High tunnels, or unheated plastic greenhouses, are becoming increasingly popular among organic vegetable growers across the United States. However, the intensive production typical of these systems presents soil health challenges, including salinization due to high fertilizer or compost inputs coupled with lack of rainfall to leach salts. Legume cover crops may improve soil health in high tunnels by reducing the need for external inputs, while adding organic matter. We tested the soil health effects of a winter hairy vetch (Vicia villosa Roth) cover crop used to replace fertilizer N in an organic tomato cropping system in high tunnels. Studies were replicated across three sites differing in climate and soil type (Kansas, Kentucky, and Minnesota) over three years. We measured vetch cover crop effects on a suite of soil health indicators, including potentially mineralizable nitrogen (PMN), permanganate oxidizable carbon, and microbial biomass. Preliminary results suggest that vetch effects on PMN were highly variable. Soil mineral N, meanwhile, was often lower in the vetch treatment than in a fertilized control, both in spring and in fall. While further work on vetch effects on crop yields is needed, our results suggest that even legume cover crops such as vetch have the potential to reduce nitrate leaching.
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The study area is located in the East of Missan governorate, southeast of Iraq between (32°'29.52" – 32°37'30") latitude and (46°46'21.16" – 47°58'53.52")longitude. It encompasses an area of (1858 ) with elevation ranges from 8 to 165m. Soil is a natural body that exists as part of the pedosphere and which performs four important functions. It is a medium for plant growth and a means of water storage, supply and purification. The spatial mapping of soil usually involves delineating soil types that have identifiable characteristics. The delineation is based on many factors such as geomorphologic origin and conditions under which the soil is formed. Hydrologic soil group (HSG) refers to the classification of soils based on their ru
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Cyanobacteria are prokaryotic photosynthetic communities which are used in biofertilization of many plants especially rice plant. Cyanobacteria play a vital role to increase the plant's ability for salinity tolerance. Salinity is a worldwide problem which affects the growth and productivity of crops. In this work three cyanobacteria strains (Nostoc calcicola, Anabaena variabilis, and Nostoc linkia) were isolated from saline soil at Kafr El-Sheikh Governorate; North Egypt. The propagated cyanobacteria strains were used to withstand salinity of the soil and increase rice plant growth (Giza 178). The length of roots and shoot seedlings was measured for seven and forty days of cultivation, respectively. The results of this investigation showed
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The objective of the study was to predict crop coefficient (K) values for cucumber inside the greenhouse during the growing season 2014, using watermarks gypsum blocks and atmometer c apparatus during the growing stages and to compare the predicted values of the crop coefficient with different methods and approaches. The study was conducted in the greenhouses field within Al-Mahawil Township, 70 km south of Baghdad, Iraq. The watermarks soil water sensors and atmometer apparatus were used to measure crop evapotranspiration and reference evapotranspiration on daily basis, respectively. The comparison and the statistical analysis between the calculated K in this study and values obtained from greenhouse gave a good agreement. The root mean
... Show MoreIron–phthalocyanine (FePc) organic photoconductive detector was fabricated using pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique to work in ultraviolet (UV) and visible regions. The organic semiconductor material (iron phthalocyanine) was deposited on n-type silicon wafer (Si) substrates at different thicknesses (100, 200 and 300) nm. FePc organic photoconductive detector has been improved by two methods: the first is to manufacture the detector on PSi substrates, and the second is by coating the detector with polyamide–nylon polymer to enhance the photoconductivity of the FePc detector. The current–voltage (I–V) characteristics, responsivity, photocurrent gain, response time and the quantum efficiency of the fabricated photoconduc
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Abstract In this study, an investigation is conducted to realise the possibility of organic materials use in radio frequency (RF) electronics for RF-energy harvesting. Iraqi palm tree remnants mixed with nickel oxide nanoparticles hosted in polyethylene, INP substrates, is proposed for this study. Moreover, a metamaterial (MTM) antenna is printed on the created INP substrate of 0.8 mm thickness using silver nanoparticles conductive ink. The fabricated antenna performances are instigated numerically than validated experimentally in terms of S11 spectra and radiation patterns. It is found that the proposed antenna shows an ultra-wide band matching bandwidth to cover the frequencies from 2.4 to 10 GHz with bore-sight gain variation from 2.2 to
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A hybrid cadmium sulfide nanoparticles (CdSNPs) electroluminescence (EL) device was fabricated by Phase – Segregated Method and characterized. It was fabricated as layers of (ITO/poly-TPD:CdS ) and (ITO/poly-TPD:CdS /Alq3). Poly-TPD is an excellent Hole Transport Layer (HTL), CdSNPs is an emitting layer and Alq3 as electron transport layer (ETL). The EL of Organic-Inorganic Light Emitting Diode (OILED) was studied at room temperature at 26V. This was achieved according to band-to-band transition in CdSNPs. From the I-V curve behavior, the addition of Alq3 layer decreased the transfer of electrons by about 250 times. The I-V behavior for (poly-TPD/CdS) is exponential with a maximum current of 45
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A hybrid cadmium sulfide nanoparticles (CdSNPs) electroluminescence (EL) device was fabricated by Phase – Segregated Method and characterized. It was fabricated as layers of (ITO/poly-TPD:CdS ) and (ITO/poly-TPD:CdS /Alq3). Poly-TPD is an excellent Hole Transport Layer (HTL), CdSNPs is an emitting layer and Alq3 as electron transport layer (ETL). The EL of Organic-Inorganic Light Emitting Diode (OILED) was studied at room temperature at 26V. This was achieved according to band-to-band transition in CdSNPs. From the I-V curve behavior, the addition of Alq3 layer decreased the transfer of electrons by about 250 times. The I-V behavior for (poly-TPD/CdS) is exponential with a maximum current of 4500 µA. While, the current i
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