Plant Sciences Commons^™

Reducing Inputs And Adding Value To Turfgrass Systems Through Clover Inclusion And Plant Growth-Promoting Rhizobacteria Applications, Paige E. Boyle

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Recently, the US has seen an expansion in the amount of turfgrass land cover (lawns, parks, roadsides, sports fields, and golf courses), as well as an interest in reducing fertilizer, water, and pesticide use in these grass systems. To help maintain quality and function while reducing resource inputs, two promising approaches have emerged: planting clover into lawns and applying plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria.

White clover and grass mixtures have been studied for their ability to cut down on fertilizer usage and provide a uniform, dark green lawn, but other clover types have not been as widely studied and may provide similar …

Ecology And Management Of Dyer's Woad (Isatis Tinctoria) In Northern Utah, Erin Marie Hettinger

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Dyer’s woad (Isatis tinctoria L.) is a non-native forb that continues to threaten natural areas throughout Northern Utah and much of the Intermountain West. Once introduced, dyer’s woad can become extremely invasive, decreasing forage quality, and displacing native species. While dyer’s woad is found throughout much of Northern Utah, its range in other states remains limited. If promptly managed, control success in these areas will be much higher and populations may be kept at bay before ecological damage becomes severe.

This project tested the ability of dyer’s woad seedlings to compete with common rangeland grasslands at varied densities as …

Evapotranspiration And Energy Balance Of Irrigated Urban Turfgrass, Matthew D. Miksch

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Water usage for irrigation is a big consumer of water resources in urban areas in Utah and other parts of the Intermountain Region of the Western United States. As populations continue to increase in these states, it is important to understand how much water is being used by urban landscapes in order to plan and manage future water resources. Evapotranspiration (ET), or the amount of water leaving a surface over a certain timeframe due to both transpiration from plants and evaporation from the soil, is a key variable in understanding how much water urban landscapes are really using to grow …

In Silico Screeing Of Natural Compounds As Novel Drug Targets For Treatment Of Multiple Myeloma, Rousselene Larson

Student Research Symposium

In Silico Screening of Natural Compounds as Novel Drug Targets for The Treatment of Multiple MyelomaRousselene Larson1 2, Naveen Duhan1, and Rakesh Kaundal1 2 *1Department of Plants, Soils, and Climate, College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences; 2Bioinformatics Facility, Center for Integrated BioSystems; Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322 USA* corresponding author (e-mail: rkaundal@usu.edu)Telephone: +1 (435) 797-4117Fax: +1 (435) 797-2766Abstract: Multiple Myeloma (MM) is an incurable hematological malignancy cancer characterized by excessive clonal plasma cell proliferation in the bone marrow. In the United States, MM is the second most prevalent type of cancer that affects about 4 in 100,000 Americans. Toxicity …

Day Versus Night Irrigation Loss From Sprinkler Irrigation Of Urban Crops, Samikshya Pyakurel

Student Research Symposium

Nighttime irrigation is a widespread strategy to conserve water, as it reduces wind drift and evaporation loss (WDEL). However, daytime sprinkler irrigation may also conserve water by lowering the temperature and increasing the humidity of crop microclimates, thereby reducing evapotranspiration (ET). Therefore, the objectives of this study include: 1) quantify whether a water savings exists between day and night irrigation with a water balance approach, 2) analyze the microclimate effects by irrigation timing to determine any changes to WDEL and evaporative demand, and 3) assess the quality and yield response of two urban crops. In 2019-21, we established 12 field …

Genomic Prediction Of Salinity Stress Tolerance In Maize (Zea Mays L.), Vishal Singh

Student Research Symposium

Maize is the largest crop in the world in terms of production. Utah, maize is a potential fodder crop. With increasing climate change, soil salinity is also increasing worldwide. Soil salinity is very detrimental to plants' growth and development and crop production. For a fodder crop, plant biomass is an important trait, and maize biomass is adversely affected by salinity stress, especially at the seedling stage. A Selection of salt-tolerant breeding material is a time-consuming process and its complexity is further increased by significant heterogeneity in soil salinity under field based evaluation. Genomic prediction is an emerging tool that can …

Microbial Community Of The Rhizosphere Of Ceanothus Velutinus Improves The Plant's Growth And Development Under Greenhouse Conditions, Jyothsna Ganesh

Student Research Symposium

Climatic change-induced environmental stresses affect crop production. Drought is such a stress which affect crop production and landscaping adversely. Native plants are great for low water use landscaping and can adapt to the natural environment. USU Center for Water-Efficient Landscaping has released a list of native plants that can be used for this purpose. This study focuses on a native plant Ceanothus velutinus (snowbrush) which is an evergreen plant native to western North America. It thrives well in harsh conditions and can act as ornamental plant in low water use landscaping but is difficult to propagate under landscape conditions. Here, …

Transgenic Expression Of Prunus Persica Salt Overly Sensitive 2 (Ppsos2) In Atsos2 Mutant Imparts Salt Tolerance In Arabidopsis, Vishal Singh

Student Research Symposium

Salinity is one of the major environmental stresses that affect crop growth and productivity. Almond crop has a great potential for Utah as a cash crop and salinity is one of the stresses affecting its growth and yield. Although almond trees are sensitive to salt stress, salinity-tolerant rootstocks can play a significant role in sustaining crop production in semiarid areas. Salinity tolerance has a complex mechanism with many genes acting in different pathways. Understanding the role of potential candidate genes is an important aspect of genomics assisted improvement of stress tolerance. In this study, functional complementation of the Prunus persica …

Comparative Study Of The Microbiome Of The Native Plant Ceanothus Velutinus (Snowbrush) From Different Locations And Greenhouse Studies, Jyothsna Ganesh

Student Research Symposium

Climatic change is one of the biggest threats to the ecosystem and biodiversity by enhancing environmental stresses. Environmental stresses such as biotic and abiotic stresses affect plant health and reduce crop production. The rhizosphere microbiome of a plant plays a significant role in a plant's defense against various biotic and abiotic stresses. In this study, we are investigating the microbiome diversity of bulk soil, rhizosphere, and endosphere of Ceanothus velutinus, snowbrush. Ceanothus is an evergreen native plant that is usually found in dry areas and thrives well in harsh conditions. The snowbrush samples were collected from different locations 1920m, 1950m, …

Deepnec: A Novel Alignment-Free Tool For The Characterization Of Nitrification-Related Enzymes Using Deep Learning, A Step Towards Comprehensive Understanding Of The Nitrogen Cycle, Naveen Duhan

Student Research Symposium

Abstract: Nitrification is an important microbial two-step transformation in the global nitrogen cycle, as it is the only natural process that produces nitrate within a system. The functional annotation of nitrification-related enzymes has a broad range of applications in metagenomics, agriculture, industrial biotechnology, etc. The time and resources needed for determining the function of enzymes experimentally are restrictively costly. Therefore, an accurate genome-scale computational prediction of the nitrification-related enzymes has become much more important.In this study, we developed an alignment-free computational approach to determine the nitrification-related enzymes from the sequence itself. We propose deepNEC, a novel end-to-end feature selection and …

Pyseqrna: An Automated Python Package For Advanced Rna Sequencing Data Analysis And Annotation, Naveen Duhan

Student Research Symposium

Abstract: With the advent of Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies, numerous data is being generated every day, however, streamlined analysis remains a big hurdle to efficiently use the technology. A large number of algorithms, statistical methods, and software tools have been developed in recent years to perform the individual analysis steps of various NGS applications. Some NGS applications data analysis procedures are therefore very complex, requiring several program tools to be downloaded for their various processing steps. There is a significant room for the development of scalable computing environments that link the individual software components to automated workflows to efficiently and …

Nitrogen Use Efficiency And Soil Bioavailable Nitrogen In Corn Silage Production In A Semi-Arid Environment, Phearen Miller

Student Research Symposium

As agriculture intensifies, the world faces a dual challenge of increasing food production while reducing impacts of excess reactive nitrogen (N) in the environment. A field study examining different N sources in corn silage under semi-arid conditions was conducted at the Greenville farm in northern Utah (41°45’ N, 1111°48’52 W) since 2012. The experimental design is a randomized complete block design with four blocks and four treatments: control (no nitrogen), low ammonium sulfate (AS 112 kg N/ha), high ammonium sulfate (AS 224 kg N/ha), and steer manure compost (224 kg total N/ha). We examined yield, nitrogen use efficiency (NUE), and …

Phosphorus Rate Effects With And Without Avail® On Dryland Winter Wheat In An Eroded Calcareous Soil, Ryan C. Hodges

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Soluble phosphorus fertilizer is bound in the soil rapidly after application in soils high in calcium. A fertilizer additive known as AVAIL® (J.R. Simplot Company) is purported to keep applied phosphorus fertilizer more available to plants by binding to soil minerals such as calcium, magnesium, and iron, thereby reducing phosphorus binding. This could prove useful due to the attraction of AVAIL® with cations such as Ca²⁺, but is fairly unstudied for dryland wheat production on alkaline, calcium-rich soils. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effect of low-rate fertilizer treatments with AVAIL® on dryland small grain …

Non-Methane Hydrocarbon Source Apportionment And Btex Risk Assessment Of Winter 2015 In Roosevelt, Utah, Jerimiah Lamb

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Non-Methane Hydrocarbons (NMHC) monitored in Roosevelt Utah including Benzene, Toluene, Ethylbenzene and Xylene (collectively known as BTEX) are associated with deleterious effects including cancer. This study was designed to assess the origin and effect of the toxicants and addressed two points: 1) Source identification using the USEPA’s Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) and NOAA’s Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model and 2) A human health risk assessment based on ambient concentrations of BTEX collected at the Roosevelt site. Model fit indicated that the primary contributor to total NMHCs was local oil and gas operations and was supported by previous …

Role Of The Strengthened El Nino Teleconnection In The May 2015 Floods Over The Southern Great Plains, S.-Y. Wang, W.-R. Huang, H.-H. Hsu, R. R. Gillies

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

The climate anomalies leading to the May 2015 floods in Texas and Oklahoma were analyzed in the context of El Niño teleconnection in a warmer climate. A developing El Niño tends to increase late-spring precipitation in the southern Great Plains, and this effect has intensified since 1980. Anthropogenic global warming contributed to the physical processes that caused the persistent precipitation in May 2015: Warming in the tropical Pacific acted to strengthen the teleconnection toward North America, modification of zonal wave 5 circulation that deepened the stationary trough west of Texas, and enhanced Great Plains low-level southerlies increasing moisture supply from …

A Transition-Phase Teleconnection Of The Pacific Quasi-Decadal Oscillation, Shih-Yu (Simon) Wang, R. R. Gillies, L. E. Hipps, J. Jin

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

The atmospheric circulation patterns associated with the Pacific quasi-decadal oscillation (QDO) are investigated using available observational data from 1948 to 2007. Previous studies indicate that the Pacific QDO is characterized by a distinct lifecycle in the form of sea surface temperature (SST) patterns. In the warm and cool phases of the Pacific QDO, the SST patterns resemble those associated with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). During the warm–cool and cool–warm transitions of the Pacific QDO, recurrent SST patterns are also clearly visible. The rotated empirical orthogonal function analysis on the 10–15 year filtered data shows that the evolutions of SST …