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.
The choice of gate dielectric materials is fundamental for organic field effect transistors (OFET), integrated circuits, and several electronic applications. The operation of the OFET depends on two essential parameters: the insulation between the semiconductor layer and the gate electrode and the capacitance of the insulator. In this work, the electrical behavior of a pentacene-based OFET with a top contact / bottom gate was studied. Organic polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and inorganic hafnium oxide (HfO2) were chosen as gate dielectric materials to lower the operation voltage to achieve the next generation of electronic applications. In this study, the performance of the OFET was studied using monolayer and bilayer gate insulators.
... Show MoreThe choice of gate dielectric materials is fundamental for organic field effect transistors (OFET), integrated circuits, and several electronic applications. The operation of the OFET depends on two essential parameters: the insulation between the semiconductor layer and the gate electrode and the capacitance of the insulator. In this work, the electrical behavior of a pentacene-based OFET with a top contact / bottom gate was studied. Organic polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and inorganic hafnium oxide (HfO2) were chosen as gate dielectric materials to lower the operation voltage to achieve the next generation of electronic applications. In this study, the performance of the OFET was studied using monolayer and bilayer gate insulators. To mo
... Show MoreThis paper deals the prediction of the process of random spatial data of two properties, the first is called Primary variables and the second is called secondary variables , the method that were used in the prediction process for this type of data is technique Co-kriging , the method is usually used when the number of primary variables meant to predict for one of its elements is measured in a particular location a few (because of the cost or difficulty of obtaining them) compare with secondary variable which is the number of elements are available and highly correlated with primary variables, as was the&nbs
... Show MoreThe current study aimed to use some bacterial isolates from the local soil of Baghdad city by study the effects of temperature, pH and incubation period on the growth rates of isolated bacteria and choose the optimal conditions for their diversity and for understanding bacterial growth and their requirements for survival and proliferation. This information can be applied to obtain their high growth rate for use in various fields such as agriculture, medicine and environmental sciences in the future. And it used to assess the degree of variation in across bacteria species in pH, temperature and incubation period. A number of local bacterial isolates as
Crop coefficient for cherries was evaluated by measure the water consumption in Michigan State to find its variation with time as the plant growth. Crop coefficients value (Kc) for cherries were predicated by Michigan State University (MSU) and also by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) according to consume of water through the season. In this paper crop coefficients for cherries are modified accordingly to the actual measurements of soil moisture content. Actual evapotranspiration (consumptive use) were measured by the soil moisture readings using Time Domain Reflectometers (TDR), and compared with the actual potential evapotranspiration that calculated by using modified Penman-Monteith equation which depends on metrological statio
... Show MoreOrthogonal polynomials and their moments serve as pivotal elements across various fields. Discrete Krawtchouk polynomials (DKraPs) are considered a versatile family of orthogonal polynomials and are widely used in different fields such as probability theory, signal processing, digital communications, and image processing. Various recurrence algorithms have been proposed so far to address the challenge of numerical instability for large values of orders and signal sizes. The computation of DKraP coefficients was typically computed using sequential algorithms, which are computationally extensive for large order values and polynomial sizes. To this end, this paper introduces a computationally efficient solution that utilizes the parall
... Show MoreRelease of industrial effluents comprising dyes in water bodies is one of the foremost causes of water pollution. Therefore, the proper and proficient treatment of these dyes contaminated left-over material before their release is crucial. Herein, an eco-friendly biological macromolecule Gum-Acacia (GA) integrated Fe3O4 nanoparticles composite hydrogel was manufactured via co-precipitation technique for effective adsorption of Congo red (CR) dye existing in water bodies. The as-prepared magnetic GA/Fe3O4 composite hydrogel was characterized by FTIR, XRD, EDX, VSM, SEM, and BET techniques. These studies discovered the fruitful fabrication of biodegradable magnetic GA/Fe3O4 composite hydrogel possessing porous structure with large surface are
... Show MoreThis paper presents experimental investigations on buried Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP) pipes with a diameter of 1400 mm. The tested pipes were buried in dense, gravelly sand and subjected to traffic loads to study the effects of backfill cover on pipe deflection. The experimental program included tests on three GRP pipes with backfill covers of 100 cm, 75 cm, and 50 cm. The maximum traffic loads applied to the pipe–soil system corresponded to Iraqi Truck Type 3 (AASHTO H type). Vertical deflections of the pipes were monitored during the application of these loads. The experimental results showed that, as the backfill cover increased, the maximum vertical deflection of the pipe decreased. Deflection reductions were 38.0% and 33.3
... Show More