christian B. Ricks

Theses and Dissertations

Although work on the prolamins of pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) has revealed partial amino acid sequences for several alcohol-soluble storage proteins (Marcellino et al. 2002) the genes encoding them have not yet been isolated. We constructed a cDNA library from developing P. glaucum seed tissue and screened it using maize zein gene probes to isolate several α-prolamin-like gene sequences. The proteins encoded by these genes generally fall into two size classes: 20.6kD and 27.1kD, which we call the 21kD and 27kD pennisetins. Both proteins are similar in composition and sequence to α-prolamins from maize, sorghum and Coix. Protein bodies that …

Forage Adaptability Trials For Forage And Seed Production In Bolivia; Effect Of 5 Herbicides On 7 Native Utah Forbs, Joshua C. Voss

Theses and Dissertations

The harsh environmental and poor economic conditions of the Bolivian Altiplano require intervention to assist many of those that live there to become economically self-sufficient. We attempted to find introduced dry season reserve forage grasses that could produce enough biomass to be useful as feed for livestock, and that could also produce enough seed to distribute to farmers. While some of the grasses produced reasonable amounts of biomass, none produced seed in quantities that would be even close to being economically viable. The most likely cause of this is that the timing of resources that the grasses need to flower …

Soil Stable Carbon Isoptope Analysis Of Landscape Features At Aguateca, Guatemala, David R. Wright

Theses and Dissertations

The ancient Maya of the Classic period (1700-1050 B.P.) relied on maize agriculture to support their populations. The agricultural systems they employed to produce that maize varied in form and degree of intensity, with more productive forms of agriculture needed in the Late Classic period (1350-1050 B.P.) to sustain the peaking population. It is likely that the ancient systems of production agriculture contributed to environmental degradation that in turn contributed to the pressures that culminated in the collapse of the civilization. In this study, stable carbon isotope ratios contained in the soil organic matter were used to further investigate ancient …