Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Mapped Karst Groundwater Basins In The Hopkinsville 30 X 60 Minute Quadrangle, James C. Currens, Joseph A. Ray, Phillip W. O'Dell, Robert J. Blair

Map and Chart--KGS

No abstract provided.

Dynamic Surface Water-Groundwater Exchange In Tidal Freshwater Zones: Insights From The Christina River Basin (Delaware, Usa), Cole T. Musial

Theses and Dissertations--Earth and Environmental Sciences

In coastal rivers, tides can propagate for tens to hundreds of kilometers inland beyond the saltwater line. Yet the influence of tides on river-aquifer connectivity and solute transport in tidal freshwater zones (TFZs) is largely unknown. We estimate that along the TFZ of White Clay Creek (Delaware, USA), more than 17% of river water exchanges through hyporheic and riparian storage zones due to tidal pumping alone. Additional hyporheic processes such as flow through bedforms likely contribute even more exchange. The turnover length associated with the tidal pumping process is 39 km, similar to turnover lengths for all hyporheic exchange processes …

Soil Management And Nitrogen Dynamics In Burley Tobacco Rotations, Congming Zou

Theses and Dissertations--Plant and Soil Sciences

Agronomic practices, including tillage, crop rotation and N fertilization, have been developed to efficiently manage soil N dynamics and crop N nutrition. These practices can affect soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil total nitrogen (STN) sequestration, and consequently influence soil nitrogen mineralization (SNM) and crop N nutrition. However, little research has been systematically and simultaneously conducted to examine the effect of agronomic management on (1) SOC and STN stocks; (2) SNM; and (3) crop N nutrition. Burley tobacco (Nicotiana tobacum L.) is a N demanding crop and subject to inefficiency in N fertilization. Moreover, conservation tillage and rotation have been …

Wastelands Of The Mind: The Identity Crisis Of India’S Savanna Grasslands, Abi Tamim Vanak

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

The idea that wastelands are unproductive continues to be pervasive and is used by various agencies to gain control over marginal landscapes and remake them for productive purposes with dire results.

Subsurface Geological Analyses Of The Berea Petroleum System In Eastern Kentucky, Julie Floyd

Theses and Dissertations--Earth and Environmental Sciences

The Berea Sandstone is a Late Devonian, tight oil and gas reservoir that intertongues with the Bedford Shale in eastern Kentucky. In order to evaluate the Bedford-Berea interval in the subsurface, 555 well logs from the Kentucky Geological Survey’s oil and gas database were used to construct structure maps, isopach maps, and cross sections of the interval and its possible hydrocarbon source rocks. Gamma-ray logs were compared to known cores in order to separate Bedford from Berea lithologies. Maps and cross sections were compared to known basement structures to evaluate possible structural influences on the interval.

The Bedford-Berea interval is …

Fluvial Responses To Growth Faulting In The West Pearl River, Louisiana, Stephen A. Prosser

Theses and Dissertations--Earth and Environmental Sciences

The Pearl River Delta (PRD) in southeastern Louisiana is an actively deforming deltaic complex displaying surface and near-surface evidence of growth faulting. Active growth faults in these environments are rarely identified at the surface, in part because the downthrown blocks often experience increased rates of sediment deposition leading to an obscured and low-relief, or entirely absent, surface expression. Faulting can be expressed in fluvial systems as changes in channel gradient, which often result in coincident changes in channel sinuosity, migration rates, planform deflections, and/or ponding features within the deformed zone. The study area is focused on a meander bend of …

Stakeholders Integration For Sustainable Use Of Temperate Forage/Livestock Agriculture, Garry D. Lacefield, Don Ball

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

Forage/livestock production is complex, and best management options are often site-specific, but some concepts have broad application. The intent of this article is to provide an overview of research-based management approaches that the authors believe are necessary to ensure the sustainability of forage/livestock farms. This overview discussion is needed because livestock agriculture is changing, thus creating both challenges and opportunities for producers. In the last 30 years, beef numbers in the USA have declined by 20%, but production per cow has more than doubled, resulting in increased total production on less land with fewer animals. Similar statistics exist for the …

Participatory And Holistic Approaches With Grassland Farmers And Development Of Policies, Alain Peeters

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

The world is changing rapidly. Grassland farmers and ruminant livestock breeders will have to adapt to these changing environmental, social and economic conditions. Research can help them at the condition that linear ‘top-down’ technology transfer methods are abandoned for the benefit of participatory and holistic approaches. These approaches classified in the generic term of ‘Farming System Research’ consider farmers as real research partners, and they merge farmer’s and scientist’s ideas with those of other stakeholder types. They combine scientist’s and farmer’s knowledge for creating fast innovations, easily adopted by farmers since farmers themselves contribute to their design and their development. …

Using Various Lactic Acid Bacteria Strains During Forage Conservation Towards Fermentation, Storage, Nutritive Value And Safety Improvement, Jonas Jatkauskas, Vilma Vrotniakiene

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

Many research efforts have been devoted to find ways how to produce silages with maximum nutritive value, good fermentation and low mould and yeast counts. While there are different objectives in using silage additives, the main objectives are to improve fermentation and reduce dry matter loss, and to prevent secondary fermentation at feed out time. This paper presents our most significant and recent investigations on forage inoculation before ensiling that have a potential for beneficial application on grassland and ruminant nutrition.

Traditional Livestock Production And Growth Opportunities In India, S. M. Deb

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

Livestock and animal health development projects need to be based on an understanding of livestock production systems because different systems need different approaches particularly in view of degradation of environment combined with population pressure. In India, the livestock production system is primarily traditional, consisting of mixed-farming and pastoral systems, therefore, development of marginal and smallholder mixed farms must aim at intensification of the total production system. Resource-poor farming systems may aim at the improved management of the various livestock species in backyards. Pastoral systems must focus on effective management of grazing pressure. Community pasture management involves application of technologies, land …

Problems And Prospects Of Grassland Development: Policy Issues, S. Ray Smith

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

There are a range of government and non-government policies that affect grassland development around the world. The objective of this paper is to provide examples of successful policies which have been instrumental in the preservation and maintenance of grasslands and to highlight policies which have resulted in negative consequences. This paper will not attempt to provide a complete overview of policies, but instead will provide examples from representative countries. Policies which affect grasslands can be classified into two broad categories: government policies that cover comprehensive landscape issues like the Grassland Household Contract System (GHCS) in China or the Federal Land …

Climate-Smart Brachiaria For Improving Livestock Production In East Africa: Emerging Opportunities, Sita R. Ghimire, Donald M. G. Njarui, Mupenzi Mutimura, Juan A. Cardoso, Linda Johnson, Elias M. Gichangi, Suliana Teasdale, Kennedy Odokonyero, John Caradus, Idupulapati M. Rao, Appolinaire Djikeng

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

Brachiaria grass is an important tropical forage of African origin with desirable attributes of agricultural and environmental significance. Brachiaria has been extensively cultivated as a pasture across the tropics except in its endemic provenance of Africa. In 2013, a collaborative research program was initiated in Kenya and Rwanda with the aim of improving the availability of quality livestock feeds adapted to drought and low fertility soils using Brachiaria. The outcomes sought were increased livestock productivity leading to improved farmer income and the development of seed production opportunities. The program has identified five preferred cultivars, and four of them are currently …

Tropical Grassland Ecosystems And Climate Change, C. R. Babu, Vivek Kr. Choudhary, Vijay Kumar

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

Grasses are unique group of flowering plants that form the foundation for the trophic structure in terrestrial communities. The grasses are found in every conceivable habitat where plants can thrive – from sea to deserts and from wetlands to peaks of highest mountains. The grasses form a distinct biome – a major ecological formation in the global classification of vegetation.

Emission Of Green House Gases From Grasslands And Their Mitigation, Prem N. Sharma, Shyam Khadka

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

The concentrations of green house gases (GHG) in the atmosphere began in pre-industrial times and it continues to increase. This could result into an alarming increase in temperature of up to 5.4 ^oC by year 2100 due to a net global annual GHG emission of H 4.5-6.5 Gt C equivalent. About 18% of the world’s GHG are contributed by livestock and related activities on grasslands that are spread over almost 35 million Km².These grasslands give livelihood to over a billion people most of who are poor. Twenty to 70% of the land surface area is degrading often …

Importance Of Livestock Production From Grasslands For National And Local Food And Nutritional Security In Developing Countries, Iain A. Wright

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

Grazing lands cover more than a quarter of the world’s land surface, often on land that is unsuitable for other forms of use. Despite the perception that productivity is inherently low, the contribution of grasslands in food security in developing countries is significant. However the challenges of spatial and temporal variability of primary productivity need to be managed and mobility of livestock is key to this. Appropriate land management and governance arrangements are essential for facilitating this mobility and for creating the circumstances in which technical options for reducing variability and risk in livestock keeping can be deployed and to …

Production, Persistence And Diversity Of Species In Temperate Grasslands, Meredith L. Mitchell, Brendan P. Christy

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

Temperate grassland areas are considered to be semi-arid, with rainfall typically between 250 and 500 mm, much of it occurring in the late spring and early summer. Grazing plays an important role in all these grasslands with impacts on diversity and persistence. Against this assumption that seasonal productivity would be more uniform within a pasture that was diverse, the research suggested that species rich pastures were less stable, because this species richness was composed of non-perennial, volunteer and weed species. This paper explores the concept that systems diversity of temperate grassland does not always equate to production. In these systems …

Ecologically And Socially Sustainable Livestock Development In Marginal Areas, Ilse Köhler-Rollefson

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

“Marginal areas” are perceived as difficult and unproductive landscapes, always under the threat of drought, desertification and poverty. Yet, both dryland and high altitude marginal areas have an extraordinary output of livestock products; in the efficiency of producing human-edible protein they far surpass more fertile areas. This productivity under adverse climatic conditions rests on sophisticated strategies and social institutions developed by pastoral communities to deal with variability in the availability of resources. It depends on the use of animal genetic resources that are adapted to make best use of local vegetation and can cope with seasonal variations in availability. Livestock …

Recent Trends In Breeding Of Tropical Grass And Forage Species, J. S. Sandhu, Dinesh Kumar, Vijay Kumar Yadav, Tejveer Singh, R. P. Sah, Auji Radhakrishna

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

Germplasm enrichment in major tropical grasses and their characterization for emerging environmental challenges have been major focussed area in the recent past. Breeding efforts in tropical grasses are still limited to few selected species viz. Panicum spp, Cenchrus spp, Pennisetum spp and Bracharia spp and all other grasses use of land races for varietal development through selection have been major source of improvement. The pace of breeding efforts in the tropical grasses have been slowed because of many inherent characteristics viz. apomixis, poor seed set, high photo and thermo sensitivity often creating problem in designing and implementing an effective breeding …

Three Is Company: Fixing The Grazing-Land Business Conundrum, Ralph Von Kaufmann

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

Grazing-lands have the largest footprint on the world’s land surface area but this is not reflected in the amount of business conducted on them. The most common land use systems are very land intensive, i.e., they use a lot of land to produce not very much and few jobs. The health of the planet depends on having healthy grazing-lands but there is a perfect storm brewing in which the demand from expanding pastoral communities for more food and jobs cannot be met just by applying good grazing-land management practices. Compatible businesses must be found that can create jobs without increasing …

Grassland Resources And Protections In The Yellow River Source Zone On The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Xilai Li, Gary J. Brierley, Youming Qiao, George L. W. Perry, Jay King Gao

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

This paper summarises resources and protections of the Yellow River Source Zone on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. A concerted effort has been made to address concerns for overgrazing on the alpine steppe and alpine meadow landscapes in the source zone of the Yellow River. An assessment of the impacts of overgrazing includes consideration of the role of small mammals (on the one hand they are considered as a critical ecosystem engineer, on the other they are perceived as a major threatening pest). Analyzed in this paper are management options in the restoration of degraded grasslands.

Quality Seed Production And Effective Marketing Systems For Development Of Grasslands, M. Philip Rolston

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

Seed quality is defined as (i) maintaining genetic purity using seed certification principles (generation system; isolation; previous cropping history); (ii) achieving high levels of physical purity (especially low weed seed levels) by in field weed control and seed cleaning; (iii) achieving high levels of seed germination at harvest and maintaining germination through the seed supply chain. Seed production systems must not only produce high quality seed but also achieve economic seed yields. Seed crops have to be profitable (by being high yielding) to justify the investment of time and input costs to achieve quality. This in turn requires supporting research …

Livestock And Local Development: Going To A New Humananimal Relationship, Jean François Tourrand, Laurent Dobremez, Benoit Dedieu, Guillaume Duteurtre, M. G. Piketty, P. Lescoat, B. Hubert

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

Along the past ten years, the French National Agency for Research (ANR) has financed projects regarding livestock. Results of five projects were gathered to understand the long-term livestock trends. At the end of the 19th century, animal breeding was oriented towards the production of goods to meet the local, regional, national and global demand, according to the zone. The market gradually became the key-factor to norm both production and consumption. It is now integrating environmental norms and is starting to invest in the social domain. However, this economical vision of animal production does not take into account the other functions …

Breeding Strategies To Improve Fodder Legumes With Special Emphasis On Clover And Medics, Ajoy K. Roy, D. R. Malaviya, P. Kaushal

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

In India, Forage has a unique integration of agriculture and animal industry in diversified rich cultural environment. Greater part of rural economy in India relies much upon mixed farming system, a well-knit combination of crop production and livestock rearing. In India, grazing-based livestock husbandry plays an important role in the rural economy as around 50% of animals depend on grazing. Pasturelands over an area of 12 Mha constitute the main grazing resources that are available. Nearly 30 pastoral communities in hilly or arid/semi-arid regions in northern and western parts of India, depend on grazing-based livestock production. Nomadic pastoralism, a traditional …

New Methodologies For Grasslands Monitoring, Katarzyna Dabrowska-Zielinska, Piotr Goliński, Marit Jorgensen, Jørgen Mølmann, Gregory Taff, Monika Tomaszewska, Barbara Golińska, Maria Budzynska, Martyna Gatkowska

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

Monitoring grassland areas to assess changes in their condition over time has been the subject of a lot of research at different scales. Initially the techniques focused on field-based measurements, and modelling. However, several obtained data were site specific. Based on the increase in availability of remote sensing data and products, there is an expectation that remote sensing can provide rapid and definite answers to the challenges of detecting and monitoring grassland conditions and associated changes in productivity. At the time of European Copernicus Programme, the new possibilities of satellite data from the group of Sentinel satellites give the new …

Enhancing Grassland Productivity Through Disease Management Of Grass And Forage Species, Tingyu Duan, Chunjie Li, Yanzhong Li, Binhua Yu, Zhibiao Nan

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

The total area of grassland in China is about 400 million hectares, accounting for 41.7% of the country’s land area, which plays important role in ecological construction and food security assurance of the national. However, diseases of grass and forage limited the development of the pastoral agriculture. There are more than1500 new diseases were reported in the past 16 years with more and more new diseases were discovered. The damage to grassland is becoming more severe with the known diseases prevalent areas expanding.

Valuing Variability--New Perspectives On Climate Resilient Dryland Development, Saverio Kratli

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

Valuing Variability is a challenge to the view of the drylands as naturally vulnerable to food insecurity and poverty. It argues that improving agricultural productivity in dryland environments is possible by working with climatic uncertainty rather than seeking to control it – a view that runs contrary to decades of development practice in arid and semi-arid lands.

Conservation Of Grassland Plant Genetic Resources Through People Participation, D. R. Malaviya, Ajoy K. Roy, P. Kaushal

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

Agrobiodiversity provides the foundation of all food and feed production. Hence, need of the time is to collect, evaluate and utilize the biodiversity globally available. Indian sub-continent is one of the world’s mega centers of crop origins. India possesses 166 species of agri-horticultural crops and 324 species of wild relatives. India is reported to have five grass covers identified. There have been almost nil human interference in terms of selection pressure; hence, the biodiversity is well conserved in these grazing lands. There is need of a system approach to understanding biodiversity that moves significantly beyond taxonomy and species observations. In …

Livestock Production From Grasslands With Improved Management Compared To Traditional Management, Florian Leiber

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

The value of traditional versus improved management systems for grassland is discussed. The set target is the persistence of the ecological, economic and social multifunctionality of grasslands and the increase of food output from these areas without increasing parallel requirements for arable crop or energy inputs. Based on the fact that historically traditional systems were stable and sustainable in many cases, while severe damage is faced nowadays, it is argued that lot of improvement should be based on the acknowledgment of successful traditional practises. The challenge might rather be to define improvement as a contemporary development of traditional techniques. The …

Potential Of Forages In Crop Diversification And Crop Rotation, Martin H. Entz, Joanne Thiessen Martens

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

Redesign of agricultural systems according to ecological principles has been proposed for the development of sustainable systems. We review a wide variety of ecologically-based crop production practices that focus on forage crops in farming systems and discuss their potential role in enhancing the profitability, environmental sustainability and resilience. Crop-livestock systems that most closely mimic natural systems through appropriate integration of diverse components appear to offer the greatest potential benefits. These systems are more energy efficient and combine high productivity with low ecological footprint. Greater understanding of ecological relationships within crop-livestock systems are required to purposefully and proactively redesign agricultural systems …

Evergraze: A Partnership Between Researchers, Farmers And Advisors To Deliver Effective Grassland Management, Warwick B. Badgery, Kate Sargeant, Michael A. Friend, Scott Glyde, Paul Sanford, Ralph Behrendt, Meredith L. Mitchell, Sean Murphy, Angela Avery

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

The profitable and sustainable management of livestock production from grassland systems is challenging and it can be difficult to develop a research structure that addresses farmer’s needs and has acceptable rigour and on-ground impact. This paper describes the attributes of research, development and extension (RD&E) programs that are required for a successful partnership between researchers, farmers and advisors. Insights are provided from the EverGraze program that designed, tested and implemented farming systems based on perennial pastures across southern Australia. With this project farmers and advisors were involved in setting research direction, designing experiments, providing strategic guidance over the management of …