This study evaluated the effects of tillage system, rotational tillage sequences, and winter seed burial depth on weed seedling recruitment in irrigated cropping systems. Notill (NT) planting of vegetable crops reduced emergence of hairy nightshade by 77 to 99% and Powell amaranth emergence from 50 to 87% compared to conventional...
Energy consumption is one of the primary bottlenecks to both large and small scale modern compute platforms. Reducing the operating voltage of digital circuits to voltages where the supply voltage is near or below the threshold of the transistors has recently gained attention as a method to reduce the energy...
The crop rotation decision is important to farmers because of its
impact on profitability, financing and risk exposure. This thesis
addresses the problem of farm level crop rotation selection under perfect
and imperfect knowledge of prices, yields and costs. The problem
is addressed by first estimating production functions for irrigated...
Advancements in molecular biology and computer science have enabled researchers the ability to investigate the transcriptome – the quantification of an organism’s RNA transcripts in response to its environment on a system wide scale. The collective chapters of this thesis utilize high-throughput RNA sequencing, which produces hundreds of millions of...
Computer decision aids can help integrate and apply diverse sources of information and expertise to problems of integrated pest management (IPM) in agriculture and forestry. AppleMgr combines a rule-based expert system with databases and spreadsheets in a prototype decision aid intended to be expanded and modified for use by extension...
A procedure for model-assisted climate impact assessment is
developed. The approach combines data from observations and
atmospheric general circulation models (GCNs), and provides the basis
for a potentially valuable means of using information derived from
GCMs for climate impact assessments on local scales.
The first component of this procedure is...
Molecular tools, coupled with unique germplasm stocks and rigorous phenotyping, are
useful for developing a better understanding of qualitative and quantitative disease resistance
genes in plants. The identification of molecular markers linked to all types of resistance
genes provides opportunities for implementing a range of resistance breeding strategies,
ranging from...
Genetic resistance is the most appropriate way to control diseases in crop plants. Resistance can be described as qualitative (involving a gene-for-gene system) or quantitative (with continuous distribution of disease levels). The relationships between different types of resistance remain obscure, as does the genetics of quantitative traits. The use of...
Virus contamination in a potato breeding program can seriously
disrupt the variety development process. Experiments were conducted
from 1989 through 1993 to: evaluate the extent to which Potato
Leafroll Virus (PLRV) and Potato Virus Y (PVY) can invade a breeding
program, determine viral spread within hills and within individual
tubers,...