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.
Social responsibility has achieved tremendous attention by academicians and practitioners to focus on social responsibility accounting. However, many studies around the globe have been conduct to measure the outcomes of social responsibility accounting. This paper presents the impact of applying the supply chain strategy (SCS) on the agribusiness field to optimize productivity and decreasing cost which will have a direct impact on the net income of the organization. The inconclusive results of earlier studies stimulated this research to social responsibility accounting-financial performance. The equivocal results of this phenomenon urge this study to investigate the role of other factors in the relationship of social responsibility accounti
... Show MorePhytophagous stink bugs (Hemiptera, Pentatomidae) are economically important insect pests of fruit, vegetable, nut and field crops. This study was carried out during the season of 2013 in orchards within Erbil city, to follow the stink bug Mustha spinulosa (Lefebvre, 1831) seasonal fluctuation on some fruit trees: olive, plum, apricot, pear, apple and almond.
The stink bug reaches its maximum abundance throughout the second week of August (38.2/tree) coinciding with mean temperature and relative humidity of 33.40C and 28.14% respectively, and the highest total mean of the number of the insect was recorded on the olive trees (181.8/tree). The study reveals that the stink bug attacked 22 trees (fruit and forest) while it has not atta
Geodiversity is the variety within abiotic natural elements that include: rocks, minerals, landforms, soil types, and water resources. Recently ecologists and naturalists recognized that there is close relationship between geodiversity and ecosystems. Huwaiza marsh is located south eastern Iraq within Lower Mesopotamian plain. The main rock bed units which crop out north east of the studied area comprises many types of rocks: conglomerate, sandstone, mudstone, siltstone and claystone belong to Bai Hassan, Mukdadiya and Injana Formations. The general elevation of the area ranges around 5 meters (a. s. l.) near the marsh and increase northeast to more than 100 meters (a. s. l.) and the Land forms are: cuesta, oxbow lakes
... Show MoreBackground: Asthma is a common chronic disease in children in which the body’s airways swell, preventing the lungs from filling with air, there are many different inflammatory cells involved in asthma which can synthesize and release cytokines which are recognized to be important in chronic inflammation and play a critical role in the inflammatory response. Objectives: to assess the local effect of ICS on oral tissue by measuring Interlukine-12 level and Candida albicans colony in saliva among12 year's old asthmatic children who were collected from AL- Zahra Center Advisory for Allergy and Asthma, and compares them with non-asthmatic children of the same age and gender.Type of the study: Cross –sectional study.Methods: The total samp
... Show MoreIn cooling water systems, cooling towers play a critical role in removing heat from the water. Cooling water systems are commonly used in industry to dispose the waste heat. An upward spray cooling water systems was especially designed and investigated in this work. The effect of two nanofluids (Al2O3/ water, black carbon /water) on velocity and temperature distributions along reverse spray cooling tower at various concentrations (0.02, 0.08, 0.1, 0.15, and 0.2 wt.%) were investigated, beside the effect of the inlet water temperature (35 ,40, and 45 ͦ C) and water to air flow ratio (L/G) of 0.5, 0.75, and 1. The best thermal performance was found when the working solution contained 0.1 wt.% for each of Al2
... Show MoreThe Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) on EOS/Aqua satellite provides diverse measurements of Methane (CH4) distribution at different pressure levels in the Earth's atmosphere. The focus of this research is to analyze the vertical variations of (CH4) volume mixing ratio (VMR) time-series data at four Standard pressure levels SPL (925, 850, 600, and 300 hPa) in the troposphere above six cities in Iraq from January 2003 to September 2016. The analysis results of monthly average CH4VMR time-series data show a significant increase between 2003 and 2016, especially from 2009 to 2016; the minimum values of CH4 were in 2003 while the maximum values were in 2016. The vertical distribution of CH4<
... Show MoreThe purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of six thinking hats on creative thinking among 10th grade female students in Tulkarm district. The sample comprises two sections of 10th grade female students (n=80) in Adawiya secondary School, The two sections were divided into two groups; one as an experimental group which works with six thinking hats, and the second as control group that learns traditionally. Creative thinking exam was used to measure the creative thinking with reliability (0.88).
The results of the study have shown the following:
There were statistically significant differences at (α ≤ 0.05) in the creative thinking among 10th grade female student
... Show MoreIncremental sheet metal forming is a modern technique of sheet metal forming in which a uniform sheet is locally deformed during the progressive action of a forming tool. The tool movement is governed by a CNC milling machine. The tool locally deforms by this way the sheet with pure deformation stretching. In SPIF process, the research is concentrate on the development of predict models for estimate the product quality. Using simulated annealing algorithm (SAA), Surface quality in SPIF has been modeled. In the development of this predictive model, spindle speed, feed rate and step depth have been considered as model parameters. Maximum peak height (Rz) and Arithmetic mean surface roughness (Ra) are used as response parameter to assess th
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