Agricultural Science Commons^™

Summaries Of Arkansas Cotton Research 2013, Derrick M. Oosterhuis

Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station Research Series

No abstract provided.

B. R. Wells Arkansas Rice Research Studies 2013, R. J. Norman, K.A. K. Moldenhauer

Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station Research Series

No abstract provided.

Arkansas Wheat Cultivar Performance Tests 2013-2014, R. E. Mason, R. G. Miller, J. P. Kelley, E. A. Milus

Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station Research Series

Wheat cultivar performance tests are conducted each year in Arkansas by the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, Department of Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences. The tests provide information to companies developing cultivars and/or marketing seed within the state and aid the Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service in formulating cultivar recommendations for small-grain producers.

An Evaluation Of Watermelon (Citrullus Spp.) Germplasm For Additional Sources Of Resistance To The Twospotted Spider Mite (Tetranychus Urticae Koch)., Hector Cantu Jr.

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Fourteen U.S plant introduction (PI) accessions of C. lanatus var. lanatus (4), C. lanatus var. citroides (5) C. colocynthis (5) and a known susceptible commercial cultivar ‘Sugar Baby’ were evaluated for resistance to the twospotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae Koch, in a limited free-choice and free-choice bioassay under laboratory conditions. The limited free choice bioassay, involved nine Petri dish cages that held five randomly assigned leaves individually inoculated with two adult females and one adult male. Eggs, larva, and adults were counted over a nine day period. The free choice bioassay involved the even distribution of three mite infested …

Fall Seed Guide 2014, Teshome Regassa, P. Stephen Baenziger, Greg Kruger, Dipak Santra

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Crops include in this guide are winter wheat, winter barley, and triticale. You may receive this guide in the mail or through the University of Nebraska Extension network. The data and other information this guide is based on can be found at our web site: http://cropwatch.unl.edu/ varietytest/ and http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/ncia. Additional information is available at the wheat variety virtual tour web site http://cropwatch.unl.edu/wheat/virtual or the winter wheat variety selection tool page http://citnews.unl.edu/winter_wheat_tool/index.shtml.

Our rainfed plots in Keith County were lost to hail damage. Last season we had moist soil conditions at planting for the majority of the locations. There was good …

Selection On Crop-Derived Traits And Qtl In Sunflower (Helianthus Annuus) Crop-Wild Hybrids Under Water Stress, Birkin R. Owart, Jonathan Corbi, John M. Burke, Jennifer M. Dechaine

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Locally relevant conditions, such as water stress in irrigated agricultural regions, should be considered when assessing the risk of crop allele introgression into wild populations following hybridization. Although research in cultivars has suggested that domestication traits may reduce fecundity under water stress as compared to wild-like phenotypes, this has not been investigated in crop-wild hybrids. In this study, we examine phenotypic selection acting on, as well as the genetic architecture of vegetative, reproductive, and physiological characteristics in an experimental population of sunflower crop-wild hybrids grown under wild-like low water conditions. Crop-derived petiole length and head diameter were favored in low …

Coordinated And Distinct Functions Of Velvet Proteins In Fusarium Verticillioides, Nan Lan, Hanxing Zhang, Chengcheng Hu, Wenzhao Wang, Ana M. Calvo, Steven D. Harris, She Chen, Shaojie Li

Department of Plant Pathology: Faculty Publications

Velvet-domain-containing proteins are broadly distributed within the fungal kingdom. In the corn pathogen Fusarium verticillioides, previous studies showed that the velvet protein F. verticillioides VE1 (FvVE1) is critical for morphological development, colony hydrophobicity, toxin production, and pathogenicity. In this study, tandem affinity purification of FvVE1 revealed that FvVE1 can form a complex with the velvet proteins F. verticillioides VelB (FvVelB) and FvVelC. Phenotypic characterization of gene knockout mutants showed that, as in the case of FvVE1, FvVelB regulated conidial size, hyphal hydrophobicity, fumonisin production, and oxidant resistance, while FvVelC was dispensable for these biological processes. Comparative transcriptional analysis of …

A Genetic Algorithm-Based Feature Selection, Oluleye Babatunde, Leisa Armstrong, Jinsong Leng, Dean Diepeveen

Grain and Other Field Crops Research Articles

This article details the exploration and application of Genetic Algorithm (GA) for feature selection. Particularly a binary GA was used for dimensionality reduction to enhance the performance of the concerned classifiers. In this work, hundred (100) features were extracted from set of images found in the Flavia dataset (a publicly available dataset). The extracted features are Zernike Moments (ZM), Fourier Descriptors (FD), Lengendre Moments (LM), Hu 7 Moments (Hu7M), Texture Properties (TP) and Geometrical Properties (GP). The main contributions of this article are (1) detailed documentation of the GA Toolbox in MATLAB and (2) the development of a GA-based feature …

A Systematic Revision Of North American Tolypella A. Braun (Charophyceae, Charophyta), William Perez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Charophyta comprises the algal classes Mesostigmatophyceae, Chlorokybophyceae, Klebsormidiophyceae, Coleochaetophyceae and Zygnematophyceae and the land plants. However, the precise phylogenetic position of these algal classes with respect to land plants is unresolved as are the phylogenetic relationships among genera in Charophyceae (Characeae). Characeae contains two tribes with six genera: tribe Chareae (Chara, Lamprothamnium, Lychnothamnus and Nitellopsis) and tribe Nitelleae (Nitella and Tolypella). Tolypella was considered the third most species-rich genus but, in the most comprehensive taxonomic treatment of Characeae, 16 Tolypella species were consolidated into two species, T. nidifica and T. intricata in sections Rothia …

The Effect Of Increasing Rates Of Biochar On Corn Grown In Salinas Clay Loam, Joshua Fridlund

Agricultural Education and Communication

In order to sustain the ever growing global population, agriculture needs to not only increase yields but to increase yields in a way that is sustainable and is either environmentally neutral or has a positive effect on the environment. Biochar offers a solution to this challenge with numerous environmental benefits, as well as agricultural benefits (Lehman and Joseph 2009). The agricultural benefits of biochar have been well documented in tropical climates, with the benefits of biochar for other climates, such as temperate climates and Mediterranean climates, relatively unknown (Blackwell et. al. 2009). To determine the effect of biochar on agricultural …

Veggielution Community Farm Workday Leader And Farm Intern Training Manual, Sarah Wool

Agricultural Education and Communication

The purpose of this project was to write an updated and complete Workday Leader and Farm Intern training manual that could be used at Veggielution Community Farm. It could be presented as reference materials while participants are in the Workday Leader class or could be presented to Farm Interns to orient them on different jobs they might face while working on the farm. This manual provides general overview of many organic farming practices, as well as specific guidelines that Veggielution uses. It also focuses on leading volunteers to have effective workdays. It is hoped that this manual will be actively …

Soil Sampling In The City: Growing Green Infrastructure On Chicago's South Side

DePaul Magazine

Thanks to funding from a competitive U.S. Environmental Protection Agency People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3) $15,000 grant, DePaul students, professors and members of the Green Teen community group gathered to work on their yearlong soil testing project in a vacant lot on Chicago's South Side. The genesis of the project dated to a year earlier, when environmental science and studies faculty members Christie Klimas, assistant professor, and James Montgomery, associate professor, submitted their grant application outlining their vision to test the soil characteristics of several vacant lots, with the goal of determining what types of green infrastructure could thrive …

Grazing Method Effects On Forage Production, Utilization, And Animal Performance On Nebraska Sandhills Meadow, Miles D. Redden

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Mob grazing using ultrahigh stocking densities is promoted as a tool to increase the health and productivity of grasslands by increasing nutrient cycling and soil organic matter. Mob grazing can be defined as a strategy in which area available to grazing animals is restricted to achieve stocking densities of 200,000 kg/ha or greater. Objectives were to determine herbage production, utilization, and cattle weight gains among ultrahigh stocking density grazing and more conventional grazing methods on a Sandhills subirrigated meadow. Treatments included two replications of each of the following: four-pasture rotational grazing with two occupations per pasture in an 80-day grazing …

Synthesis Of The Effect Of Fire On Lesser Prairie‐Chickens, Eric Thacker, Dirac L. Twidwell Jr

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

In this synthesis, we reviewed the scientific literature pertaining to the effects of fire on lesser prairie‐chickens and their habitat. Overall, research is generally lacking that directly assesses relationships among fire, both as a regime and a discrete event, to its effect on lesser prairie‐chicken behavior and habitat value. Yet, research has quantified the effects of fire on vegetation throughout the distribution of the lesser prairie‐chicken, which has been linked to known metrics of habitat value and broad landscape‐level habitat requirements.

To summarize the literature, lesser prairie‐chickens require broad landscapes of fire‐dependent grass‐shrub vegetation. Changes in the eco‐evolutionary fire regime …

Farming: It's Not Just For Farmers Anymore, Jennifer Schmidt

Pomona Senior Theses

Agricultural education, originally the province of land grant institutions, has recently entered the liberal arts curriculum. This represents a profound shift from the origins of agricultural education, when it was intended primarily as vocational training for future farmers, and has important implications for the future of the American food system. The first chapter of this thesis addresses the history of agricultural education: what was it originally like, and why did it come to be heavily criticized in the late twentieth century? Formal agricultural education changed significantly in response to these criticisms, making it more environmentally sustainable and bringing it into …

Garlic Variety Trial 2014, Rebecca Brown, Noah Leclaire-Conway

University of Rhode Island Vegetable Production Research Reports

Based on the 2012-13 results, soft neck garlic is a viable crop for southern New England. The best varieties did as well as the best hard neck varieties. For both types of garlic approximately ¼ of the bulbs were culled because of insufficient size. The cause of the small bulbs is unclear; they may have been due to competition from the oats that failed to winter kill, or they may have been because the planting stock had not adapted to our conditions. Bulb rot is more of a problem with soft neck garlic, but appears to be controllable with careful …

Effect Of Sulfur Amendments On Yield And Quality In Alliums, Rebecca Brown, Noah Leclaire-Conway

University of Rhode Island Vegetable Production Research Reports

In conclusion, sulfur fertilization appears to offer little or no benefit for allium vegetables in Rhode Island. Variety differences were much greater than the fertility effects, and growers who are experiencing issues with yield and storage life are encouraged to consider switching to better varieties.

Leek Variety Trial 2014, Rebecca Brown, Noah Leclaire-Conway

University of Rhode Island Vegetable Production Research Reports

Megaton was an excellent performer for yield both years, with strong establishment and uniformly large leeks. DP-12-02 and Tadorna also did well both years; moderate yields are due to the smaller size of these leeks relative to Megaton. DP-12-02 is a very tall, thin, green leek that is well suited to bunching sales in late summer and early fall, but loses quality when harvested late. Tadorna and Autumn Giant were the most winter hardy, and were generally good performers except for a tendency to variable size and a high percentage of unmarketably small leeks. Rally was only tested in 2013 …

Onion Variety Trial 2014, Rebecca Brown, Noah Leclaire-Conway

University of Rhode Island Vegetable Production Research Reports

In 2012 we trialed 18 yellow storage onion varieties, three red onion varieties, and one sweet onion. The 2013 trial included 17 yellow storage onion varieties, 3 sweet yellow onion varieties, one sweet white variety, and 7 red onion varieties. The onion varieties were evaluated for yield, quality, storability, and suitability to plasticulture. All of the onions were started from seed in the greenhouse and transplanted into raised beds covered with plastic mulch. In 2012 transplanting took place on April 13 and beds were covered with conventional plastic mulch. In 2013 transplanting took place on April 30 and beds were …

An Overview Of Agroforestry, Andy Mason, Douglas Wallace, Richard Straight

Agroforestry Notes (USDA-NAC)

Agroforestry is a management system that combines agriculture and trees to address conservation needs and build more profitable and weather-resilient farms, ranches and communities. Agroforestry practices provide opportunities to integrate productivity and profitability with environmental stewardship resulting in healthy and sustainable agricultural systems that can be passed on to future generations.