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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Long-Term Sandhills Prairie Responses To Precipitation, Temperature, And Cattle Stocking Rate, John A. Guretzky, Cheryl Dunn, Heidi L. Hillhouse Jun 2016

Long-Term Sandhills Prairie Responses To Precipitation, Temperature, And Cattle Stocking Rate, John A. Guretzky, Cheryl Dunn, Heidi L. Hillhouse

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Understanding of Sandhills prairie, the most expansive sand dune region stabilized by perennial grasses in the Western Hemisphere, is limited by lack of long-term vegetation data. We used a 26-year dataset to evaluate Sandhills prairie responses to yearto- year variation in precipitation, temperature, and cattle stocking rate. Basal cover, a measurement that is constant seasonally and used to detect long-term changes in bunchgrass vegetation, was measured in 38–40 permanent plots positioned along four transects spanning 769 ha from 1979 to 2007. Across this period, total basal cover averaged 2.4 % and was dominated by warm-season grasses (81.1 %). Schizachyrium scoparium …


Simulating Long-Term Impacts Of Cover Crops And Climate Change On Crop Production And Environmental Outcomes In The Midwestern United States, Andrea D. Basche, Sotririos V. Archontoulis, Thomas C. Kaspar, Dan B. Jaynes, Timothy B. Parkin, Fernando E. Miguez Jan 2016

Simulating Long-Term Impacts Of Cover Crops And Climate Change On Crop Production And Environmental Outcomes In The Midwestern United States, Andrea D. Basche, Sotririos V. Archontoulis, Thomas C. Kaspar, Dan B. Jaynes, Timothy B. Parkin, Fernando E. Miguez

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

It is critical to evaluate conservation practices that protect soil and water resources from climate change in the Midwestern United States, a region that produces one-quarter of the world’s soybeans and one-third of the world’s maize. An over-winter cover crop in a maize–soybean rotation offers multiple potential benefits that can reduce the impacts of higher temperatures and more variable rainfall; some of the anticipated changes for the Midwest. In this experiment we used the Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM) to understand how winter rye cover crops impact crop production and environmental outcomes, given future climate change. We first tested APSIM …


Nitrous Oxide Emissions And Carbon Sequestration In Turfgrass: Effects Of Irrigation And Nitrogen Fertilization (Year 1), R. Braun, D. Bremer, J. Fry Jan 2016

Nitrous Oxide Emissions And Carbon Sequestration In Turfgrass: Effects Of Irrigation And Nitrogen Fertilization (Year 1), R. Braun, D. Bremer, J. Fry

Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station Research Reports

In this study, annual nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions were greatest in urea and least in untreated (no N) among treatments. Differences were negligible due to irrigation treatment. Irrigation levels may be decreased further in the final year to induce slight stress on the low irrigation treatment. All fertilizer treatments maintained acceptable quality, however the controlled-release fertilizer resulted in more consistent visual quality ratings compared to urea and untreated. Urea fertilizer had higher peak fluxes after fertilization and overall annual emissions than polymer-coated N-fertilizer. Thus, controlled released N fertilizers, such as polymer-coated urea, in turfgrass systems could potentially help …