Life Sciences Commons^™

Nebline, January 2021

NEBLINE Newsletter Archive from Nebraska Extension in Lancaster County

2020 Extension Highlight Highlights Responding as Local Needs Changed

Helping People Solve Real-World Problems

20,311 Youth Engaged in 4-H Programs

Make Your New Year’s Resolutions Stick

Recipe of the Month

Crop Production Clinics, Jan. 7, 14, and 21

Pesticide Applicator Trainings

Extension’s 2021 Master Gardener Trainings, Two Sites Available

Upcoming Green Industry Conferences

Garden Guide Things to do This Month

HEART OF 4-H VOLUNTEER AWARD: Emalea Dean

PASE Results

4-H Thanks Sponsors

4-H Announcements for 4-H’ers and Volunteers

4-H Thanks Volunteers

EXTENSION CALENDAR

EXTENSION NEWS

A Comparison Of Media To Determine Optimal Growth In Aquaponics: Prg Virtual Showcase January 2021, Rachel L. Fogle, Andrea Nagy, Claribel Asare, Steven Berry, Jordan Brown, Aquila Durham-Lewis

Presidential Research Grants

No abstract provided.

Does Biochar Improve All Soil Ecosystem Services?, Humberto Blanco-Canqui

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Biochar is considered to sequester C and deliver other soil ecosystem services, but an overview that synthesizes the current knowledge of biochar implications on all essential soil ecosystem services is difficult to find in the ample biochar literature. Most previous research and review articles on this topic focused on a single ecosystem service and did not integrate all essential soil ecosystem services. This overview paper (1) synthesizes the impacts of biochar on water and wind erosion, C sequestration, soil water, nutrient leaching, soil fertility, crop yields, and other soil ecosystem services based on published literature and (2) highlights remaining research …

James B Beard: The Father Of Contemporary Turfgrass Science, G.K. Stahnke, P.E. Rieke, Robert C. Shearman, Roch E. Gaussoin, David Kopec

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

James B Beard (24 Sept 1935 to 8 May 2018) can rightly be considered the “Father” of contemporary turfgrass science. During his career, he was known for setting a standard that provided the foundation for turfgrass science through his thorough approach to research, teaching, mentoring and communications. The books he published outlined a vision for an evolving scientific discipline. He trained and mentored >45 domestic and international doctoral and master students and numerous post-doctoral trainees, who in turn continued to raise the quality of contemporary turfgrass science in the USA and internationally. He led the effort to change the name …

Intervention Of Climate-Smart Practices In Wheat Under Rice-Wheat Cropping System In Nepal, Janma Jaya Gairhe, Mandeep Adhikari, Deepak Ghimire, Arun Khatri-Chhetri, Dinesh Panday

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Besides a proper agronomic management followed by Nepalese farmers, wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) production has been severely affected by changing climate. There are many interventions, including climate-smart practices, to cope with this situation and possibly enhance crop and soil productivity. Field experiments were set up in a randomized complete block design with six treatments (TRT) with four replications in three locations (LOC) during wheat-growing seasons in Nepal from 2014 to 2016. Treatments included (i) Controlled Practice (CP), (ii) Improved Low (IL), (iii) Improved High (IH), (iv) Climate Smart Agriculture Low (CSAL), (v) Climate Smart Agriculture Medium (CSAM), and (vi) …

Genomic Resources In Plant Breeding For Sustainable Agriculture, Mahendar Thudi, Rajeev K. Varshney, James C. Schnable

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Climate change during the last 40 years has had a serious impact on agriculture and threatens global food and nutritional security. From over half a million plant species, cereals and legumes are the most important for food and nutritional security. Although systematic plant breeding has a relatively short history, con- ventional breeding coupled with advances in technology and crop management strategies has increased crop yields by 56 % globally between 1965− 85, referred to as the Green Revolution. Nevertheless, increased demand for food, feed, fiber, and fuel necessitates the need to break existing yield barriers in many crop plants. In …

Responses Of Soil Surface Greenhouse Gas Emissions To Nitrogen And Sulfur Fertilizer Rates To Brassica Carinata Grown As A Bio-Jet Fuel, Dwarika Bhattarai, Gandura O. Abagandura, Thandiwe Nleya, Sandeep Kumar

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Carinata (Brassica carinata A. Braun), a non-food oilseed crop and an alternative bio-jet fuel feedstock, has received attention for its potential as a low-input option for production in the semi-arid region of the Northern Great Plains of the United States. Research addressing the impacts of nitrogen (N) and sulfur (S) fertilizers on soils and greenhouse gas (GHG; CO2, N2O, and CH4) emissions from carinata production are limited. Thus, objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of different rates of N and S fertilizers applied to carinata on soil properties and GHG emissions. Field experiments were conducted in 2017 …

Effect Of Foliar Micronutrients (B, Mn, Fe, Zn) On Maize Grain Yield, Micronutrient Recovery, Uptake, And Partitioning, Zachary P. Stewart, Ellen T. Paparozzi, Charles S. Wortmann, Prakash Kumar Jha, Charles A. Shapiro

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Timing of micronutrient demand and acquisition by maize (Zea Mays L.) is nutrient spe‐ cific and associated with key vegetative and reproductive growth stages. The objective of this study was to determine the fate of foliar‐applied B, Fe, Mn, Zn, and Fe/Zn together, evaluate the effect of foliar micronutrients applied at multiple rates and growth stages on maize grain yield, and deter‐ mine their apparent nutrient recovery efficiency (ANR). Five Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) experiments were conducted in 2014 and 2015 at five locations across Nebraska. Total dry matter was collected at 5–6 stages, and separated into leaves, stalk, …

Soil Erosion Modelling: A Global Review And Statistical Analysis, Pasquale Borrelli, Panos Panagos, Dinesh Panday, 64 More Co-Authors

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

To gain a better understanding of the global application of soil erosion prediction models, we comprehensively reviewed relevant peer-reviewed research literature on soil-erosion modelling published between 1994 and 2017.We aimed to identify (i) the processes and models most frequently addressed in the literature, (ii) the regions within which models are primarily applied, (iii) the regions which remain unaddressed and why, and (iv) how frequently studies are conducted to validate/evaluate model outcomes relative to measured data. To perform this task, we combined the collective knowledge of 67 soil-erosion scientists from 25 countries. The resulting database, named ‘Global Applications of Soil Erosion …

Potential Amendments For Improving Productivity Of Low Carbon Semiarid Soil, Bijesh Maharjan, Dinesh Panday, Humberto Blanco-Canqui, Maysoon M. Mikha

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Applying soil amendments with high C content can potentially improve soil properties and increase crop yields. The objective of this 3-yr field study was to evaluate the effects of organic amendments on soil organic C (SOC), chemical properties, crop nutrient uptake, and crop yields in a low C sandy loam soil near Scottsbluff, NE. The field was planted to dry bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) in 2017, maize (Zea mays L.) in 2018, and sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) in 2019. Char at 22.3, 44.6, 66.9, 89.2, and 133.8 Mg ha^–1; biochar at 5.6 and 11.2 …

Loss Of Comt Activity Reduces Lateral Root Formation And Alters The Response To Water Limitation In Sorghum Brown Midrib (Bmr) 12 Mutant, Manny Saluja, Feiyu Zhu, Hongfeng Yu, Harkamal Walia, Scott E. Sattler

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Lignin is a key target for modifying lignocellulosic biomass for efficient biofuel production. Brown midrib 12 (bmr12) encodes the sorghum caffeic acid O-methyltransferase (COMT) and is one of the key enzymes in monolignol biosynthesis. Loss of function mutations in COMT reduces syringyl (S) lignin subunits and improves biofuel conversion rate. Although lignin plays an important role in maintaining cell wall integrity of xylem vessels, physiological and molecular consequences due to loss of COMT on root growth and adaptation to water deficit remain unexplored.

We addressed this gap by evaluating the root morphology, anatomy and transcriptome of bmr12 mutant. The mutant …

Continuous In Situ Soil Nitrate Sensors: The Importance Of High-Resolution Measurements Across Time And A Comparison With Salt Extraction-Based Methods, Yunjiao Zhu, Yuncong Chen, Md. Azahar Ali, Liang Dong, Xinran Wang, Sotirios V. Archontoulis, James Schnable, Michael J. Castellano

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Soil NO₃^– affects microbial processes, plant productivity, and environmental N losses. However, the ability to measure soil NO₃^– is limited by labor-intensive sampling and laboratory analyses. Hence, temporal variation in soil solution NO₃^– concentration is poorly understood. We evaluated a new potentiometric sensor that continuously measures soil solution NO₃^– concentration with unprecedented specificity due to a novel membrane that serves as a barrier to interfering anions. First, we compared sensor and salt extraction-based measurements of soil NO₃^– in well-controlled laboratory conditions. Second, using 60 d of in situ soil NO …

Improving Publicly Available Corn Nitrogen Rate Recommendation Tools With Soil And Weather Measurements, Curtis J. Ransom, Newell R. Kitchen, John E. Sawyer, James J. Camberato, Paul R. Carter, Richard Ferguson, Fabián G. Fernández, David W. Franzen, Carrie A.M. Laboski, D. Brenton Myers, Emerson D. Nafziger, John F. Shanahan

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Improving corn (Zea mays L.) N fertilizer rate recommendation tools is necessary for improving farmers’ profits and minimizing N pollution. Research has repeatedly shown that weather and soil factors influence available N and crop N need. Adjusting available corn N recommendation tools with soil and weather measurements could improve farmers’ ability to manage N. The aim of this research was to improve publicly available N recommendation tools with site-specific soil and weather measurements. Information from49 site-years ofNresponse trials in theU.S. Midwest was used to evaluate 21 rate recommendation tools for a single (at-planting) and split (at-planting + sidedress) N …

Adaptation And Forage Productivity Of Cool-Season Grasses In The Central Usa, Kenneth P. Vogel, Robert B. Mitchell

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Cool-season grass species (18) and cultivars (85) were evaluated for use in seeded grasslands in the tallgrass prairie and shortgrass steppe ecoregions of the central United States at the test locations of Ithaca and Sidney, NE, respectively. Both native and introduced grasses were evaluated in sward trails. Significant differences existed among species and cultivars for all traits evaluated except for in vitro dry matter digestibility (IVDMD) among cultivars within species at Sidney. The grasses that had the best establishment, persistence, and forage yields in the Ithaca trial were introduced wheatgrass (Thinopyrum) and bromegrass (Bromus) species. At …

Identification And Utilization Of Genetic Determinants Of Trait Measurement Errors In Image-Based, High-Throughput Phenotyping, Yan Zhou, Aaron Kusmec, Seyed Vahid Mirnezami, Lakshmi Attigala, Srikant Srinivasan, Talukder Zaki Jubery, James Schnable, Maria G. Salas Fernandez, Baskar Ganapathysubramanian, Patrick S. Schnable

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

The accuracy of trait measurements greatly affects the quality of genetic analyses. During automated phenotyping, trait measurement errors, i.e., differences between automatically extracted trait values and ground truth, are often treated as random effects that can be controlled by increasing population sizes and/or replication number. By contrast, there is some evidence that trait measurement errors may be partially under genetic control. Consistent with this hypothesis, we observed substantial non-random, genetic contributions to trait measurement errors for five maize (Zea mays) tassel traits collected using an image-based phenotyping platform. The phenotyping accuracy varied according to whether a tassel exhibited …

Guidelines For The Use And Interpretation Of Assays For Monitoring Autophagy (4th Edition), Daniel Klionsky, Rodrigo Franco, Guangchao Sun, Richard Wilson, More Than 2000 Coauthors

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

In 2008, we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, this topic has received increasing attention, and many scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Thus, it is important to formulate on a regular basis updated guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Despite numerous reviews, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to evaluate autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. Here, we present a set of guidelines for investigators to select and interpret methods to examine autophagy and related processes, and for reviewers to …

Abrasive Weeding As A Vehicle For Precision Fertilizer Management In Organic Vegetable Production, Tran Kim Ngan Luong, Frank Forcella, Sharon Clay, Michael S. Douglass, Samuel E. Wortman

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Abrasive weeding is a nonchemical weed control tactic that uses small, gritty materials propelled with compressed air to destroy weed seedlings. Organic fertilizers have been used successfully as abrasive grits to control weeds, but the goal for this study was to explore the effects of fertilizer grit, application rates, and background soil fertility on weeds, plant available nitrogen (N) uptake, and crop yield. Field trials were conducted in organic ‘Carmen’ sweet red pepper (Capsicum annuum) and organic ‘Gypsy’ broccoli (Brassica oleracea var. italica) and treatments included organic fertilizer grit (8N–0.9P–3.3K vs. 3N–3.1P–3.3K), grit application rates (low …

Collapse, Reorganization, And Regime Identity: Breaking Down Past Management Paradigms In A Forest-Grassland Ecotone, Victoria M. Donovan, Caleb P. Roberts, Carissa L. Wonkka, Daniel R. Uden, David G. Angeler, Craig R. Allen, David A. Wedin, Rhae A. Drijber, Dirac Twidwell

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

The identity of an ecological regime is central to modern resilience theory and our understanding of how systems collapse and reorganize following disturbance. However, resilience-based models used in ecosystem management have been criticized for their failure to integrate disturbance outcomes into regime identity. Assessments are needed to understand how well these classifications represent ecosystem responses that occur over management relevant time scales. We tracked post-wildfire forest and grassland dynamics 27 years after wildfire in eastern ponderosa pine savanna. We tested for differences between the assigned identity of a site (forest or grassland) versus classifications based on the site's disturbance history …

Seed-Shattering Phenology At Soybean Harvest Of Economically Important Weeds In Multiple Regions Of The United States. Part 1: Broadleaf Species, Lauren M. Schwartz-Lazaro, Lovreet S. Shergill, Jeffrey A. Evans, Muthukumar V. Bagavathiannan, Shawn C. Beam, Mandy D. Bish, Jason A. Bond, Kevin W. Bradley, William S. Curran, Adam S. Davis, Wesley J. Everman, Michael L. Flessner, Steven C. Haring, Nicholas R. Jordan, Nicholas E. Korres, John L. Lindquist, Jason K. Norsworthy, Tameka L. Sanders, Larry E. Steckel, Mark J. Vangessel, Blake Young, Steven B. Mirsky

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Potential effectiveness of harvest weed seed control (HWSC) systems depends upon seed shatter of the target weed species at crop maturity, enabling its collection and processing at crop harvest. However, seed retention likely is influenced by agroecological and environmental factors. In 2016 and 2017, we assessed seed-shatter phenology in 13 economically important broadleaf weed species in soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] from crop physiological maturity to 4 wk after physiological maturity at multiple sites spread across 14 states in the southern, northern, and mid-Atlantic United States. Greater proportions of seeds were retained by weeds in southern latitudes and shatter rate …

Wild Emmer Introgression Alters Root-To-Shoot Growth Dynamics In Durum Wheat In Response To Water Stress, Harel Bacher, Feiyu Zhu, Tian Gao, Kan Liu, Balpreet Dhatt, Tala Awada, Chi Zhang, Assaf Distelfeld, Hongfeng Yu, Zvi Peleg, Harkamal Walia

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Water deficit during the early vegetative growth stages of wheat (Triticum) can limit shoot growth and ultimately impact grain productivity. Introducing diversity in wheat cultivars to enhance the range of phenotypic responses to water limitations during vegetative growth can provide potential avenues for mitigating subsequent yield losses. We tested this hypothesis in an elite durum wheat background by introducing a series of introgressions from a wild emmer (Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccoides) wheat. Wild emmer populations harbor rich phenotypic diversity for drought-adaptive traits. To determine the effect of these introgressions on vegetative growth under water-limited conditions, we used image-based phenotyping to …