Agronomy and Crop Sciences Commons^™

Evaluating Methods For Quantifying Evapotranspiration In Arkansas Rice, Colby Reavis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this study was to evaluate different methods for quantifying evapotranspiration (ET) in commercial rice fields using different irrigation regimes. The rice fields were located in south central Arkansas. The different irrigation regimes were alternate wetting and drying (AWD) and continuous flooding (CF). Alternate wetting and drying and conventional flooding estimates of ET were 602 mm and 570 mm, respectively, based on field observations using eddy covariance. Models used to estimate ET estimated values between 498 and 653 mm for the 2015 growing season. The Penman Monteith actual evapotranspiration model (PM AET) performed best when compared to the …

Mushroom Inoculation On Switchgrass Feedstock During Storage: Effects Of Subsequent Pre-Processing For Intended Biofuels Production, Amandeep Singh Turay

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this project was to examine the effect of fungal treatment and liquid hot water pretreatment of switchgrass combine in view of increasing glucose release. The fungal treatment consisted of incubating Pleurotus ostreatus in square switchgrass bales, at 50% moisture content for 25 days, 54 days, and 82 days. The digestibility of the switchgrass biomass was subsequently evaluated using Accelerase 1500 enzyme. Lignin is an important barrier to enzymatic hydrolysis, and it was stipulated that incubation with P. ostreatus would disrupt plant cell walls, resulting in enhanced saccharification. Three different concentrations of P. ostreatus were evaluated: 0%, 2%, …

Temporal Evaluation Of Corn Respiration Rates Using Pressure Sensors, Gagandeep Singh Ubhi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

High respiration rate of a grain indicates faster degradation of its dry matter. Proper grain management requires chronological and precise measurements of carbon dioxide evolved from grain respiration during the postharvest storage duration. Therefore the main goal of this research was to develop a new technique that evaluates temporal corn respiration rate using pressure sensors. It was based on measuring pressure drop associated with the grain respiration in a closed container and using it to calculate the grain respiration rates.

Dry corn (Zea Mays L.) was procured from a local farmer and stored at 4ºC. Corn rewetting technique was applied …