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Articles 1 - 12 of 12
Full-Text Articles in Environmental Sciences
Technical Feasibility Of Small-Scale Oilseed And On-Farm Biodiesel Production: A Vermont Case Study, Emily J. Stebbins-Wheelock, Robert Parsons, Qingbin Wang, Heather Darby, Vernon Grubinger
Technical Feasibility Of Small-Scale Oilseed And On-Farm Biodiesel Production: A Vermont Case Study, Emily J. Stebbins-Wheelock, Robert Parsons, Qingbin Wang, Heather Darby, Vernon Grubinger
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications
This article investigates the technical feasibility of small-scale oilseed production and on-farm processing of biodiesel and livestock feed using primary data from two Vermont farms. Results indicate that small-scale production of sunflowers, canola, and soybeans, and on-farm processing of livestock feed and biodiesel are technically feasible, but yields depend on many factors. Increased local expertise, information-sharing among the farm and Extension communities, and improved access to harvesting and processing equipment can improve productivity and efficiency. Additional experience in seed drying and expeller pressing techniques should reduce fat content in the seed meal, improve meal value, and improve oil production efficiency. …
Bioenergy Harvesting Impacts On Ecologically Important Stand Structure And Habitat Characteristics, Caitlin E. Littlefield, William S. Keeton
Bioenergy Harvesting Impacts On Ecologically Important Stand Structure And Habitat Characteristics, Caitlin E. Littlefield, William S. Keeton
Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications
Demand for forest bioenergy fuel is increasing in the northern forest region of eastern North America and beyond, but ecological impacts, particularly on habitat, of bioenergy harvesting remain poorly explored in the peer-reviewed literature. Here, we evaluated the impacts of bioenergy harvests on stand structure, including several characteristics considered important for biodiversity and habitat functions. We collected stand structure data from 35 recent harvests in northern hardwood-conifer forests, pairing harvested areas with unharvested reference areas. Biometrics generated from field data were analyzed using a multi-tiered nonparametric uni-and multivariate statistical approach. In analyses comparing harvested to reference areas, sites that had …
Land Use Adaptation To Climate Change: Economic Damages From Land-Falling Hurricanes In The Atlantic And Gulf States Of The Usa, 1900-2005, Asim Zia
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications
Global climate change, especially the phenomena of global warming, is expected to increase the intensity of land-falling hurricanes. Societal adaptation is needed to reduce vulnerability from increasingly intense hurricanes. This study quantifies the adaptation effects of potentially policy driven caps on housing densities and agricultural cover in coastal (and adjacent inland) areas vulnerable to hurricane damages in the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal regions of the U.S. Time series regressions, especially Prais-Winston and Autoregressive Moving Average (ARMA) models, are estimated to forecast the economic impacts of hurricanes of varying intensity, given that various patterns of land use emerge in the Atlantic …
Ecosystem Services: The Economics Debate, Joshua Farley
Ecosystem Services: The Economics Debate, Joshua Farley
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications
The goal of this paper is to illuminate the debate concerning the economics of ecosystem services. The sustainability debate focuses on whether or not ecosystem services are essential for human welfare and the existence of ecological thresholds. If ecosystem services are essential, then marginal analysis and monetary valuation are inappropriate tools in the vicinity of thresholds. The justice debate focuses on who is entitled to ecosystem services and the ecosystem structure that generates them. Answers to these questions have profound implications for the choice of suitable economic institutions. The efficiency debate concerns both the goals of economic activity and the …
Genetic Patterns Of Domestication In Pigeonpea (Cajanus Cajan (L.) Millsp.) And Wild Cajanus Relatives, Mulualem T. Kassa, R. Varma Penmetsa, Noelia Carrasquilla-Garcia, Birinchi K. Sarma, Subhojit Datta, Hari D. Upadhyaya, Rajeev K. Varshney, Eric J.B. Von Wettberg, Douglas R. Cook
Genetic Patterns Of Domestication In Pigeonpea (Cajanus Cajan (L.) Millsp.) And Wild Cajanus Relatives, Mulualem T. Kassa, R. Varma Penmetsa, Noelia Carrasquilla-Garcia, Birinchi K. Sarma, Subhojit Datta, Hari D. Upadhyaya, Rajeev K. Varshney, Eric J.B. Von Wettberg, Douglas R. Cook
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications
Pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan) is an annual or short-lived perennial food legume of acute regional importance, providing significant protein to the human diet in less developed regions of Asia and Africa. Due to its narrow genetic base, pigeonpea improvement is increasingly reliant on introgression of valuable traits from wild forms, a practice that would benefit from knowledge of its domestication history and relationships to wild species. Here we use 752 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) derived from 670 low copy orthologous genes to clarify the evolutionary history of pigeonpea (79 accessions) and its wild relatives (31 accessions). We identified three well-supported lineages …
Do Anthropogenic Dark Earths Occur In The Interior Of Borneo? Some Initial Observations From East Kalimantan, Douglas Sheil, Imam Basuki, Laura German, Thomas W. Kuyper, Godwin Limberg, Rajindra K. Puri, Bernard Sellato, Meine Van Noordwijk, Eva Wollenberg
Do Anthropogenic Dark Earths Occur In The Interior Of Borneo? Some Initial Observations From East Kalimantan, Douglas Sheil, Imam Basuki, Laura German, Thomas W. Kuyper, Godwin Limberg, Rajindra K. Puri, Bernard Sellato, Meine Van Noordwijk, Eva Wollenberg
Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications
Anthropogenic soils of the Amazon Basin (Terra Preta, Terra Mulata) reveal that pre-Colombian peoples made lasting improvements in the agricultural potential of nutrient-poor soils. Some have argued that applying similar techniques could improve agriculture over much of the humid tropics, enhancing local livelihoods and food security, while also sequestering large quantities of carbon to mitigate climate change. Here, we present preliminary evidence for Anthropogenic Dark Earths (ADEs) in tropical Asia. Our surveys in East Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) identified several sites where soils possess an anthropogenic development and context similar in several respects to the Amazon's ADEs. Similarities include riverside locations, …
Early Developmental Responses To Seedling Environment Modulate Later Plasticity To Light Spectral Quality, Eric J.B. Von Wettberg, John R. Stinchcombe, Johanna Schmitt
Early Developmental Responses To Seedling Environment Modulate Later Plasticity To Light Spectral Quality, Eric J.B. Von Wettberg, John R. Stinchcombe, Johanna Schmitt
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications
Correlations between developmentally plastic traits may constrain the joint evolution of traits. In plants, both seedling de-etiolation and shade avoidance elongation responses to crowding and foliage shade are mediated by partially overlapping developmental pathways, suggesting the possibility of pleiotropic constraints. To test for such constraints, we exposed inbred lines of Impatiens capensis to factorial combinations of leaf litter (which affects de-etiolation) and simulated foliage shade (which affects phytochrome-mediated shade avoidance). Increased elongation of hypocotyls caused by leaf litter phenotypically enhanced subsequent elongation of the first internode in response to low red:far red (R:FR). Trait expression was correlated across litter and …
Conservation And Livelihoods: Identifying Trade-Offs And Win-Wins, Brendan P. Fisher
Conservation And Livelihoods: Identifying Trade-Offs And Win-Wins, Brendan P. Fisher
Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Biogenic Vs. Geologic Carbon Emissions And Forest Biomass Energy Production, John S. Gunn, David J. Ganz, William S. Keeton
Biogenic Vs. Geologic Carbon Emissions And Forest Biomass Energy Production, John S. Gunn, David J. Ganz, William S. Keeton
Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications
In the current debate over the CO2 emissions implications of switching from fossil fuel energy sources to include a substantial amount of woody biomass energy, many scientists and policy makers hold the view that emissions from the two sources should not be equated. Their rationale is that the combustion or decay of woody biomass is simply part of the global cycle of biogenic carbon and does not increase the amount of carbon in circulation. This view is frequently presented as justification to implement policies that encourage the substitution of fossil fuel energy sources with biomass. We present the opinion that …
Carbon Storage, Timber Production, And Biodiversity: Comparing Ecosystem Services With Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, W. Scott Schwenk, Therese M. Donovan, William S. Keeton, Jared S. Nunery
Carbon Storage, Timber Production, And Biodiversity: Comparing Ecosystem Services With Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, W. Scott Schwenk, Therese M. Donovan, William S. Keeton, Jared S. Nunery
Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications
Increasingly, land managers seek ways to manage forests for multiple ecosystem services and functions, yet considerable challenges exist in comparing disparate services and balancing trade-offs among them. We applied multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) and forest simulation models to simultaneously consider three objectives: (1) storing carbon, (2) producing timber and wood products, and (3) sustaining biodiversity. We used the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) applied to 42 northern hardwood sites to simulate forest development over 100 years and to estimate carbon storage and timber production. We estimated biodiversity implications with occupancy models for 51 terrestrial bird species that were linked to FVS …
Eorganic: The Organic Agriculture Community Of Practice For Extension, Alexandra G. Stone, Danielle D. Treadwell, Alice K. Formiga, John P.G. Mcqueen, Michelle M. Wander, James Riddle, Heather M. Darby, Debra Heleba
Eorganic: The Organic Agriculture Community Of Practice For Extension, Alexandra G. Stone, Danielle D. Treadwell, Alice K. Formiga, John P.G. Mcqueen, Michelle M. Wander, James Riddle, Heather M. Darby, Debra Heleba
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications
eOrganic is the organic agriculture community of practice (CoP) and resource area for eXtension. eOrganic's primary community of interest (CoI) is organic farmers and the agricultural professionals who support them. The 250 members of the eOrganic CoP include farmers, researchers, certifiers, and extension/other agricultural professionals. eOrganic's mission is to build a diverse national CoP and use web technologies to synthesize existing information, emerging science, and practical knowledge into information resources and training materials for its CoI. eOrganic strategies to achieve that mission include collaborative publication, stakeholder engagement, community development, projectmanagement, evaluation, and fundraising. eOrganic's public site currently offers 240 articles, …
Costs Of Food Safety Certification On Fresh Produce Farms In Vermont, Florence A. Becot, Virginia Nickerson, David S. Conner, Jane M. Kolodinsky
Costs Of Food Safety Certification On Fresh Produce Farms In Vermont, Florence A. Becot, Virginia Nickerson, David S. Conner, Jane M. Kolodinsky
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications
This article addresses the economic costs of good agricultural practices (GAPs) audits of small and medium size farms in Vermont. It focuses on the costs of infrastructure, equipment, and labor required to successfully pass a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) GAPs audit. In-depth interviews and surveys of produce farmers in 2011 revealed that the cost of GAPs certification ranges between $37 and $54 per acre, and an additional 7 hours were required each week during the growing season. Based on this exploratory research, certifying all the farms in Vermont would cost between $228,216 and $3,019,114. Our study explored all the …