The objective of the work was to study the changes in height and stem diameter of sunflower plants during growth stages under hardening conditions to drought tolerance. Field experiments were carried out during the spring season of 2000 and2001. Agricultural practices were made according to recommendations.Asplit-split plots design was used with three replications.The main plots included irrigation treatments:irrigation to100%(full irrigation),75and50%of available water.The sub plots were the cultivars Euroflor and Flame.The sub-sub plots represented four seed soaking treatments:Control(unsoaking), soaking in water ,Paclobutrazol solution(250ppm),and Pix solution(500ppm). The soaking continued for 24 hours then seeds were dried at room temperature until they regained their original weight. Amount of water for each irrigation were calculated to satisfy water depletion in soil using a neutron moisture meter. Results showed that stress 600 and 800Kp caused asignificant decreasing in plan height and stem diameter at most growth stages in both seasons and as a mean of seasons.The decrease in plant height at physiological maturation as a mean of seasons were 12.62 and 14.29%, and stem diameter 11.94 and 9.41%, respectively compared with full irrigation.Euroflor was superior over Flame in plant height at most growth stages during spring season of 2000, while Flame was superior in plant height at most growth stages during spring season of 2001 ,and in stem diameter after 30 days from planting.Soaking the seeds presowing in paclobutrazol and pix solutions decreased plant height at most growth stages in both seasons and as a mean of seasons. The decrease at physiological maturation as amean of seasons were 4.49 and 2.78%compared with unsoaked , and 5.27 and 3.57% compared with soaking in water, respectively.On the other hand,soaking in paclobutrazol and pix solutions increased stem diameter at physiological maturation by 9.78 and 12.18% compared with unsoaked as a mean of seasons. In conclusion, that it could reduce plant height and increase stem diameter to support the plants to drought tolerance by soaking the seeds presowing in water or plant growth regulator
Precision irrigation applications are used to optimize the use of water resources, by controlling plant water requirements through using different systems according to soil moisture and plant growth periods. In precision irrigation, different rates of irrigation water are applied to different places of the land in comparison with traditional irrigation methods. Thus the cost of irrigation water is reduced. As a result of the fact that precise irrigation can be used and applied in all irrigation systems, it spreads rapidly in all irrigation systems. The purpose of the Precision Agriculture Technology System (precision irrigation) , is to apply the required level of irrigation according to agricultural inputs to the specified location , by us
... Show MoreThe ability of beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) to uptake three pharmaceuticals (diclofenac, mefenamic acid and metronidazole) from two types of soil (clay and sandy soil) was investigated in this study to explore the human exposure to these pharmaceuticals via the consumption of beans. A pot experiment was conducted with beans plants which were grown in two types of soil for six weeks under controlled conditions. During the experiment period, the soil pore water was collected weekly and the concentrations of the test compounds in soil pore water as well as in plant organs (roots, stems and leaves) were weekly determined.
The results showed that the studied pharmaceuticals were detected in all plant tissues; their concentration
The present paper deals with experimental investigation of the performance of air cooled split air conditioner, with evaporative water mist pre cooling to increase the cooling capacity and reduce the consumption power under hot and dry climate. This investigation considers how the performance can be enhanced by using water mist to pre-cool ambient air entering the condensers by adiabatic cooling process which depends on the ambient air wet bulb temperature; as well the condensing temperature and condensing pressure will be decreased accordingly. So the cooling capacity would be increased and consumption power would be decreased, consequently the energy ratio, EER would be improved. The performance of air cooled air conditioner with water
... Show MoreEquilibrium Moisture sorption isotherms are very important in drying and storage analysis. Experimental moisture equilibrium data (adsorption and desorption) of Aspirin were determined using the static method of saturated salt solutions and that by exposing the material to different conditions of temperatures and water activities. Three different temperatures (25, 30, 40Cº) and water activities in the range of (6.3- 83.6%) were used. The results showed that the equilibrium moisture content increased with the increase in water activity at any temperature and decreased with temperature increase at constant water activity. The water activity increases with increasing in temperature when moisture content was kept constant. The sorption isot
... Show MoreThe presence of residual antibiotics in water results in the development of antibiotics resistant genes. The available wastewater treatment systems are not capable of removing such antibiotics from sewage. Thus, antibiotics need to be removed before the discharge of wastewater. Adsorption is among the promising techniques for the wastewater treatment to aid the removal of a wide range of organic and inorganic pollutants. The present work is a contribution to the search for an economical method for the removal of low concentrations of amoxicillin (AMX) from water by adsorption on water treatment residue, WTR, taken from a local drinking water facility. The chemical composition and the adsorptive characteristics of the material were first
... Show MoreEco-friendly concrete is produced using the waste of many industries. It reduces the fears concerning energy utilization, raw materials, and mass-produced cost of common concrete. Several stress-strain models documented in the literature can be utilized to estimate the ultimate strength of concrete components reinforced with fibers. Unfortunately, there is a lack of data on how non-metallic fibers, such as polypropylene (PP), affect the properties of concrete, especially eco-friendly concrete. This study presents a novel approach to modeling the stress-strain behavior of eco-friendly polypropylene fiber-reinforced concrete (PFRC) using meta-heuristic particle swarm optimization (PSO) employing 26 PFRC various mixtures. The cement was partia
... Show MoreThis study investigates the results of electrocoagulation (EC) using aluminum (Al) electrodes as anode and stainless steel (grade 316) as a cathode for removing silica, calcium, and magnesium ions from simulated cooling tower blowdown waters. The simulated water contains (50 mg/l silica, 508 mg/l calcium, and 292 mg/l magnesium). The influence of different experimental parameters, such as current density (0.5, 1, and 2 mA/cm2), initial pH(5,7, and 10), the temperature of the simulated solution(250C and 35 0C), and electrolysis time was studied. The highest removal efficiency of 80.183%, 99.21%, and 98.06% for calcium, silica, and magnesium ions, respectively, were obtained at a current de
... Show MoreAssessing water quality provides a scientific foundation for the development and management of water resources. The objective of the research is to evaluate the impact treated effluent from North Rustumiyia wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) on the quality of Diyala river. The model of the artificial neural network (ANN) and factor analysis (FA) based on Nemerow pollution index (NPI). To define important water quality parameters for North Al-Rustumiyia for the line(F2), the Nemerow Pollution Index was introduced. The most important parameters of assessment of water variation quality of wastewater were the parameter used in the model: biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen dem
In this research Artificial Neural Network (ANN) technique was applied to study the filtration process in water treatment. Eight models have been developed and tested using data from a pilot filtration plant, working under different process design criteria; influent turbidity, bed depth, grain size, filtration rate and running time (length of the filtration run), recording effluent turbidity and head losses. The ANN models were constructed for the prediction of different performance criteria in the filtration process: effluent turbidity, head losses and running time. The results indicate that it is quite possible to use artificial neural networks in predicting effluent turbidity, head losses and running time in the filtration process, wi
... Show MoreTrickle irrigation is a system for supplying filtered water and fertilizer directly into the soil and water and it is allowed to dissipate under low pressure in an exact predetermined pattern. An equation to estimate the wetted area of unsaturated soil with water uptake by roots is simulated numerically using the HYDRUS-2D/3D software. In this paper, two soil types, which were different in saturated hydraulic conductivity were used with two types of crops tomato and corn, different values of emitter discharge and initial volumetric soil moisture content were assumed. It was assumed that the water uptake by roots was presented as a continuous sink function and it was introduced into Richard's equation in the unsaturated z
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