Life Sciences Commons^™

High Tunnel Greenhouse Produces Higher Cut Flower Yields In Utah, Maegen Lewis

Research on Capitol Hill

• Utah State University is performing research to develop management guidelines for cut flower production.
• High tunnels, simple inexpensive greenhouses, moderate temperatures. This allows cut flowers to be grown despite unfavorable conditions.
• Snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus) and sweet pea (Lathyrus odoratus) were selected as cool season annual crops to evaluate high tunnel benefits during cool spring temperatures.
• Research will be used to develop crop management guidelines for cut flower growers in Utah.

Crop Updates 2009 - Cereals, Jeff Baldock, Doug Edmeades, Mark Seymour, Paul Carmody, Ian Pritchard, Alan Meldrum, Michael Robertson, Roger Lawes, Rob Sands, Peter White, Felicity Byrne, Andrew Bathgate, Kedar Adhikari, Tanveer Khan, Stuart Morgan, Alan Harris, P. Gaur, K. M. H. Siddique, H. Clarke, N. C. Turner, W. Macleod, S. Morgan, Chris Veitch, Tony Leonforte, Kith Jayasena, Geoff Thomas, Rob Loughman, Kazue Tanaka, Ravjit Khangura, M. Amjad, Richard Oliver, Dusty Severtson, Peter Mangano, John Botha, Brenda Coutts, Manisha Shankar, Kasia Rybak, Michael Baker, Andrea Hills, Shahajahan Miyan, Peter Portmann, Nicole Rice, Robert Henry, Jeff J. Russell, B. H. Paynter, Linda Price, Brenda Shackley, Vicki Scanlan, Darshan Sharma, Christine Zaicou-Kunesch

Crop Updates

This session covers twenty seven papers from different authors:

PLENARY

1. Building soil carbon for productivity and implications for carbon accounting, Jeff Baldock, CSIRO Land and Water, Adelaide, SA

2. Fact or Fiction: Who is telling the truth and how to tell the difference, Doug Edmeades, agKnowledge Ltd, Hamilton

3. Four decades of crop sequence trials in Western Australia, Mark Seymour,Department of Agriculture and Food

BREAK CROPS

4. 2008 Break Crops survey Report, Paul Carmody,Development Officer, Department of Agriculture and Food

5. Attitudes of Western Australian wheatbelt growers to ‘Break Crops’, Paul Carmody and Ian …

Field Pea In The Great Southern, Ian Pritchard, Rodger Beermier, Mark Seymour

All other publications

Semi-leafless field pea like Kaspa have lifted the benchmark set by the previous conventional varieties such as Parafield and Dunwa. Semi-leafless field pea have the same traits as conventional field pea: adaptation to a range of soil types; wide selection of weed control options (including crop topping); nitrogen input; disease break; and reduction in root lesion nematodes. Semi-leafless pea is easier to harvest and is less prone to pod shatter.

National And Regional Assessments Of Crop Yield Trends And Relative Production Efficiency : Theme 5.1. Land Use Change, Productivity And Diversification, David Stephens

Agriculture reports

National and regional assessment in Australia of relative production (yield) efficiency for wheat and other cereals providing estimates of biological production potential based on seasonal climatic conditions, compared with actual production values for selected historical dates between 1982 and 2000.

Soybean Chlorosis Studies On High Ph Bottomland Soils, E. J. Penas, R. A. Wiese, R. W. Elmore, G. W. Hergert, R. S. Moomaw

Historical Research Bulletins of the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station

Soybean varieties are different in tolerance to lime-induced chlorosis. Field trials were conducted to evaluate variety performance on soils where chlorosis in soybeans was a known problem. Thirty-six varieties out of 177 were identified as tolerant to soil conditions that cause chlorosis. Eleven varieties of these 36 were found to have the most consistent yield performance on high pH soils. Tolerant varieties must be planted at adequate densities for best performance. A seeding rate of 13.5 seeds per foot of row, the highest seeding rate employed, did not appear to maximize yield on soils where chlorosis was severe. On some …

Wheat And Barley Experiments On The Kumarl Soils At Salmon Gums, D A. Collins, Michael D A Bolland, R D. Fletcher

Technical Bulletins

The water-holding capacity of these soils, and their location in a low rainfall area combine to make them marginal for producing grain. In contrast to sowing wheat on ley pasture, mechanically fallowing the year before planting markedly improved grain yields by 1.3 to 4 times.

Serradella, Subterranean Clover And Medic Research, Esperance, Western Australia, Michael D A Bolland

Technical Bulletins

Strains of O. compressus which originate from Paros in southern Greece were the earliest flowering serradellas tested. They consistently produced amongst the highest seed yields, are relatively hard-seeded and are worthy of further investigation for deep sands and very acid soils in low rainfall areas. Monthly applications of nitrogenous fertilizer about doubled the herbage yields of serradella in winter.

Continuous Cereal Cropping With Alternative Tillage Systems In Western Australia, R J. Jarvis, N D. Delroy, A P. Hamblin

Technical Bulletins

In 1977, a ten year series of continuous cropping trials was commenced to compare the effect of four farm tillage systems. This bulletin reports the grain yield results for the first six years of these trials.

Effect Of Dusts On Tomato Production, Walter Jacob Cox, L T. Jones, Dennis R. Phillips

Technical Bulletins

The phytotoxicity of bauxite, cement flue, mud lake, alumina and kaolin dusts were examined on tomatoes. Mud lake white dust caused severe leaf scorch, affected plant growth and resulted in no harvestable yield. Flue dust applied daily depressed market yield of fruit from 64 t ha to 42 t ha. Flue dust applied at 3.1 t ha had no effect. There was no phytotoxic effect from bauxite, alumina or kaolin.

Response To Nitrogen Fertilisers Of Wheat, Oats, And Barley In Western Australia, M G. Mason, R N. Glencross

Technical Bulletins

Trials were mainly sited in areas normally receiving more than 450 mm average annual rainfall. Response curves were fitted to each set of data and then averaged to give overall response curves for each crop. There was little difference between the crops in absolute or percentage response to nitrogen fertiliser but the nitrogen fertiliser rate required for maximum yield was highest for wheat and lowest for oats.

Nitrogen Fertilisers For Rape (Brassica Campestris And B Napus) And Wheat In Western Australia, M G. Mason

Technical Bulletins

Absolute yield increases tended to be greater for wheat than rape at 63 per cent of the nitrogen responsive sites, but percentage yield increases and rate of N for maximum yield tended to be greater for rape than for wheat. When average response curves over all trials were considered, there was little difference between the two crops in terms of percentage responsiveness and N rate for maximum yield in areas with less than 460 mm average rainfall, but in higher rainfall areas the response to N was higher.

Results Of The First International Winter Wheat Performance Nursery, J. E. Stroike, V. A. Johnson, J. W. Schmidt, P. J. Mattern

Historical Research Bulletins of the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station

The International Winter Wheat Performance Nursery was organized by the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station and the Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under a contract with the Agency for International Development, U.S. Department of State. There has been informal cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization, United Nations, and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Mexico, D. F. Specific objectives of the nursery are to: (1) Test the adaptation of winter wheat varieties under a range of latitudes, daylengths, fertility conditions, water management and disease complexes (2) Identify superior winter varieties to serve as recipient genotypes for …

Performance Evaluation Of Some Warm-Season Prairie Grasses In Nebraska Environments, D. D. Warnes, L. C. Newell, W. J. Moline

Historical Research Bulletins of the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station

Objectives of these experiments were to study and compare establishment of stands, fertility responses, and forage yields of certain warm-season grass varieties and experimental strains in Nebraska locations which differed in soil and climatic conditions.

Fertilizing No-Till Corn, John L. Ragland, John Masterson, C. R. Belcher

Agronomy Notes

Results of an experiment conducted in 1968 at Princeton, Kentucky on low phosphate soil showed that surface-applied phosphorus was sufficiently available to no-till corn to produce good yields. This experiment was repeated again in the 1969 growing season with the results well in line with those reported for 1968 in Agronomy Research (Misc. 377) pages 41-43.

Wheatbelt Trace Element Nutrition 1969, J W. Gartrell

Experimental Summaries - Plant Research

1. Rates of Copper and Zinc on Wheat. 2. Rates and Sources of Zinc on Wheat: 3..Zinc Spray Treatments on Wheat.

Safflower Production In The Western Part Of The Northern Great Plains, C. E. Classen

Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station: Historical Circulars

Recent development of new varieties with seeds averaging more than 30 per cent oil give safflower a good chance of becoming an important oil seed crop in the United States. It is the purpose of this circular to acquaint farmers with the crop and to outline the most promising production practices for those who undertake its production in the western part of the northern Great Plains.

Safflower Production In The Western Part Of The Northern Great Plains, C. E. Classen

Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station: Historical Circulars

Recent development of new varieties with seeds averaging more than 30 per cent oil give safflower a good chance of becoming an important oil seed crop in the United States. It is the purpose of this circular to acquaint farmers with the crop and to outline the most promising production practices for those who undertake its production in the western part of the northern Great Plains.

The Scottsbluff Pinto Bean, J. H. Jensen

Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station: Historical Circulars

Scottsbluff Pinto is the name of a new variety of pinto field bean being released this year by the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station. The new bean variety is a selection from a cross between Great Northern and the common pinto bean. In a bean-breeding program conducted for the past several years by the Department of Plant Pathology, attempts have been made to obtain improved varieties of both field and garden beans for Nebraska. Although the breeding program was primarily concerned with the development of disease-resistant varieties, it was observed that Scottsbluff Pinto, possessing no notable disease resistance, has been outstanding …

Cellar And Cold Storage Of Sound And Mechanically Damaged Triumph Seed Potatoes, H. O. Werner

Historical Research Bulletins of the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station

The object of these experiments was to determine with practically sound, whole potatoes the effect of cold storage during various portions of the storage period and continual cellar storage upon: (a) the weight losses during numerous intervals of storage period; (b) the condition of the potatoes at the end of the storage period in June; and (c) the relative seed value of the various lots of potatoes as determined by field experiments.

Seed Corn Treatments At The North Platte Substation, L. L. Zook, N. E. Jodon

Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station: Historical Circulars

For the past several years, much publicity has been given to the matter of seed corn treatments. Various commercial compounds have been widely and extravagantly advertised for general farm use as seed corn disinfectants. The effectiveness of many of these compounds in controlling certain seed-borne diseases has been demonstrated in some of the more humid areas of the corn belt. Very little is known of the distribution of these diseases and the extent to which they affect the germination and productiveness of seed corn in the drier or semiarid sections.

The Regional Adaptation Of Corn In Nebraska, T. A. Kiesselbach, F. D. Keim

Historical Research Bulletins of the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station

The purpose of this investigation was to determine some of the factors involved in the regional adaptation of corn. The procedure has been to make a comparative study of native corn types, known to be locally adapted to various regional areas in Nebraska through long growth there. The work has been confined to the single species group - Zea mays indentata. No one variety of a common source is grown throughout the state, and therefore it has been impossible to keep within a single variety. It would appear that the data should indicate morphological and histological plant characteristics involved …

Freezing Injury Of Seed Corn, T. A. Kiesselbach, J. A. Ratcliff

Historical Research Bulletins of the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station

The object of the investigations in this bulletin has been to determine the conditions under which freezing injury may occur to seed corn; to indicate, if possible, the vital changes in the embryo resulting in such injury; and to point out ways by which seed corn of strong vitality and satisfactory yielding capacity may be obtained.

Studies Concerning The Elimination Of Experimental Error In Comparative Crop Tests, T. A. Kiesselbach

Historical Research Bulletins of the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station

It is apparent that many sources of error have unconsciously entered into comparative crop yield tests. The very important matter of overcoming variation in soil conditions as a source of experimental error has been quite extensively studied and reported by various investigators during the past decade. The means suggested for reducing such error have been (1) repetition of plats and (2) correction of yields according to check plats planted to a uniform variety or treatment at stated intervals. Both methods have proved of value and a combination of both may often be used advantageously. Some danger always exists of error …