Plant Sciences Commons^™

Patterns And Sources Of Variation In Heterospecific Pollen Deposition In Flowers Of The Native Blue Cardinal Flower (Lobelia Siphilitica), Allie Drinnon

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Plants species interactions via pollinators are a model system to understand the mechanisms that generate plant diversity in nature. However, most studies have focused on plant-plant interactions via pollinator attraction while ignoring the role of plant-plant interactions via pollen transfer. Heterospecific pollen transfer (henceforth HP) can be common and have negative fitness effects. Negative HP fitness effects may prompt the evolution of adaptive strategies to minimize them. However, the extent of spatial variation in HP load size within and among populations, a tenet for natural selection, remains unexplored. Such knowledge would hence constitute a first step in advancing our understanding …

Practical Improvements For Pivot And Surface Irrigation, Jonathan A. Holt

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Irrigation is critical to meeting global food and fiber demands. Optimizing agricultural irrigation may help sustain production levels, while reducing its demand for water. This research evaluated precision sprinklers and drip irrigation for pivots, five pivot track mitigation tools, three scientific irrigation scheduling (SIS) methods, sensors for surface irrigation cutoff, and automating surface systems to implement surge irrigation. With pivots and surface irrigation being the most common methods for irrigation in the West, small improvements from these tools could result in significant water savings.

Low energy precision application (LEPA) sprinklers and mobile drip irrigation (MDI) were tested on two pivots. …

Evapotranspiration And Energy Balance Of Irrigated Urban Turfgrass, Matthew D. Miksch

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Water usage for irrigation is a big consumer of water resources in urban areas in Utah and other parts of the Intermountain Region of the Western United States. As populations continue to increase in these states, it is important to understand how much water is being used by urban landscapes in order to plan and manage future water resources. Evapotranspiration (ET), or the amount of water leaving a surface over a certain timeframe due to both transpiration from plants and evaporation from the soil, is a key variable in understanding how much water urban landscapes are really using to grow …

Darwin Core Archive File, Stover-Ebinger Herbarium, Eastern Illinois University

Darwin Core Archive Download

ZIP file contains occurrences.csv, identivications.csv, and images.csv. The meta.xml document describes the content. Fields within the occurrences.csv file are defined by the Darwin Core exchange standard.

This file is updated as new occurrence records are added.

Stress: An Adaptive Problem Common To Plant And Animal Science, Özlem Yilmaz

Animal Sentience

It is very hard to determine whether plants have “felt states,” but they do have specific states, such as stress, that depend on sensory input from their environment. Plants do not have neurons or brains, but they do have xylem and phloem, as well as many signalling molecules that are dynamically distributed in their bodies, enabling them to produce systemic responses to environmental stimuli. One common topic in plant and animal science that may or may not prove to involve sentience but that does involve the same molecules is stress.

Plants Lack The Functional Neurotransmitters And Signaling Pathways Required For Sentience In Animals, David G. Robinson, Michael R. Blatt, Andreas Draguhn, Lincoln Taiz, Jon Mallatt

Animal Sentience

We cannot agree with Segundo-Ortin and Calvo that plants are sentient organisms. We have critically examined several aspects of their target article, and find their claims are not supported by the published evidence. We address these claims in sections on whether plants have a ‘neurobiology’ analogous to that of animal nervous systems, including neurotransmitters and synaptic receptors that respond to anesthetics; and whether plant signaling resembles neural transmission. For the latter, we especially consider the unique way plants signal their responses to wounding. Although the plant vascular system has been compared to the animal nervous system, animal blood vessels would …

Plant Sentience And The Case For Ethical Veganism, Josh Milburn

Animal Sentience

Does the possibility of plant sentience pose a problem for ethical veganism? It has not yet been demonstrated that plants are sentient (i.e., that they can feel). Moreover, even if it were demonstrated that plants could feel, it would also have to be demonstrated that they can feel the affectively “valenced” feelings that are ethically significant, such as pain and fear, rather than just neutral sensations such as darker/lighter, or wetter/drier. Finally, if plants could feel valenced feelings, veganism would likely still be the ethical option, on the principle of causing the least harm.

Physiological And Transcriptomic Responses Of Two Artemisia Californica Populations To Drought: Implications For Restoring Drought-Resilient Native Communities, Hagop S. Atamian Dr., Jennifer L. Funk

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

As climate change brings drier and more variable rainfall patterns to many arid and semi-arid regions, land managers must re-assemble appropriate plant communities for these conditions. Transcriptome sequencing can elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying plant responses to changing environmental conditions, potentially enhancing our ability to screen suitable genotypes and species for restoration. We examined physiological and morphological traits and transcriptome sequences of coastal and inland populations of California sagebrush (Artemisia californica), a critical shrub used to restore coastal sage scrub vegetation communities, grown under low and high rainfall environments. The populations are located approximately 36 km apart but …

Using Inaturalist.Org As An Oer Tool For Biology Students, Stephanie Harvey

All Things Open

With the rising cost of many educational platforms and textbooks, a tool that is freely available for use can help foster increased accessibility and equity. The citizen science organization iNaturalist.org provides just such a tool. As their website states “iNaturalist is an online social network of people sharing biodiversity information to help each other learn about nature.” For my students, it is an excellent tool to record their observations, collect the relevant locality data, help them identify their organisms, and collaborate with others in their field. In this presentation, I will discuss how iNaturalist can be used in field …

Plants Detect And Adapt, But Do Not Feel, Paul C. Struik

Animal Sentience

Plant sentience is a hot topic in scientific and popular media. There are moral reasons to respect both the service of plants to humanity and their natural integrity as creatures playing their own significant role in a complex ecosystem. However, to infer that plants have certain cognitive capacities that are present also in certain human and nonhuman animals calls for scientific rigor beyond mere analogy. The unique capacities of plants identified by Segundo-Ortin & Calvo are not necessarily linked to sentience. Nor is it likely that sentience is an evolutionary trait that is present to some extent in all living …

Leaf Area Index And Light Interception In African Violets (Streptocarpus Sect. Saintpaulia), Chintakunta Keerthi Reddy, Venkat Sai Chatla

Scholars Week

LEAF AREA INDEX AND LIGHT INTERCEPTION IN AFRICAN VIOLETS

(Streptocarpus sect. Saintpaulia)

ABSTRACT Chintakunta Keerthi Reddy, Venkat Sai Chatla Hutson School of Agriculture Mentor: Dr. Megan Taylor

African violets are a genus of six flowering plants from tropical eastern Africa, commonly known as Saintpaulias. They can thrive indoors in low light conditions and bloom all year round. They require less light than other blooming plants and can bloom during regular daylight hours in the US and Canada if given proper exposure. Several light intensities were used for the African violet (Streptocarpus sect. Saintpaulia) experiment, which showed a significant variation in …

Lai As Affected By Flashing-Light Interception With Corn And Soybeans, Josh W. Pohl, Jondavid Mcclanahan, Jake Eaker

Scholars Week

LAI as Affected by Flashing-Light Interception With

Corn (Zea mays) and Soybeans (Glycine max)

Corn (Zea mays) and Soybean (Glycine max) are both staple crops in global agriculture. With growing concern regarding food security and production, indoor cultivation of corn and soybean plants has become a question of interest. This study looks at the application of different lighting regimes for corn and soybeans and effects on development. Light that can be used by plants is called photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). PAR is the solar radiation range of energy that plants use for …

Soil Properties Associated With Land Management Practices In Western Kentucky, Ava Isaacs, Gracey Moffitt

Scholars Week

Soil Properties Associated with Land Management Practices in Western Kentucky

1. A. Isaacs, G. Moffitt, W. Sides, and Corey Hale

Mentor: Dr. I.P. Handayani

Hutson School of Agriculture, Murray State University, Kentucky, USA

Abstract

One of the most important factors regarding soil and plant health is nutrient availability and fertility. Of these two factors that were mentioned available potassium is a key component. With that being said we decided that it would be beneficial to see how potassium can be traced within the soil in various locations after fertilizer is applied. There were two parts to this experiment. Part one was …

Gene Discovery And Molecular Dissection Of Lignin Biosynthesis In Perennial Ryegrass (Lolium Perenne), A. Lidgett, M. Emmerling, R. Heath, R. Mcinnes, D. Lynch, A. Bartkowski, K. Fulgueras, T. Sawbridge, E. K. Ong, K. F. Smith, A. Mouradov, G. C. Spangenberg

International Grassland Congress Proceedings

Lignification of plant cell walls has been identified as a major factor limiting forage digestibility. It limits the amount of digestible energy available to livestock, resulting in an incomplete utilisation of cellulose and hemicellulose by ruminant animals. Modification of the lignin profile of ryegrasses (Lolium spp.) and fescues (Festuca spp.) is undertaken through modulating the expression of genes encoding enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of monolignols.

Identification Of Putative AtTt2 R2r3-Myb Transcription Factor Orthologues In Tanniferous Tissues Of L. Corniculatus Var. Japonicus Cv Gifu, D. N. Bryant, P. Bailey, P. Morris, Mark P. Robbins, C. Martin, T. Wang

International Grassland Congress Proceedings

R2R3-MYB plant transcription factors are sequence–specific DNA-binding proteins, which regulate the expression of specific gene(s) following the R2R3 DNA-binding domain interacting with the corresponding promoter sequence(s). The biosynthetic pathway leading to the production of anthocyanins has been demonstrated to be under MYB transcriptional regulatory control (Cone et al., 1986), while the accumulation of proanthocyanidins (PAs) in Arabidopsis seed coats is determined by the R2R3-MYB AtTT2 (Nesi et al., 2001). Using an informatics approach, partial sequences of putative AtTT2 orthologues have been identified and cloned from the forage legume Lotus corniculatus var. japonicus cv Gifu.

Native Seed Scoop, 2023 Spring Edition, University Of Northern Iowa. Tallgrass Prairie Center.

Native Seed Scoop

Contents:

Upcoming Events:
--- Native Seed Stakeholder Meeting – hosted by the TPC
--- Prairie Preview - hosted by Bur Oak Land Trust
--- National Native Seed Conference: Cultivating the Restoration Supply Chain
--- North American Prairie Conference
--- TPC’s Restoration and Land Management Seminar
What’s Your Scoop?
Online Resources for Native Seeds
CRP Signup
NASEM Report on Native Seed Supply
A Scoop of Science

Anemone Cut Flower Production In Utah, Shannon Rauter, Melanie Stock

All Current Publications

Anemone (Anemone coronaria) is grown as a cool-season annual for cut flower production in Utah. Tubers can be planted as early as November in a high tunnel for blooms beginning in March. For field production, plant in fall with insulation or as early as possible in spring (i.e., the soil is workable, approximately early March) for blooms beginning in May. Flower production ceases when temperatures reach approximately 80°F, usually by early July in northern Utah. In North Logan, UT, high tunnels produced an average of 2 to 7 marketable stems per plant, compared to 1 to 4 stems …

Growing South Dakota (Spring 2023), College Of Agriculture, Food And Environmental Sciences

Growing South Dakota (Publication of the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences)

[Page] 3 Developing Climate-Smart Beef and Bison Commodities
[Page] 5 Joseph Cassady Leads CAFES as New Dean
[Page] 7 Inaugural Class of Klingbeil Scholars
[Page] 9 Jackrabbits to Future Veterinarians
[Page] 11 Protecting South Dakota’s Grasslands
[Page] 13 Growing Youth Programs
[Page] 15 Partnerships for Positive Growth
[Page] 17 Building Highly Effective Boards
[Page] 19 SDSU Extension Podcasts
[Page] 21 Providing Good Food for All
[Page] 23 Improving Seed Varieties
[Page] 25 CAFES Endowed Positions
[Page] 29 Jackrabbits Now and Then

Ranunculus Cut Flower Production In Utah, Shannon Rauter, Melanie Stock

All Current Publications

Ranunculus (Ranunculus asiaticus) is grown as a cool-season annual for cut flower production in Utah. Tuberous roots can be planted as early as November in a high tunnel for blooms beginning in April. For field production, plant in November with insulation or as early as possible in spring for blooms beginning in May. Flower production ceases when temperatures reach approximately 80°F, usually by early July in northern Utah. In North Logan, UT, high tunnels produced an average of 3 to 7 marketable stems per plant, compared to 1 to 2 stems per plant in the field. Profit potential …

Foliar Expression Of Candidate Genes Involved In Condensed Tannin Biosynthesis In White Clover (Trifolium Repens), Stephen N. Panter, J. Simmonds, A. Winkworth, A. Mouradov, G. C. Spangenberg

International Grassland Congress Proceedings

Bloat disease in cattle and sheep is caused by the rapid microbial degradation of protein-rich fodder in the rumen. This leads to the production of protein foams that trap gases, causing bloat, a condition that is often fatal to livestock and costly to farmers. Condensed tannins (CTs) are phenolic polymers produced by the phenylpropanoid pathway of plants (Figure 1). CTs bind to proteins under acidic to neutral conditions, such as those present in the rumen, slowing their breakdown. A diet with a CT content of between 2% and 4% by dry weight, which is provided by some pasture legumes (e.g. …