Horticulture Commons^™

Wayne E. Sabbe Arkansas Soil Fertility Studies 2020, Nathan A. Slaton

Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station Research Series

Rapid technological changes in crop management and production require that the research efforts be presented in an expeditious manner. The contributions of soil fertility and fertilizers are major production factors in all Arkansas crops. The studies described within will allow producers to compare their practices with the university’s research efforts. Additionally, soil-test data and fertilizer sales are presented to allow comparisons among years, crops, and other areas within Arkansas.

Novel And Transgressive Salinity Tolerance In Recombinant Inbred Lines Of Rice Created By Physiological Coupling-Uncoupling And Network Rewiring Effects, Isaiah C.M. Pabuayon, Ai Kitazumi, Kevin R. Cushman, Rakesh Kumar Singh, Glenn B. Gregorio, Balpreet Dhatt, Masoud Zabet-Moghaddam, Harkamal Walia, Benildo G. De Los Reyes

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

The phenomenon of transgressive segregation, where a small minority of recombinants are outliers relative to the range of parental phenotypes, is commonly observed in plant breeding populations. While this phenomenon has been attributed to complementation and epistatic effects, the physiological and developmental synergism involved have not been fully illuminated by the QTL mapping approach alone, especially for stress adaptive traits involving highly complex interactions. By systems-level profiling of the IR29 × Pokkali recombinant inbred population of rice, we addressed the hypothesis that novel salinity tolerance phenotypes are created by reconfigured physiological networks due to positive or negative coupling-uncoupling of developmental …

Magnesium’S Impact On Cannabis Sativa ‘Baox’ And ‘Suver Haze’ Growth And Cannabinoid Production, Patrick Veazie, Paul Cockson, David Logan, Brian Whipker

Journal of Agricultural Hemp Research

Limited research exists on the fertility needs for industrial hemp (Cannabis sativa) and the impact of fertility on plant growth and cannabinoids. Optimizing floral production for cannabinoid production and especially cannabidiol (CBD) production, is an economic goal for growers. Magnesium (Mg) is an essential nutrient for plant growth and plays many key roles in plant growth and when deficient leads to suboptimal plant growth. Six Mg fertility rates (0.0, 12.5, 25.0, 50.0, 75.0, and 100.0 mg·L^-1) were evaluated to determine the optimal fertility for C. sativa on two High CBD-type cultivars ‘BaOx; and ‘Suver Haze’. Foliar …

Evaluation Of Soil Moisture Sensing Technologies In Silt Loam And Loamy Sand Soils: Assessment Of Performance, Temperature Sensitivity, And Site- And Sensor-Specific Calibration Functions, K. Sharma, Sibel Irmak, M. S. Kukal, M. C. Vuran, Amit J. Jhala, Xia Qiao

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Reliable soil moisture information is vital for optimal irrigation management, farm-level agronomic decision-making, hydrologic studies, and cropping systems modeling. A wide range of soil moisture sensing technologies is commercially available, but their performance must be evaluated for diverse conditions of use. In this research, we investigated nine soil moisture sensors based on time-domain reflectometry, capacitance, and electrical resistance principles in production field conditions with two installation orientations, i.e., vertical (V) and horizontal (H), in two soils (silt loam and loamy sand) and two growing seasons (2017 and 2018). Performance parameters deduced from the 2017 datasets revealed that sensor type and …

Abrasive Weeding As A Vehicle For Precision Fertilizer Management In Organic Vegetable Production, Tran Kim Ngan Luong, Frank Forcella, Sharon A. Clay, Michael S. Douglass, Sam E. Wortman

Agronomy, Horticulture and Plant Science Faculty Publications

Abrasive weeding is a nonchemical weed control tactic that uses small, gritty materials propelled with compressed air to destroy weed seedlings. Organic fertilizers have been used successfully as abrasive grits to control weeds, but the goal for this study was to explore the effects of fertilizer grit, application rates, and background soil fertility on weeds, plant available nitrogen (N) uptake, and crop yield. Field trials were conducted in organic ‘Carmen’ sweet red pepper (Capsicum annuum) and organic ‘Gypsy’ broccoli (Brassica oleracea var. italica) and treatments included organic fertilizer grit (8N–0.9P–3.3K vs. 3N–3.1P–3.3K), grit application rates (low …

Nebline, February 2021

NEBLINE Newsletter Archive from Nebraska Extension in Lancaster County

Staying active in winter

Nebraska Extension’s Physical Activity Resources

At-Home Workout: No Equipment Needed

Recipe of the Month

2021 Flower All-America Selections Winners

Garden Guide Things to Do This Month

ProHort Lawn & Landscape Update

Know Your Bugs Before You Treat: Bed vs. Bat

More Than Counting: Incorporating Math Into Daily Interactions With Preschoolers

Pesticide Applicator Trainings

Total Coliform Bacteria in Drinking Water

HEART OF 4-H Volunteer Award, Laura Cook

Meet 2020–2021 4-H Teen Council

4-H Club Gives Youth With Special Needs Opportunity to Show Lambs

Pick-A-Pig Club Accepting New Members

Companion Animal Webinar Series

4-H Rabbit Show, March 20 …

Corn Residue Baling And Grazing Impacts On Corn Yield Under Irrigated Conservation Tillage Systems, Sabrina J. Ruis, Charles Burr, Humberto Blanco-Canqui, Brian Olson, Mark Reiman, Daran Rudnick, Johnna Baller, Kathryn J. Hanford

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Crop residue grazing or baling is common in the western Corn Belt. However, its impacts on subsequent crop yields under different irrigation levels and tillage systems are unclear. We investigated the impacts of corn (Zea mays L.) residue baling and cattle grazing on soil compaction, water content, and corn yield under full and limited irrigated no-till in Nebraska during three years. In Years 2 and 3, an additional tillage treatment (strip till) was implemented to evaluate its effects on grain yield under the above treatments. Residue removal effects on compaction and water content did not vary with irrigation level. …

Seedextractor: An Open-Source Gui For Seed Image Analysis, Feiyu Zhu, Puneet Paul, Waseem Hussain, Kyle Wallman, Balpreet K. Dhatt, Jaspreet Sandhu, Larissa Irvin, Gota Morota, Hongfeng Yu, Harkamal Walia

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Accurate measurement of seed size parameters is essential for both breeding efforts aimed at enhancing yields and basic research focused on discovering genetic components that regulate seed size. To address this need, we have developed an open source graphical user interface (GUI) software, SeedExtractor that determines seed size and shape (including area, perimeter, length, width, circularity, and centroid), and seed color with capability to process a large number of images in a time-efficient manner. In this context, our application takes 2 s for analyzing an image, i.e., significantly less compared to the other tools. As this software is open-source, it …

Loci Discovery, Network-Guided Approach, And Genomic Prediction For Drought Tolerance Index In A Multi-Parent Advanced Generation Intercross (Magic) Cowpea Population, Waltram Ravelombola, Ainong Shi, Boa-Lam Huynh

Horticulture Faculty Publications and Presentations

Cowpea is a nutrient-dense legume that significantly contributes to the population’s diet in sub-Saharan Africa and other regions of the world. Improving cowpea cultivars to be more resilient to abiotic stress such as drought would be of great importance. The use of a multi-parent advanced generation intercross (MAGIC) population has been shown to be efficient in increasing the frequency of rare alleles that could be associated with important agricultural traits. In addition, drought tolerance index has been reported to be a reliable parameter for assessing crop tolerance to water-deficit conditions. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to evaluate the …

Aphid Endosymbiont Facilitates Virus Transmission By Modulating The Volatile Profile Of Host Plants, Xiao-Bin Shi, Shuo Yan, Chi Zhang, Li-Min Zheng, Zhan-Hong Zhang, Shu-E Sun, Yang Gao, Xin-Qiu Tan, De-Yong Zhang, Xuguo Zhou

Entomology Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Most plant viruses rely on vectors for their transmission and spread. One of the outstanding biological questions concerning the vector-pathogen-symbiont multi-trophic interactions is the potential involvement of vector symbionts in the virus transmission process. Here, we used a multi-factorial system containing a non-persistent plant virus, cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), its primary vector, green peach aphid, Myzus persicae, and the obligate endosymbiont, Buchnera aphidicola to explore this uncharted territory.

RESULTS: Based on our preliminary research, we hypothesized that aphid endosymbiont B. aphidicola can facilitate CMV transmission by modulating plant volatile profiles. Gene expression analyses demonstrated that CMV infection reduced …

Landscape Performance Of Ebony Crepe Myrtle Cultivars In Low-Input Landscapes In North-Central Texas, Derald A. Harp, Kevin Chretien, Mariah Brown, Curtis Jones, Jose Lopez

Faculty Publications

The Ebony series of crepe myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica) cultivars includes several (Ebony Embers, Ebony Fire, Ebony Flame, Ebony Glow, and Ebony and Ivory), marketed today under the Black Diamond® brand. These are relatively new crepe myrtle cultivars unique for their dark foliage, but with little information concerning their performance in north-central Texas, especially in low-input landscapes. The study was conducted from 2014 to 2017 at three locations in north-central Texas with three soil types, an acidic fine sandy loam, a neutral pH silt loam, and an alkaline heavy clay. Although soils and environmental conditions caused variations between sites, …

Soil Properties Limiting Vegetation Establishment Along Roadsides, Shad D. Mills, Martha Mamo, Sabrina J. Ruis, Humberto Blanco-Canqui, Walter Schacht, Tala Awada, Xu Li, Pamela Sutton

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Roadside vegetation provides a multitude of ecosystem services, including pollutant remediation, runoff reduction, wildlife habitat, and aesthetic scenery. Establishment of permanent vegetation along paved roads after construction can be challenging, particularly within 1 m of the pavement. Adverse soil conditions could be one of the leading factors limiting roadside vegetation growth. In this study, we assessed soil physical and chemical properties along a transect perpendicular to the road at six microtopographic positions (road edge, shoulder, side slope, ditch, backslope, and field edge) along two highway segments near Beaver Crossing and Sargent, NE. At the Beaver Crossing site, Na concentration was …

Comprehensive Analysis Of Nac Transcription Factor Family Uncovers Drought And Salinity Stress Response In Pearl Millet (Pennisetum Glaucum), Ambika Dudhate, Harshraj Shinde, Pei Yu, Daisuke Tsugama, Shashi Kumar Gupta, Shenkui Liu, Tetsuo Takano

Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) is a cereal crop that possesses the ability to withstand drought, salinity and high temperature stresses. The NAC [NAM (No Apical Meristem), ATAF1 (Arabidopsis thaliana Activation Factor 1), and CUC2 (Cup-shaped Cotyledon)] transcription factor family is one of the largest transcription factor families in plants. NAC family members are known to regulate plant growth and abiotic stress response. Currently, no reports are available on the functions of the NAC family in pearl millet.

RESULTS: Our genome-wide analysis found 151 NAC transcription factor genes (PgNACs) in the pearl millet genome. Thirty-eight …

Intervention Of Climate‐Smart Practices In Wheat Under Rice‐ Wheat Cropping System In Nepal, Jamma Jaya Gairhe, Mandeep Adhikari, Deepak Ghimire, Arun Kjatri-Chhetri, Dinesh Panday

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Besides a proper agronomic management followed by Nepalese farmers, wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) production has been severely affected by changing climate. There are many interventions, including climate‐smart practices, to cope with this situation and possibly enhance crop and soil productivity. Field experiments were set up in a randomized complete block design with six treatments (TRT) with four replications in three locations (LOC) during wheat‐growing seasons in Nepal from 2014 to 2016. Treatments included (i) Controlled Practice (CP), (ii) Improved Low (IL), (iii) Improved High (IH), (iv) Climate Smart Agriculture Low (CSAL), (v) Climate Smart Agriculture Medium (CSAM), and (vi) Climate …

A Bumper Crop Of Snps In Soybean Through High-Density Genotyping-By-Sequencing (Hd-Gbs), Davoud Torkamaneh, Jerome Laroche, Brian Boyle, David L. Hyten, Fancois Belzile

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Evaluation Of Bell Pepper Cultivars With And Without Resistance To Bacterial Leaf Spot And Phytophthora, West Central Minnesota, Nathan Dalman, Steve Poppe

Midwest Vegetable Trial Reports

Bacterial leaf spot (BLS) and Phytophthora (PHY) diseases are a common problem for Minnesota bell pepper producers and if not detected and treated early enough, these diseases can kill the plants. There are cultivars that have resistance to these particular diseases but these cultivars must maintain yields similar to traditional cultivars in order to be desired by producers and buyers. Our goal was to determine any differences in performance between cultivars with and without resistance. Yield, fruit size and number of fruit per plant were the evaluated characteristics.

Wine Terroir And The Soil Bacteria: An Amplicon Sequencing-Based Assessment Of The Barossa Valley And Its Sub-Regions, Jia Zhou, Timothy R. Cavagnaro, Roberta De Bei, Tiffanie M. Nelson, John R. Stephen, Andrew Metcalfe, Matthew Gilliham, James Breen, Cassandra Collins, Carlos M. Rodríguez López

Horticulture Faculty Publications

A wines’ terroir, represented as wine traits with regional distinctiveness, is a reflection of both the biophysical and human-driven conditions in which the grapes were grown and wine made. Soil is an important factor contributing to the uniqueness of a wine produced by vines grown in specific conditions. Here, we evaluated the impact of environmental variables on the soil bacteria of 22 Barossa Valley vineyard sites based on the 16S rRNA gene hypervariable region 4. In this study, we report that both dispersal isolation by geographic distance and environmental heterogeneity (soil plant-available P content, elevation, rainfall, temperature, spacing between row …

No-Till Sweet Corn After Winter Rye Cover Crop, Northern Indiana, 2020, Elizabeth Maynard

Midwest Vegetable Trial Reports

No-till planting of sweet corn into a killed winter rye cover crop is not a widely used practice in Indiana, but has potential to provide soil health benefits such as reduced compaction, improved soil waterholding capacity, reduced evaporation from soil surface, in addition to other benefits. This paper reports on a project to develop a workable system at a university research farm that can be used for demonstration and in future research to better understand and improve production practices. The trial included two methods for killing rye in no-till systems: herbicide and roller-crimping either before or after seeding. An early …

Chile Pepper Variety Evaluation At Four Sites Across Minnesota And Wisconsin, 2020, Charlie Rohwer, Natalie Hoidal, Cala Farm, Agua Gorda Farm Cooperative, Jarl's Produce

Midwest Vegetable Trial Reports

Latinx fresh market vegetable farmers in Minnesota face numerous barriers to market access. Many Latinx farmers live in rural communities where farmers market sales are low, and opportunities for wholesale are limited. The growers who make up Shared Ground Farmers’ Cooperative have developed an innovative cooperative marketing system to aggregate produce and sell it in Twin Cities markets, but many of the individual farmers involved also wish to find ways to keep the produce they grow in their own communities. This project emerged through a series of discussions about finding niche markets for culturally relevant crops in small-town Mexican restaurants …

Genome-Wide Discovery Of Natural Variation In Pre-Mrna Splicing And Prioritising Causal Alternative Splicing To Salt Stress Response In Rice, Huihui Yu, Qian Du, Malachy Campbell, Bin Yu, Harkamal Walia, Chi Zhang

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Pre-mRNA splicing is an essential step for the regulation of gene expression. In order to specifically capture splicing variants in plants for genome-wide association studies (GWAS), we developed a software tool to quantify and visualise Variations of Splicing in Population (VASP). VASP can quantify splicing variants from short-read RNA-seq datasets and discover genotype-specific splicing (GSS) events, which can be used to prioritise causal pre-mRNA splicing events in GWAS. We applied our method to an RNA-seq dataset with 328 samples from 82 genotypes from a rice diversity panel exposed to optimal and saline growing conditions. In total, 764 significant GSS events …