Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Applying Data Mining Techniques In The Selection Of Plant Traits, Dean Diepeveen, Leisa Armstrong

Leisa Armstrong

In the agricultural sector, farmers are provided with crop related information by various research agencies in order to make critical decisions about which is the most profitable crop variety choice. Research agencies provide information which is generic, rather than being tailored to the individual farmers cropping situation. A number of specific plant and growth traits are used to establish the most suitable crop varieties. When selecting crop varieties for release to growers, the application of data mining techniques to crop research data enables the customization of information to each individual farmers farming situation. The challenge for agricultural research perspective is …

Agriculture Futures: Potential Rural Land Uses On The Palusplain, Rodney Safstrom, Nicolyn Short Dr

Resource management technical reports

The purpose of this project was to identify agricultural land use options and opportunities within the Serpentine–Jarrahdale and Murray Shires, with particular focus on the Palusplain wetland section. The report will contribute to the Department of Planning’s natural resource management plan for the region and guide development of regional and local planning strategies. Historically, the Palusplain was a slowly moving, interconnected, seasonal wetland system with areas of higher ground. Extensive clearing and drainage occurred in the late 1800s through to the mid-1900s to facilitate agriculture; however, agriculture has been found to be a major contributor of nutrients to the system. …

Ethanol From The Field To The Pump, Cameron Heiser

Natural Sciences Student Research Presentations

This poster describes the use of dry mill and wet mill processes to produce ethanol.

Phosphorus Mass Balance For Hypertrophic Grand Lake St. Marys, Ohio, Astrea Taylor

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

A phosphorus (P) budget was created for Grand Lake St Marys (GLSM), a hypertrophic lake in Ohio with a highly agricultural watershed. Inputs totaled 71,200 ± 8,400 kg P, with tributaries contributing the majority of P inputs at 60,100 ± 4,500 kg P (84%). Other inputs included benthic flux at 9% (internal loading), point-source discharges into streams at 5%, and atmospheric deposition at 1%. Rainfall in 2011 was greater than average, which may affect results when comparing this P budget to years with average rainfall. Transport of P by two rivers draining GLSM was approximately three times greater than benthic …

The Management Of Feral Pig Socio-Ecological Systems In Far North Queensland, Australia, Gabriela Shuster

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The development of management programs for socio-ecological systems that include multiple stakeholders is a complex process and requires careful evaluation and planning. This is particularly a challenge in the presence of intractable conflict. The feral pig (Sus scrofa) in Australia is part of one such socio-ecological system. There is a large and heterogeneous group of stakeholders interested in pig management. Pigs have diverse effects on wildlife and plant ecology, economic, health, and social sectors. This study used the feral pig management system as a vehicle to examine intractable conflict in socio-ecological systems. The purpose of the study was …

A Landscape Approach To Late Prehistoric Settlement And Subsistence Patterns In The Mojave Sink, Tiffany Ann Thomas

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The environment of the Late Prehistoric period (1200 A.D. to Historic Contact) Mojave Sink was wetter than modern conditions. The settlement and subsistence patterns of the occupants of the region during this period were driven by the availability of water, subsistence resources, raw material sources, and tradition. These people utilized the regional landscape based upon the seasonal availability of these resources. Supplemental agricultural production has been proposed for the Mojave River Delta due to the more favorable environmental conditions of this period. If agriculture was being practiced it would have affected the regional land-use patterns. For this thesis I propose …

Do Wind Turbines Affect Weather Conditions?: A Case Study In Indiana, Meghan F. Henschen, Brittany Herrholtz, Lacey Rhudy, Kathryn Demchak, Brian Doogs, Joshua Holland, Erik Larson, Johnny Martin, Matthew Rudkin

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

Wind turbines are becoming increasingly widespread in the United States as the world looks for cleaner sources of energy. Scientists, policymakers, and citizens have strong opinions regarding the positive and negative effects of wind energy projects, and there is a great deal of misinformation about wind energy circulating on the Web and other media sources. The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of how the rotation of hundreds of turbines can influence local weather conditions within a wind farm and in the surrounding areas. This experiment measures temperature, atmospheric pressure, wind speed, wind direction, relative humidity, …

Slides: Smart Fallowing: New Strategies In Ag Forbearance, Bonnie Colby

Navigating the Future of the Colorado River (Martz Summer Conference, June 8-10)

Presenter: Dr. Bonnie Colby, Department of Agriculture & Resource Economics, University of Arizona

34 slides

Filling The Gap: Commonsense Solutions For Meeting Front Range Water Needs: Executive Summary, Western Resource Advocates, Trout Unlimited, Colorado Environmental Coalition (U.S.)

Navigating the Future of the Colorado River (Martz Summer Conference, June 8-10)

8 pages.

"February 2011"

Presented by Drew Beckwith, Water Policy Manager, Western Resource Advocates, on June 10th at Clyde O. Martz Summer Conference 2011, Navigating the Future of the Colorado River Basin

Full report available at: http://www.westernresourceadvocates.org/gap

Materials For Presentation: The Disappearing Colorado River, Lawrence J. Macdonnell

Navigating the Future of the Colorado River (Martz Summer Conference, June 8-10)

7 pages.

"Western Economics Forum, Fall 2010"

Detecting Spatiotemporal Changes Of Corn Developmental Stages In The U.S. Corn Belt Using Modis Wdrvi Data, Toshihiro Sakamoto, Brian D. Wardlow, Anatoly A. Gitelson

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

The dates of crop developmental stages are important variables for many applications including assessment of the impact of abnormal weather on crop yield. Time-series 250-m vegetation-index (VI) data acquired from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) provide valuable information for monitoring the spatiotemporal changes of corn growth across large geographic areas. The goal of this study is to evaluate the performance of a new crop phenology detection method, namely, two-step filtering (TSF), for revealing the spatiotemporal pattern of specific corn developmental stages (early vegetative: V2.5; silking: R1; dent: R5; mature: R6) over an eight-year period (2001–2008) across Iowa, Illinois, and …

Farmers Motivations To Practice Sustainable Agriculture, Kimberly A. Floeser

Honors Theses

An increasing awareness of human and environmental health issues and the destruction of family farms and rural communities have caused a significant change in the way many farmers, consumers, and policy‐makers are thinking about and relating to food, the results of which can be seen largely in the growth of the organic and sustainable food industry. This paper attempts to examine and explain farmers’ attitudes towards sustainable agriculture, and their motivations to use sustainable methods of production. A survey was distributed to 533 farms that are members of the Northeast Organic Food Association of New York (NOFA‐NY). The data obtained …

Effects Of Global Climate Change On Nigerian Agriculture: An Empirical Analysis, Apata T. .G

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the effects of global warming on Nigerian agriculture and estimation of the determinants of adaptation to climate change. Data used for this study are from both secondary and primary sources. The set of secondary sources of data helped to examine the coverage of the three scenarios (1971-1980; 1981-1990 and 1991-2000). The primary data set consists of 900 respondents’ but only 850 cases were useful. This study analyzed determinants of farm-level climate adaptation measures using a Multinomial choice and stochastic-simulation model to investigate the effects of rapid climatic change on grain production and the …

Go Farm, Goleta: Urban Agriculture Protection For Eastern Goleta Valley, Eli M. Krispi

Master's Theses

This paper explores two potential land use planning strategies that can be used to preserve and enhance the economic viability of agricultural operations surrounded by suburban development in Santa Barbara County’s Eastern Goleta Valley: buffers between agriculture and other land uses, and agritourism. In the case of buffers, academic literature is examined to determine how effective buffers are at various tasks (filtering runoff, mitigating dust and wind, providing habitat, etc.) and how to construct buffers to maximize their effectiveness. Land use plans and codes from several California jurisdictions are studied to see how buffers are put to use. Academic literature …

Public Policy, Long Run Growth And Economic Transition From Agriculture To Industrial Mass Production., Rudrani Bhattacharya Dr.

Doctoral Theses

It has been recognized that the heart of the development process lies on the transformation of an economy from traditional activities in agriculture to industrial activities. As emphasized by Lewis (1954), the movement of labor from primary sector to industry is conducive to the rise of economy’s savings and investment rate and thus fostering economic growth. The core of this paradigm is the historically observed rapid growth in today’s developed countries associated with expansion of industrial activities.It is well-documented by now that at least over a few centuries leading up to 1800 AD there was little change in the world …

Characteristics Of Kentucky’S Nursery And Greenhouse Industries, Dewayne L. Ingram, Winston Dunwell, Alan Hodges

Agriculture and Natural Resources Publications

The nursery and greenhouse industry, distributed throughout Kentucky, is diverse and contributes significantly to the local and state economy. This industry represents the largest segment of Kentucky’s sales of horticultural products and is comprised almost completely of farm families. Nursery and greenhouse crops are produced and marketed in containers or grown in the field and dug and sold as balled and burlapped or bare root plants. Most of Kentucky’s nursery and greenhouse crops are marketed in Kentucky and surrounding states.

Stability, Sustainability, And Catastrophe: Applying Resilience Thinking To U.S. Agriculture, Gigi M. Berardi, Rebekah Paci-Green, Bryant Hammond

Environmental Studies Faculty and Staff Publications

Resilience is closely related to notions of sustainability, but emphasizes unpredictable, dynamic environments. As conceptualized in engineering, hazards management, and ecology literature, part of resilience is adaptive capacity, the ability to react effectively to change over time in order to maintain a desirable system state. Agricultural policy has had the effect of undermining such adaptive capacity with its emphasis on stabilization. Using a resilience framework and Hurricane Katrina as an analogy, we suggest that the emphasis on stability and efficiency degrades agricultural system resilience in two ways: through reduced diversity in size and type of production, as well …

Land Change Variability And Human–Environment Dynamics In The United States Great Plains, Mark A. Drummond, Roger F. Auch, Krista A. Karstensen, Kristi L. Sayler, Janis L. Taylor, Thomas Loveland

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Land use and land cover changes have complex linkages to climate variability and change, biophysical resources, and socioeconomic driving forces. To assess these land change dynamics and their causes in the Great Plains, we compare and contrast contemporary changes across 16 ecoregions using Landsat satellite data and statistical analysis. Large-area change analysis of agricultural regions is often hampered by change detection error and the tendency for land conversions to occur at the local-scale. To facilitate a regional-scale analysis, a statistical sampling design of randomly selected 10 km × 10 km blocks is used to efficiently identify the types and rates …

Overcoming The Obstacles To Sustainability In Ghana, Ashley M. Scott

CMC Senior Theses

For several decades following its independence from Great Britain, Ghana’s policies continued to promote over-extraction of natural resources to the detriment of its economy and rural communities. Agricultural and forestry policy has gradually evolved to foster more sustainable and equitable practices, as in building partnerships with the private sector to fund infrastructure improvements. Policy has recently recognized the dire need to adopt agricultural practices and means of forest resource extraction that are compatible with ecological stewardship. However, many shortcomings are still apparent. Large logging operations completely disregard forestry regulations with impunity, whereas rural sustenance extractors are severely punished in the …

Subsurface Compaction A Guide For Wa Farmers And Consultants, Stephen Davies, Alison Lacey

Bulletins 4000 -

For plants to grow in agricultural soils, roots and emerging shoots must be able to force their way through the soil. In soils of high strength, this growth is physically restricted. High strength soils may be due to natural soil characteristics and conditions or develop as a result of agricultural practices and may be in layers or throughout the soil profile.

In agriculture, high strength soils commonly occur as a result of compaction. Compaction of agricultural soils can be in the surface (often caused by stock trampling or rain drop splatter) or in the subsurface (usually in a layer at …

Agenda: 2010 World Energy Justice Conference: Emerging Solutions For The Energy Poor: Technological, Entrepreneurial And Institutional Challenges, University Of Colorado Boulder. Center For Energy & Environmental Security, Colorado Journal Of International Environmental Law And Policy

2010 World Energy Justice Conference (November 5)

This conference is a sequel to the 2009 World Energy Justice Conference (WEJC 2009) which began examining ways of mainstreaming safe, clean, and efficient energy for the world's Energy Poor (EP). The EP number two and a half billion people living on less than $1-2 a day who have no access to modern energy services. WEJC 2010 more fully develops these themes. WEJC 2010 will explore how the next round of global warming meetings in Cancun could design new flexibility mechanisms that give credits, for example, for the reduction of black carbon by the adoption of cookstoves, and embrace small …

Foodshed Foundations: Law's Role In Shaping Our Food System's Future, Margaret Sova Mccabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

[. . .] This symposium Article analyzes how we can rethink the architecture of law based on a foodshed model to provide a greater role for local, state, and regional government in the American food system. In turn, greater roles for different levels of government may help America achieve greater efficiencies in domestic food safety, nutrition and related public health issues, sustainability, and international trade.

Americans need a greater voice in the food system. The foodshed model is a powerful vehicle that allows us to conceptualize change, allowing greater citizen participation and a more nuanced approach to food policy. The …

Smith, Charles F., 1954-1972 (Sc 2341), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2341. Entry of Charles F. "Chuck" Smith for a Future Farmers of America Foundation, Inc. Proficiency Award in Soil, Water and Air Management. Includes a note from Smith's chapter advisor on his death in a traffic accident.

The Homestead: Revisited, Christopher William Kramer

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

This paper discusses ideas for harmony on 100 acres in mid-eastern New York. Problems leading to this research include the depletion of resources from irresponsible energy use and profit-driven industrial agriculture; dependency on fossil fuels and centralized energy; and lack of connection between people within communities, with their environment, and with sources of food and water. It is feared that sustainable, resilience building practices that nourished generations throughout history are being neglected. This specific application provides depth and concreteness to the discussion and planning process. Resources including books, maps, reports, and periodicals were integrated to select the site and plan …

Random Forests Applied As A Soil Spatial Predictive Model In Arid Utah, Alexander Knell Stum

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Initial soil surveys are incomplete for large tracts of public land in the western USA. Digital soil mapping offers a quantitative approach as an alternative to traditional soil mapping. I sought to predict soil classes across an arid to semiarid watershed of western Utah by applying random forests (RF) and using environmental covariates derived from Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) and digital elevation models (DEM). Random forests are similar to classification and regression trees (CART). However, RF is doubly random. Many (e.g., 500) weak trees are grown (trained) independently because each tree is trained with a new randomly …

Evapotranspiration Of Kentucky Bluegrass, Lynda L. Fenton

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Rapid population growth in arid regions of the western US is placing increased demand on water resources. Variability in precipitation and common occurrence of drought have promoted scrutiny of water use in urban lawns and gardens. However, few reliable measurements of water use of these landscapes exist. Quantifying the amount of water used vs. required by landscapes such as turfgrass would allow significant water conservation. Evapotranspiration (ET) is affected by biophysical factors such as: available energy, turbulent mixing, saturation deficit, soil water, and stomatal conductance. In order to simulate the water use by turfgrass, the relative importance of these processes …

Cellulosic Ethanol: The Benifits, Obstacles, And Implications For Nebraska, Cassidee Lin Thompson

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

Abstract Ethanol is a biofuel that has unique capabilities to mitigate global climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions while simultaneously supporting rural economies and decreasing the United States’ dependence on foreign oil. Currently, the state of Nebraska depends on corn ethanol, which may be unsustainable. Cellulosic ethanol is a promising alternative but it is not without its problems, including high production costs and potential environmental damage. This thesis is an attempt to understand the benefits, downfalls, and processes of corn-based and cellulosic ethanol and the potential implications to Nebraska. This research should shed some light on the current obstacles …

An Artesian Well System In Beaver Crossing, Nebraska- It's Development And Demise, Mary Lanik

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

ABSTRACT

Nebraska has a veritable wealth of groundwater. The High Plains Aquifer underlies most of the state, and within its sand and gravel deposits, many interconnected aquifers provide fresh water for a variety of uses.

One of the most spectacular examples of this resource is the artesian well. Beaver Crossing, Nebraska was once home to one of the most prolific artesian systems in the state before its demise. Founded in the 1880’s, Beaver Crossing soon became known for its many artesian wells, that provided leisure activities and supported profitable business ventures such as small farming, ice production and aquiculture. Eventually …

Interview With Bernard Smith, Full Of Life Farms, 2010 (Audio), Bernard Smith

All Sustainability History Project Oral Histories

Interview of Bernard Smith by Kyle Dykstra on February 28th, 2010.

The interview index is available for download.

Colorado River Water: Mexico's Perspective On The Ongoing Negotiations, Mario López Pérez

US-Mexico Negotiations on Improved Colorado River Management: An Update (February 19)

Presenter: Mario López, Engineering and Technical Standards Manager, National Water Commission of México

53 slides