Horticulture Commons^™

Performance Of 18 Fresh Market And Eight Saladette Tomato Cultivars In Southwest Michigan In 2019, Ron G. Goldy

Midwest Vegetable Trial Reports

It was again a difficult year for growing tomatoes at the Southwest Michigan Research and Extension Center. Rain shortly after field planting induced early bacterial disease infection, leading to defoliation and decreased fruit quality. The best performers in the fresh market trial were Red Snapper, Camaro, Saybrook, Jolene, and Myrtle. It was difficult to get good separation in the saladette trial. No entries rose above the others.

Evaluation Of Transplant Root Length On Bell Pepper Yield And Quality, Ron G. Goldy

Midwest Vegetable Trial Reports

Allowing bell pepper transplants to develop a taproot system was detrimental to early plant growth. However, it did not have a significant detrimental effect on most fruit yield and quality parameters measured, and by final harvest, plants of all three root length treatments had similar above ground plant weights.

Performance Of 10 Slicing Cucumbers In Southwest Michigan, Ron G. Goldy

Midwest Vegetable Trial Reports

Fruit quality and yield were lower than in previous Southwest Michigan Research and Extension Center slicing cucumber trials. This may primarily be to lower bee activity affecting pollination, fruit set and fruit shape. However, from this trial Bristol, SVCS0927, LS 75-1011, Darlington, and Perfect 10 deserve consideration for further commercial planting in Southwest Michigan.

Comparison Of Morphological Traits In Cowpea Pod Length, Seed Number Per Pod, Seed Weight, Seed Color And Seed Density In Usda Germplasm Accessions And Arkansas Breeding Lines, Sora Imamura

Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

The objective of the study was to compare and correlate the Arkansas cowpea breeding lines to the USDA cowpea germplasm accessions on the following morphological traits: seed color, pod length, number of seeds per pod, 100 seed weight, and seed density. The seed density is defined as the weight of seed in gram per centimeter of pod length. Three hundred seventeen cowpea genotypes were used in this experiment. Out of the 317, 285 germplasm accessions were from the USDA GRIN and 32 lines were from the Arkansas breeding program.

T-test between Arkansas breeding lines and USDA germplasm accessions were done …

Cover Crops As An Integrated Approach For Pest Suppression And Pollinator Promotion In Arkansas Watermelon Production Systems, Paige Laurel Hickman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Arkansas watermelon growers face a variety of insect pest and disease problems that have the potential to threaten yield. Integrated pest management tactics can provide control over these threats and are intended to cut down on pesticide use and its associated negative impacts like pesticide resistance, non-target effects, and runoff. Cover crops provide an array of benefits and can be useful in integrated pest management. Evidence has shown that certain cover crops can increase beneficial insects and suppress disease in the following cash crop. They can also provide important resources to pollinators. In order to build a better understanding of …

Effects Of Different Water And Nitrogen Regimens On Yield Of Winter Wheat Produced In Nebraska, Joseph Emory Davis

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

Wheat is the 3rd most prominent crop in the United States and approximately 50% is exported annually. Nebraska wheat production is 11^th in the country, and it plays a major role in the state's agricultural economy, especially in western Nebraska. Generally, wheat is grown under dryland conditions and the region grows much more wheat on unirrigated land than it does on irrigated. However, deficit irrigation has shown great value in producing high yielding wheat with much less water than needed for other crops. Finding new ways to leverage irrigation in wheat production may help address the need to produce …

A Survey Of Soil Properties Affecting Vegetation Establishment Along Nebraska Highways, Shad D. Mills

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

Vegetation along roadsides is important to prevent soil erosion, provide habitat and filter water running off the road. Along some highways in Nebraska vegetation does not readily establish and persist. It is thought that sodium and bulk density issues are the driving factor behind the lack of vegetation. After a construction project, the shoulder is seeded into the compacted soil, and salts can accumulate in the soil due to deicing agents being used during the winter. The purpose of our study was to determine if the bulk density and sodium are the driving factors of the vegetation cover. We also …

Evaluation Of Detached Strawberry Leaves For Anthracnose Disease Severity Using Image Analysis And Visual Ratings, Melinda A. Miller-Butler, Barbara J. Smith, Kenneth J. Curry, Eugene K. Blythe

Faculty Publications

Inoculation of detached strawberry leaves with Colletotrichum species may provide an accurate, rapid, nondestructive method of identifying anthracnose-resistant germplasm. The purpose of this study was to statistically compare two methods (visual and image analysis) of evaluating disease severity of strawberry germplasm screened for anthracnose resistance. Detached leaves of 77 susceptible and resistant strawberry clones were inoculated with one Colletotrichum gloeosporioides (Penz.) Penz. & Sacc. and two C. fragariae A. N. Brooks isolates. Anthracnose disease symptoms on each leaf were assessed quantitatively via computer-based image analysis to determine percentage lesion area and qualitatively by two independent raters using a visual disease …

Methods To Evaluate Ruminant Animal Production Responses, Jose Manuel Diaz Gomez

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In experiment 1, 80 steers (197.0 kg initial body weight; BW for fall, 116.9 kg for spring), were stocked at 2.45 and 4.1 calves/ha in fall and spring, respectively in 16 tall fescue pastures [fall ergovaline (EV) = 1,475 ppb and spring EV = 1,173 ppb] under 2 treatments, mineral (MIN) (n = 8) and cumulative management (CM) (n = 8). Forage allowance did not differ (P = 0.76) between CM and MIN during fall but differed during spring (P ≤ 0.05, 2.55 vs. 3.22 kg DM/kg BW, for MIN and CM, respectively). For fall, average daily gain (ADG) resulted …

Evaluation Of Pheromone Mating Disruption For California Red Scale Control In Commercial California Citrus, Joel Timothy Leonard

Master's Theses

California red scale (CRS), Aonidella aurantii, is an increasingly injurious insect pest for the California citrus industry due to insecticide resistance, changing weather patterns, and shifting trade regulations. The presence of the insect on fruit, damages the rind of the fruit and high populations can cause dieback of branches as well as lower yields. Pheromone mating disruption of CRS has the potential to alleviate population control concerns and reduce insecticide use. The efficacy of the pheromone mating disruption technique for pest management of CRS was determined using the products CheckMate® CRS and Semios CRS Plus. CheckMate® CRS was evaluated …

Determining Water Requirements In Turfgrass Systems, Tyler Quinn Carr

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Turfgrass lawns are commonly utilized for home and commercial applications because of the aesthetic, environmental, and recreational benefits grasses provide, but many people perceive turfgrass as solely an aesthetic benefit that requires significant water inputs. It is important to identify and use turfgrass cultivars that have known drought tolerance, and also fine-tune and throughout development. A series of field experiments were conducted to determine the water requirements of turfgrass lawn systems with the following objectives: 1) investigate differences in chronic drought resistance and irrigation recommendations among cultivars of Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.) and tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) 2) …

Integration Of Cover Crops Into Midwest Corn-Soybean Cropping Systems And Potential For Weed Suppression, Joshua S. Wehrbein

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

Cover crops have potential to provide benefits to agricultural systems, such as improved soil productivity, nutrient scavenging, weed suppression, and livestock forage. There are several challenges associated with cover crop integration into traditional Midwest corn-soybean cropping systems. One of these challenges is timely establishment in the fall, which is limited by the relatively late harvest of corn and soybean. Cover crop effectiveness is related to the amount of biomass produced, thus maximizing the growth period in the fall is desired. To address this challenge, we evaluated the potential to utilize early-season soybean maturity groups (MGs) to allow for earlier soybean …

Benchmarking On-Farm Maize Nitrogen Balance In The Western U. S. Corn Belt, Fatima Amor Tenorio

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

A nitrogen (N) balance, calculated as the difference between N inputs and grain-N removal, provides an estimate of the potential N losses. We used N balance with other N-related metrics (partial factor productivity for N inputs, and yield-scaled N balance), to benchmark maize yields in relation with N input use in the US Corn Belt. We first used experimental data on grain-N concentration (GNC) to assess variation in this parameter due to biophysical and management factors. Subsequently, we used N balance and N-related metrics to benchmark yields in relation with N inputs in irrigated and rainfed fields in Nebraska using …

Critical Time For Weed Removal In Corn (Zea Mays L.) As Influenced By Pre Herbicides, Ayse Nur Ulusoy

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

A weed control program that utilizes PRE herbicides and ensures a timely post-emergence weed removal could protect growth and yield of corn. The use of pre-emergence (PRE) herbicides for weed control could reduce the need for multiple POST applications of glyphosate in glyphosate-tolerant (GT) corn and provide an additional mode of action for combating glyphosate-resistant weeds. Thus, field studies were conducted in 2017 and 2018 at Concord, NE with the following objectives develop weed management recommendations that considers soil applied herbicides and determine proper timing of glyphosate based on the crop growth stage.

Therefore the material in this thesis is …

Arkansas Soybean Performance Tests 2019, J. F. Carlin, R. D. Bond, J. A. Still

Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station Research Series

Soybean variety and strain performance tests are conducted each year in Arkansas by the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s Arkansas Crop Variety Improvement Program. The tests provide information to companies developing varieties and/or marketing seed within the State, and aid the Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service in formulating variety recommendations for soybean producers.

Arkansas Soybean Research Studies 2018, Jeremy Ross

Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station Research Series

Arkansas is the leading soybean-producing state in the mid-southern United States. Arkansas ranked 11th in soybean production in 2018 when compared to the other soybean-producing states in the U.S. The state represents 3.7% of the total U.S. soybean production and 3.7% of the total acres planted in soybean in 2018. The 2018 state soybean average was 50.5 bushels per acre, half a bushel lower than the state record set in 2017. The top five soybean-producing counties in 2018 were Mississippi, Desha, Phillips, Arkansas, and Poinsett Counties (Table 1). These five counties accounted for 33.7% of soybean production in Arkansas in …

Genetic Resistance To The Downy Mildew Pathogen And Mapping The Rpf Resistance Loci In Spinach, Gehendra Bhattarai

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Spinach (Spinacia oleracea) is an important cool-season leafy vegetable crop in the United States (US). Downy mildew, caused by the obligate oomycete Peronospora effusa, is the most economically important disease of spinach. A total of 17 races of P. effusa have been reported on spinach, and many of these races (>10) have emerged in the last three decades. The new races of the pathogen are continually overcoming the genetic resistances used in the newly released cultivars.

A detached leaf inoculation assay was evaluated, standardized, and validated as a new method to differentiate resistant and susceptible spinach genotypes. Disease response …

Spring Black Rot-Resistant Cabbage Cultivar Evaluation, Chris Smigell, John Strang, John Snyder

Midwest Vegetable Trial Reports

Fourteen green fresh-market cabbage cultivars were evaluated at the University of Kentucky horticultural farm in Lexington in a replicated trial to evaluate their performance in Central Kentucky. Cultivars were listed in seed catalogs as having black rot (Xanthomonas campestris) resistance or tolerance. Cultivars were grown on bare soil following University of Kentucky recommendations to commercial cabbage growers. Plants were not inoculated with X. campestris, and Badge SC bactericide was applied once early in the season. ‘Lucky Ball’ was the top-performing early-season cultivar, being consistently tender, sweet to slightly sweet, and having little to no sulfur aftertaste. Its …

Impact Of Cover Crop Usage On Soilborne Diseases In Field Nursery Production, Sujan Dawadi, Fulya Baysal-Gurel, Karla M. Addesso, Jason B. Oliver, Terri Simmons

Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Faculty Research

Soilborne pathogens are a significant economic problem for nursery production in the Southeastern United States. The goal of this study was to determine the impact of cover crops on soilborne disease suppressiveness in such systems. Soils from red maple (Acer rubrum L.) plantation fields grown with and without cover crops were sampled, either while the cover crops were growing (pre-disked) or post-season, following cover crop incorporation into the soil (post-disked). Greenhouse bioassays were conducted using red maple seeds on inoculated (with Rhizoctonia solani (J.G. Kühn) or Phytophthora nicotianae (Breda de Haan)) and non-inoculated field soils. The damping-off, root rot disease …

Evaluation Of A Global Spring Wheat Panel For Stripe Rust: Resistance Loci Validation And Novel Resources Identification, Ibrahim Elbasyoni, Walid M. El-Orabey, Sabah Morsy, P. S. Baenziger, Zakaria Al Ajlouni4, Ismail M. Dweikat

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Stripe rust (incited by Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici) is airborne wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) disease with dynamic virulence evolution. Thus, anticipatory and continued screening in hotspot regions is crucial to identify new pathotypes and integrate new resistance resources to prevent potential disease epidemics. A global wheat panel consisting of 882 landraces and 912 improved accessions was evaluated in two locations in Egypt during 2016 and 2017. Five prevalent and aggressive pathotypes of stripe rust were used to inoculate the accessions during the two growing seasons and two locations under field conditions. The objectives were to evaluate the panel for …