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 …

A Novel Insect And Pest Identification Model Based On A Weighted Multipath Convolutional Neural Network And Generative Adversarial Network, Vinita Abhishek Gupta, M.V. Padmavati, Ravi R. Saxena, Raunak Kumar Tamrakar

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

Timely identification of insects and their management play a significant role in sustainable agriculture development. The proposed hybrid model integrates a weighted multipath convolutional neural network and generative adversarial network to identify insects efficiently. To address the shortcomings of single-path networks, this novel model takes input from numerous iterations of the same image to learn more specific features. To avoid redundancy produced due to multipath, weights have been assigned to each path. For Xie2 dataset, the model shows 3.75%, 2.74%, 1.54%, 1.76%, 1.76%, 2.74 %, and 2.14% performance improvement from AlexNet, ResNet50, ResNet101, GoogleNet, VGG-16, VGG-19, and simple CNN respectively. …

Water Recommendations For Vegetables, Sheriden M. Hansen, Taun Beddes, Burdette Barker, Ashley Butler

All Current Publications

Traditionally, we irrigate using overhead sprinklers and/or flood irrigation. However, these methods can be wasteful, and so a way to conserve and still have a healthy garden is to use drip irrigation. It can reduce water use by up to about 50%. This fact sheet reviews water recommendations for growing vegetables.

Effect Od Different Sources And Application Rates Of Sulfur On Corn And Soybean Production Systems In Louisiana, Diego Mayorga Valladares

LSU Master's Theses

Sulfur (S) is a structural component of amino acids such as cysteine and methionine and is involved in important functions within the plant like photosynthesis, carbon and nitrogen metabolism, protein synthesis of oils, and detoxification mechanisms. Sulfur deficiency in crops has intensified around the world. Some of the reasons are improvement in controlling SO₂ emissions from industries, growing usage of high analysis S-free fertilizers and augmented cropping intensity. Sulfur fertilization has become an important factor in crop production systems and fertilization guidelines for S need to be up-to-date to improve use efficiency and compensate for rising prices of fertilizers. …

Grass And Forage Improvement: Temperate Forages, Chris J. Pollock, M. T. Abberton, M. O. Humphreys

International Grassland Congress Proceedings

1. Plant breeding has contributed significantly to the development of effective grassland production systems.
2. New technologies offer enhanced precision in breeding and access to wider genetic variation.
3. The requirement for more sustainable production systems will require genetic improvements in complex traits where the use of new technology will be vital.

Improving The Quality Of Products From Grassland, Nigel D. Scollan, R. J. Dewhurst, A. P. Moloney, J. J. Murphy

International Grassland Congress Proceedings

1. Consumers are increasingly aware of the links between diet and health, and place increasing emphasis on nutritional quality as a component of product quality.
2. Meat and milk products are rich sources of nutrients such as omega-3 (n-3) fatty acids and conjugated linoleic acid, which offer health benefits to consumers.
3. Green plants are the primary source of n-3 fatty acids in the food chain.
4. Grassland production systems have the potential to enhance the content of beneficial fatty acids, improve stability (from higher antioxidant content) and alter sensory attributes of meat and milk.
5. Grassland offers considerable scope to help …

Rising Demand For Meat And Milk In Developing Countries: Implications For Grasslands-Based Livestock Production2, C. L. Delgado

International Grassland Congress Proceedings

1. Meat and milk consumption in developing countries has grown three times as fast as in developed countries over the past 30 years.
2. By 2020, developing countries will consume 72 million metric tons (mmt) more meat and 152 mmt more milk compared to 2002/3, dwarfing developed-country increases of 9 mmt for meat and 18 mmt for milk.
3. Ruminant livestock will account for 27% of the increase in global meat consumption between 2003 and 2020, up from 23% over the previous two decades.
4. The inflation-adjusted prices of livestock and feed grains are expected to fall only marginally by 2020, compared to precipitous …

Grassland In Ireland And The Uk, Myles Rath, S. Peel

International Grassland Congress Proceedings

1. Grassland is the dominant land use option in Ireland and the UK, and is characterised by a long growing season.
2. Dynamic, interactive systems of grassland management have been developed which combine high grass dry matter intakes with good sward quality. In the better grassland areas milk yields in excess of 7000 kg/cow are attainable with low levels of concentrate supplementation. In the times to come, measures to protect the environment will constrain stocking rates, and fertiliser and manure use on intensive grassland enterprises.
3. A high proportion of beef and sheep farms participate in voluntary, EU-funded agri- environmental schemes that promote …

How Herbivores Optimise Diet Quality And Intake In Heterogeneous Pastures, And The Consequences For Vegetation Dynamics, R. Baumont, Cécile Ginane, F. Garcia, P. Carrère

International Grassland Congress Proceedings

Understanding the interplay between foraging behaviour and vegetation dynamics in heterogeneous pasture is an essential requirement for evaluating the value of the resource for large herbivores and for managing that resource. The orientation of selective grazing behaviour between intake and diet quality depends on the spatial and temporal scales considered. In the short-term scale of a grazing sequence, there is evidence that large herbivores tend to optimise the intake rate of digestible materials by adaptation of their biting behaviour and by patch choice. On a day-to-day scale, there is evidence that large herbivores tend to prioritise the quality of the …

Land Use History And The Build-Up And Decline Of Species Richness In Scandinavian Semi-Natural Grasslands, O. Eriksson, S. A. O. Cousins, R. Lindborg

International Grassland Congress Proceedings

Scandinavian semi-natural grasslands have an exceptionally high small-scale species richness. In the past, these grasslands covered extensive areas but they have declined drastically during the last century. How species richness of semi-natural grasslands was built up during history, and how species respond to land use change, are discussed. The agricultural expansion from the late Iron Age was associated with increasing grassland extent and spatial predictability, resulting in accumulation of species at small spatial scales. Although few species directly depend on management, the specific composition of these grasslands is a product of haymaking and grazing. Grassland fragmentation initially has small effects …

Recreating Pastoralist Futures, T. J. P. Lynam

International Grassland Congress Proceedings

Research experience in southern Africa is used to reflect on key determinants of pastoral futures and how they might need to be addressed. The paper begins with a brief review of what we mean by marginality. A set of observations on key issues defining the option sets for pastoralism in the future is then presented. The first of these is that only a small number of structures or processes actually control the behaviour of social-ecological systems such as pastoralist systems. A second observation is that the future is so uncertain that there is a need to learn to design for …

Working Within Constraints: Managing African Savannas For Animal Production And Biodiversity, J. T. Du Toit

International Grassland Congress Proceedings

The mean density of livestock biomass on African rangelands now greatly exceeds that of indigenous large herbivores, although livestock cannot fully substitute for wildlife with respect to co-evolved ecosystem processes involving herbivory. The dominance of livestock in semi-arid rangelands is largely due to water provision, which uncouples livestock population dynamics from the rainfall-driven trajectories followed by indigenous ungulate species in wildlife areas. Ecological sustainability cannot be achieved with a few exotic species maintained at unprecedented biomass densities in savanna ecosystems, which are evolutionarily adapted for species-rich communities of ungulates of a wise range of sizes. Integrating wildlife and livestock in …

Challenges And Opportunities For Sustainable Rangeland Pastoral Systems In The Edwards Plateau Of Texas, J. W. Walker, J. L. Johnson, C. A. Taylor Jr.

International Grassland Congress Proceedings

This paper focuses on pastoral systems in an area of west-central Texas known as the Edwards Plateau. These rangelands have a combination of grass, forb and browse species and are used primarily for combinations of grazing by cattle, sheep, goats and wildlife. A major ecological challenge is woody plant encroachment. Stocking rate is the major factor affecting sustainability and historically this area was heavily grazed. Today the stocking rate is half or less of its historical peak. Species of livestock has shifted from predominantly small ruminant to cattle. About 70 % of pastoralists use some sort of rotational grazing system. …

Diversity And Variation In Nutritive Value Of Plants Growing On 2 Saline Sites In Southwestern Australia, H. C. Norman, R. A. Dynes, D. G. Masters

International Grassland Congress Proceedings

In south-western Australia 10% or 1.8 million ha of the farmed area is affected by dryland salinity and a further 6 million ha are at risk of salinity (NLWRA, 2001). Animal production from saltbush (Atriplex spp.)-based pasture systems represents the most likely large-scale opportunity for productive use of saline land in the short to medium term. Feeding saltbush-based pastures as a maintenance feed during the prolonged autumn feed gap typical in Mediterranean-type climates maximises their economic value. The aim of this study was to explore the diversity and nutritive value of plants that typically persist in saltbush-based saltland pastures.

The Long Road To Developing Native Herbaceous Summer Forage Legume Ecotypes, J. P. Muir, T. J. Butler, W. R. Ocumpaugh

International Grassland Congress Proceedings

Only a handful of well-adapted herbaceous summer forage legumes are currently marketed for drier regions of North America and even fewer are true natives. There is a growing demand for native germplasm in the region as a new generation of landowner attempts to return grasslands to a semblance of their original species and diversity. The objective of this paper is to describe preliminary research results of a grasslands team collecting, studying and promulgating native leguminous germplasm in Texas.

Selecting Grassland Species For Saline Environments, M. E. Rogers, A. D. Craig, T. D. Colmer, R. Munns, S. J. Hughes, P. M. Evans, P. G. H. Nichols, R. Snowball, D. Henry, J. Deretic, B. Dear, M. Ewing

International Grassland Congress Proceedings

In Australia, around 5.7 million hectares of agricultural land are currently affected by dryland salinity or at risk from shallow water tables and this figure is expected to increase over the next 50 years (LWRA, 2001). Most improved grassland species cannot tolerate the combined effects of salt and waterlogging and, therefore, the productivity of sown grasslands in salt-affected areas is low. However, there is potential to overcome the lack of suitably adapted fodder species by introducing new, salt and waterlogging-tolerant species and by diversifying the gene pool of proven species. Potential species include exotic, naturalised and native Australian grass, legumes, …

Mortality Model For A Perennial Grass In Australian Semi-Arid Wooded Grasslands Grazed By Sheep, K. C. Hodgkinson, W. J. Muller

International Grassland Congress Proceedings

No abstract provided.

Grazing Animal Production Systems And Grazing Land Characteristics In A Semi-Arid Region Of Greece, I. Hadjigeorgiou, G. Economou, D. Lolis, N. Moustakas, G. Zervas

International Grassland Congress Proceedings

Rough grazing in Greece cover about 40% of the total land area, is publicly owned and managed extensively (Hadjigeorgiou et al., 2002). The Prefecture of Larisa is in the centre of Greece, and has 212,000 ha of rough grazing land, with a variable topography ranging from sea level up to 3,000 m a.s.l. This area is utilized by a total population of 135,000 LU (mainly sheep, goats and some suckler cows), which consumes annually an appreciable fraction of their total nutrient requirements from rough grazing.

The Productivity Of Coastal Meadows In Finland, R. Nevalainen, S. Jaakola, A. Huuskonen, J. Kiljala, E. Joki-Tokola

International Grassland Congress Proceedings

The coastal meadows of Finland have gained a new interest as a summer pasture for cattle. These habitats have great historical, aesthetic and biological value (Pessa & Anttila, 2000). Typical features of the coastal meadows are the varying vegetation zones and wet, sometimes waterlogged, soils. The meadows are important nesting and feeding habitats for many water birds. When grazing ceases, reeds, trees and shrubs take over and the area loses its openness. Lately the amount of grasslands and pastures has drastically declined all over Europe. In Finland, the area of semi-natural biotopes has decreased to 1% of what it had …

Grass And Forage Plant Improvement In The Tropics And Sub-Tropics, Liana Jank, C. B. Do Valle, Rosangela M. S. Resende

International Grassland Congress Proceedings

1. The majority of tropical and subtropical forage grass genera and/or species have not yet been collected, or need further collection to be representative of their natural distribution.
2. New biotechnological techniques will only result in the release of superior forage cultivars if supported by strong breeding programs.
3. More funding and investment in the formation of strong public research teams in forage conservation and improvement are needed to guarantee the sustainability of tropical and subtropical pasture-based livestock systems in the future.
4. The creation of a permanent international working group on tropical and subtropical forages is essential to assist the International Plant Genetic …